A PKK soldier stands in front of a crowd gathered in the Qandil mountains. Credit: Karlos Zurutuza/IPS

By Mohammed A. Salih
ERBIL, Dec 4 2014 (IPS)

After a period of frostiness, Iraq’s Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and Turkey seem intent on mending ties, as each of the parties show signs of needing the other.

But the Kurds appear more cautious this time around, apparently leery of moving too close to Ankara lest they alienate the new Iraqi government in Baghdad with which they signed a breakthrough oil deal Tuesday.It’s clear that despite the recent slide in relations, both sides need each other. As a land-locked territory, Kurds will be looking for an alternative that they can use to counter pressure from the central Iraqi government.

The agreement, which will give Baghdad greater control over oil produced in Kurdistan and Kurdish-occupied Kirkuk in exchange for the KRG’s receipt of a bigger share of the central government’s budget, may signal an effort to reduce Erbil’s heavy reliance on Turkey.

The warmth between Iraqi Kurds and Turkey was a rather strange affair to begin with. It emerged unexpectedly and evolved dramatically, particularly after the 2003 U.S. invasion.

Whereas Turkey is a major player in the Middle East and Eurasia regions, Iraqi Kurdistan is not even an independent state. The imbalance of power between the two parties made their development of a “strategic” relationship particularly remarkable.

And given the deep historical animosity in Ankara toward all things Kurdish, the change of heart on its leaders’ part seemed almost miraculous, even if highly lucrative to Turkish construction companies in particular.

But those ties suffered a major blow in August when the forces of Islamic State (IS) swept into Kurdish-held territories in Iraq.

With the IS threatening Kurdistan’s capital city, Erbil, Turkey did little to assist the Kurds. Many in Kurdistan were baffled; the overwhelming sense here was that Turkey had abandoned Iraqi Kurds in the middle of a life-or-death crisis. KRG President Masoud Barzani, Ankara’s closest ally, even felt moved to publicly thank Iran, Turkey’s regional rival, for rushing arms and other supplies to the Peshmerga in their hour of need.

In an attempt to simultaneously develop an understanding and save face, some senior KRG officials defended Ankara, insisting that its hands were tied by the fact that more than 40 staff members in its consulate in the Iraqi city of Mosul, including the consul himself, had been taken hostage by the IS. Other officials were more critical, slamming Ankara for not having acted decisively in KRG’s support.

And the fact that Turkey was experiencing elections where the ambitious then-Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan was running for the newly enhanced office of president was also invoked as a reason for his reluctance to enter into war with such a ruthless foe.

It also appeared to observers here that Erdogan did not want to do anything that could strengthen his arch-enemy, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, even if that meant effectively siding with the Sunni jihadists.

But last month’s visit to Iraq by Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu appears to have helped repair the relationship with the Kurds in the north. Davutoglu turned on his personal charm to reassure his hosts, even visiting a mountainous area where Turkish special forces are now training members of Peshmerga and a Turkish-built refugee camp for Iraqis displaced by the war.

The question of how long it takes for the relationship to bounce back to the point where it was six months ago is anyone’s guess.

But it’s clear that despite the recent slide in relations, both sides need each other. As a land-locked territory, Kurds will be looking for an alternative that they can use to counter pressure from the central Iraqi government.

Focused on laying the foundation for a high degree of economic and political autonomy – if not independence — from Baghdad, the Kurds’ strategic ambition is to be able to control and ideally sell their oil and gas to international clients. And geography dictates that the most obvious and economically efficient route runs through Turkey, with or without Baghdad’s blessing.

As for Ankara, Iraqi Kurdistan is now its only friend in an otherwise hostile region. Once upon a time, not long ago, politicians in Ankara boasted of the success of their “zero-problems-with-neighbours” policy that had reshuffled regional politics and turned some of Turkey’s long-standing foes in the region, including Syria, into friends. But that era is now gone.

Ankara has come to see Iraqi Kurdistan as a potential major supplier of its own energy needs and has generally sided with the KRG in its disputes with Baghdad.

At the same time, however, Kurdish leaders have been criticised here for putting most of their eggs in Ankara’s basket.

The last time Kurds invested so much of their trust in a neighbouring country was during in the 1960s and 1970s when the Shah of Iran supported their insurgency as a means of exerting pressure on Baghdad. When the Shah abruptly abandoned Kurds in return for territorial concessions by the government of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein in the Shatt al-Arab River separating southern Iran from Iraq in 1975, the results were catastrophic.

Turkey’s indifference and passivity in August when all of Iraqi Kurdistan came under existential threat by IS jihadists reminded many here of the consequences of placing too much trust in their neighbours. The hoary proverb that “Kurds have no friends but the mountains” suddenly regained its currency.

IS’s siege of the Syrian Kurdish town of Kobani – just one kilometre from the Turkish frontier – compounded that distrust, not only for Iraqi Kurds, but for Kurds throughout the region, including in Turkey itself.

Turkey’s refusal to assist Kurdish fighters against IS’s brutal onslaught has made it harder for the KRG to initiate a reconciliation.

Although Ankara has now changed its position – under heavy U.S. pressure — and is now permitting the Peshmerga to provide limited assistance and re-inforcements for Kobani’s defenders, the process of mending fences is still moving rather slowly.

While that process has now begun, it remains unclear how far both sides will go. Will it be again a case of Ankara and Erbil jointly versus Baghdad, or will Erbil play the game differently this time, aiming for greater balance between the two capitals.

Indeed, the much-lauded oil deal struck Tuesday between the Baghdad and the KRG may indicate a preference for the latter strategy, particularly in light of their mutual interest in both confronting IS and compensating for losses in revenue resulting from the steep plunge in oil prices.

Still, given the history of deals sealed and then broken that have long characterised relations between the Kurds and Baghdad, nothing can be taken for granted.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

The Kurdish flag is flying high in the wind from the rooftop of an old brick house inside Kirkuk’s millennia-old citadel, as Rashid – a stern-looking man sitting behind a machine gun – monitors the surroundings.

Rashid commands a small unit of a dozen fighters, members of the Kurdish armed forces – known as the Peshmerga – deployed to the oil-rich province since June 13.

On June 12, the Iraqi army evacuated its positions in Kirkuk province after its troops had earlier conceded control of the country’s second largest city, Mosul, in the face of advancing Sunni militant groups led by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS).

“Since we have been deployed here things have changed,” says Rashid, a Peshmerga for 25 years, with a sense of pride. “It’s safer now and people can go out and do their daily business.”By appearing to favour Shia armed elements, Kurds might risk alienating the local Sunni Arabs and potentially push them toward cooperation with ISIS and other militant Sunni factions.

However, although the deployment of thousands of Peshmerga troops has in fact brought relative calm to the city so far, trouble appears to be brewing.

Rich in natural resources such as oil and home to a mixed population of Kurds, Arabs, Turkmen and Christians, Kirkuk is no stranger to conflict. It has been at the heart of decades of armed and political struggles between the Kurds and successive Iraqi governments.

Since the Kurdish takeover there, armed Shia groups have been flexing their muscles, a move that has infuriated the considerable Sunni Arab population in the province and could be a potentially destabilising factor, while insurgent activity by Sunni militants continues in some parts of the province and has left tens of casualties behind so far.

The local office of the influential Shia cleric Muqtada Sadr organised a military parade on June 21 in which hundreds of armed Shia men walked through the streets in downtown Kirkuk.

“The parade was meant to send a couple of messages. One was a message of reassurance to all Iraqis that there are soldiers to defend all segments of the people,” says Sheikh Raad al-Sakhri, the local representative of Sadr, sitting on the floor of his well-protected Khazal al-Tamimi mosque. “And the other was a message to terrorists that there is another army ready to fight for the sake of the country if the [official] military [forces] fall short of their duties.”

Al-Sakhri might claim his men will protect everyone, but the Sunni Arabs here are not convinced.

At the peak of Iraq’s sectarian strife in 2006 and 2007, Sadr’s Mahdi Army was seen as responsible for summary execution of thousands of Sunnis in the capital Baghdad and other areas.

“A question for the local government [in Kirkuk] is will it allow Sunni Arabs to carry out a similar (military) parade,” says Massoud Zangana, a former human rights activist turned businessman, who alleges he has been threatened with death by Shia armed groups.  “The number of Sunni Arabs is more than the Shia in this city.”

Zangana owns a television channel called Taghyir – Arabic for ‘Change’ – that broadcasts from Amman, Jordan, which some Iraqis refer to as the “Revolution Channel” for its steady coverage of Sunni protests two years ago and of the current fight between Sunni militants and the Iraqi army.

Local media are also buzzing with reports that the central government in Baghdad has delivered a couple of arms’ shipments via the city’s airport to Shia militiamen here.

Officials in Kirkuk or Baghdad have not confirmed those reports.

“Giving weapons to official security forces is okay but providing arms to one side to fight the others is wrong,” says Mohammed Khalil Joburi, a Sunni Arab member of the Kirkuk Provincial Council, wishing that the news of arm deliveries is not true.

The local government in Kirkuk is run by the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), a major Kurdish party that has close relationship with Iran. Many in the local media speculate that the PUK-controlled administration in Kirkuk had possibly agreed to the military display by Shia groups under pressure from Iraq’s powerful eastern neighbour, Iran.

Despite the appearance of relative calm, tensions are high in Kirkuk and security forces are visible throughout the city.

By appearing to favour Shia armed elements, Kurds might risk alienating the local Sunni Arabs and potentially push them toward cooperation with ISIS and other militant Sunni factions.

In Bashir, a village in southern Kirkuk populated by Shia Turkmen, local Shia militias and Kurdish Peshmerga forces have clashed with ISIS and other Sunni militant groups.

In the western part of the province around Hawija district, the Kurdish Peshmerga have repeatedly fought against ISIS and its local allies.

Kirkuk has not been spared suicide attacks, a trademark of ISIS and jihadist groups.

On June 25, a suicide attack killed at least five people and injured around two dozen others.

The challenge before Kurds who effectively rule most parts of the province is to prevent a spillover of violence and sectarian divisions in other parts of the country into Kirkuk.

Kurds view Kirkuk as part of their homeland, Kurdistan, and hope they can maintain their current military and political dominance in the city.

In the latest Iraqi parliamentary elections in April, Kurds won eight out of the 12 parliamentary seats allocated to the province.

Kirkuk’s vast oil fields have the capacity to produce around half a million barrels of oil per day and Kurds consider Kirkuk central to their aspirations to build an independent state.

Massoud Barzani, President of the Kurdistan Region, recently said that he will deploy as many forces as needed to maintain Kurdish control of the contested province. 

On June 30, Barzani asked the head of United Nations Mission to Iraq to organise a referendum in which Kirkuk’s residents can decide whether they want to be part of the Kurdistan Region.

The official territory of the Kurdistan Region includes Erbil, Sulaimaniya and Dohuk provinces.

But after the Iraqi military’s recent defeat at the hand of ISIS-led Sunni militant groups, Kurds have expanded their control over large parts of the neighbouring Kirkuk, Nineveh, Diyala and Salahaddin provinces.

Now in charge of Kirkuk, the challenge for Kurds is walking a fine line between Shia and Sunni, Arab and Turkmen populations to maintain order in the medium and long term.

In a deeply-divided city facing the threat of jihadists close by, Kirkuk’s Shia and Sunni leaders who spoke to IPS appeared to have no objection to Peshmerga’s control of Kirkuk, at least in the short term.

In the heart of the city’s historic citadel, Rashid and his young men are well aware of the difficult task lying ahead. “We are here to protect all groups … We don’t wish to fight but this area is surrounded by ISIS and all sorts of other groups,” says Rashid.

“We don’t know what their goal is, but we are on alert here.”

Despite an atmosphere of deep mutual distrust, two major rival Syrian Kurdish bodies have agreed to attend an expected international conference on the fate of Syria, known as Geneva II, on the side of the Syrian opposition forces, Syrian Kurdish sources told IPS.

That is contingent on the possibility that only two sides will be allowed to sit at the negotiating table: the government of President Bashar al-Assad and the opposition groups.

Although the decision represents a significant change of direction on the part of the deeply-divided Syrian Kurds, there are serious doubts as to whether the agreement between the Western Kurdistan People’s Council (WKPC) and the Kurdish National Council (KNC) will actually be implemented.

While the WKPC is perceived to have some sort of understanding with Assad’s regime, the KNC is close to the rest of the Syrian opposition groups.

The Geneva II conference, scheduled to be held on Jan. 22, is backed by the western powers, Russia, the United Nations and the Arab League.

The international community hopes that the conference will pave the way for an interim government and end the bloody conflict in Syria that has claimed over 100,000 lives so far, according to U.N. figures.

There is no concrete agreement yet on whether Syrians will take part in the conference in the form of two or more negotiating groups.

But if there will be more than two Syrian sides at the Geneva II conference, then Kurds will seek to participate as a separate independent bloc, IPS has learned from Syrian Kurdish sources.

“Geneva II is an important station where the future of Syria will be determined,” Abdulsalam Ahmed, the co-chairperson of the WKPC, told IPS.

He was in Erbil for eight days of intense talks with KNC representatives over participation in the Geneva conference and a possible power-sharing deal between the two Kurdish bodies to administer the Kurdish territories of Syria.

The WKPC is close to the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD), whose military wing, known as the People’s Defence Units (YPG), controls much of the Kurdish areas in the northern and northeastern parts of Syria.

“As Kurds we are an important actor on the ground and need to be represented,” added Ahmed, who warned that the Syrian crisis cannot be resolved until the Kurdish question is addressed.

For Kurds, the Geneva II conference bears more significance than merely an attempt to end Syria’s civil war, which they have largely managed to avoid getting involved in.

It has resurrected memories of rather similar international gatherings in France’s Sevres and Switzerland’s Lausanne at the turn of the last century that brought about disastrous results for Kurds and subjugated them to the harsh rule of governments in Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey.

“Geneva II, as an international gathering, is a new Sevres [Treaty in 1920 in France] and Sykes-Picot [treaty], and we cannot afford to be absent from that meeting,” said Nuri Brimo, a leading official of the KNC, much of whose senior leadership is based outside Syria, mostly in Iraqi Kurdistan.

Sykes-Picot was a treaty between Britain and France to draw the map of the new Middle East after the Ottoman Empire’s collapse.

“Syria will either survive as a united country or be further fragmented after the conference… In any case, we will have to be present there,” added Brimo.

“Our message to the international community is that we as the second-largest ethnicity in Syria want our rights to be recognised… We don’t want Syria to be fragmented. We need to be a major player in the Syrian equation and the country’s future.”

Syria’s Kurdish politics

The Kurdish political scene in Syria is deeply fragmented and highly complex. The WKPC and KNC each represent a number of often loosely-allied groups. The two bodies have been at odds with each other since the start of the Syrian uprising nearly three years ago and often trade harsh accusations over the other side’s loyalties and agenda.

The KNC charges that the WKPC and its major component, PYD, have struck a deal with Assad’s government and as such have betrayed the opposition’s cause of toppling Assad.

Until the March 2011 uprising, the Assad regime denied Syrian Kurds basic cultural and ethnic rights, and tens of thousands of them were even denied citizenship.

The root of suspicions toward the PYD lies in the manner of its military takeover of the Kurdish areas of Syria in the summer of 2012.

While the PYD and its supporters claim they “liberated” those areas following military confrontations with the Syrian army and security forces, the KNC and Syrian opposition groups say Assad handed over control of those areas to the PYD in order to use his troops to fight rebel groups in other parts of the country.

They argue that as Turkey’s support for Syrian rebel groups, including Islamists, increased, Assad conceded de facto control of much of the Syrian Kurdish regions to the PYD in an effort to counterbalance Turkish intervention in Syrian affairs.

The PYD is widely seen as close to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, that has been fighting the Turkish government for Kurdish rights for around three decades.

PYD and WKPC supporters, on the other hand, are quick to point out that the KNC is close to the Sunni-Arab dominated Syrian opposition groups, Turkey, and Iraqi Kurdistan’s President Masoud Barzani.

The non-Kurdish Syrian opposition groups are largely loath to state their position vis-à-vis Kurdish rights in the future Syria.

The PYD also accuses the KNC of advancing the agendas of Barzani and Turkey and not the genuine interests of Syrian Kurds.

This state of deep divisions and mistrust that has overshadowed the intra-Syrian Kurdish relations has led many Syrian Kurds not to place much hope on any deal between the WKPC and the KNC.

In the past, small skirmishes have taken place between PYD forces and supporters of parties within the KNC ranks, resulting in some casualties.

“The situation [after the recent Erbil talks] is going to be like before. The conflict between them [i.e. PYD and KNC] continues,” said Siruan H. Hussein, a Syrian Kurdish journalist and director of ARTA FM, a community radio station based in the predominantly Kurdish town of Amuda in Syria.

“The PYD is not going to share military power and financial resources and… control of the self-rule administration with the KNC.”

The PYD recently declared the establishment of an autonomous administration to manage the areas under its control.

Despite the rising fortunes of al-Qaeda-allied Islamist forces in Syria, the PYD has successfully battled those groups and wrestled control of chunks of territory from them.
As many parts of Syria have experienced heavy devastation as a result of the conflict there, PYD-controlled areas have been spared much of the destruction.

While the question of who will become Iraq’s future prime minister is still uncertain, when it comes to the presidency, incumbent Jalal Talabani stands the best chance of retaining the office.

Although in last month’s parliamentary elections, Kurds did not do as well as they did five years ago, mainly due to strong Sunni participation, Talabani has been quick to sit down with all major blocs to garner support for his presidency.

Talabani’s rival, the current Sunni Arab Vice-President Tariq al-Hashemi, doesn’t appear to have the same broad-based support among the country’s different factions. When Hashemi insisted that after five years of a Kurd occupying the presidency, it was time for an Arab to replace him, he sparked strong reactions even among his own allies in the secular al-Iraqiya coalition. Kurds were quick to condemn his remarks as “chauvinist”.

“Given the position of (Ayad) Allawi and the State of Law (SOL) coalition, both sides need the Kurds and so both sides are cognizant that there would be certain requirements,” Kathleen Ridolfo, an independent Iraq and Arab affairs analyst, told IPS.

The Al-Iraqiya bloc of Allawi, a former secular prime minister, came in first in last month’s parliamentary elections with 91 seats. His main rival, current Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s SOL coalition, came a close second with 89 seats.

“In any talks joining either Maliki or Allawi, the issue of Talabani staying in the presidency will be a major Kurdish condition,” Ridolfo added.

For many, Talabani’s ascendance five years ago would have been unthinkable just a decade before. As the first Kurdish head of the Iraqi state, Talabani’s presidency for Kurds was the zenith of nearly a century of struggle for their rights. However, his serious health problems in recent years have cast doubt on whether he can successfully serve another four-year term.

Still, Talabani has survived the turbulent waters of Iraq’s politics in a way that perhaps no other politician has. At the age of 77, he seems as ambitious as the young, idealistic revolutionary he was nearly half a century ago. Even at a time when his party, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), has greatly diminished in numbers, Mam (Uncle) Jalal – as Kurds call him – seems to have reinvented himself as a political necessity.

“There will be a problem if the presidency won’t go to Talabani for a second term,” Khalid al-Assadi, an elected member of parliament from PM Maliki’s SOL, told the Arab-language al-Sharq al-Awsat newspaper in late March. “And we don’t see a fundamental impediment to that.”

If a Shia from SOL or the Iraqi National Alliance (INA) becomes prime minister, the Shias will most likely back Talabani as president since they need Kurdish support to form the government. And if the Sunni-dominated al- Iraqiya bloc gets to form the future government, the presidency will still likely go to Talabani because Allawi also needs Kurdish support.

However, if there is a national unity government where all the major blocs – al-Iraqiya, SOL, INA and the Kurds – participate, the fate of Talabani’s presidency will be uncertain. Given that al-Iraqiya and SOL are the two largest coalitions, they might divide the top posts of prime minister and president among themselves.

In any case, experts believe the three major posts of president, prime minister and parliamentary speaker will be most likely decided on as a package by political groups.

While at the national level, Talabani appears to be doing fine, in the domestic Kurdish scene he is probably at the lowest point of his popularity. After a number of PUK’s senior leaders split from the party and created the Gorran (Change) Movement, Talabani’s party lost a great deal of its power base in the northern Kurdistan region.

In an ironic twist of fate, despite years of effort by Talabani to escape the shadow of his rival Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) – led by Mullah Mustafa Barzani and currently his son Massoud Barzani – his political fortunes today depend almost entirely on Massoud Barzani’s support.

However, Talabani’s leadership qualities have commanded a certain degree of respect among Iraq’s various political forces and the wider region. With the fragmentation of the country’s politics during the recent sectarian Shia-Sunni conflict, Talabani was a major uniting force in Baghdad.

He is close to some key regional powers like Iran and Turkey and has generally good relations with the Arab states in the region. While quite close to Iran, he also enjoys good relations with the U.S.

Despite Kurds’ strong sense of identity and general uneasiness working within the Iraqi national system, Talabani is believed to have balanced his Kurdish and Iraqi allegiances successfully.

“He is a conciliatory person, easy to work with and was not really a Kurd as much as an Iraqi leader. If you look at the record, except for Article 140, Talabani has not profiled himself as a Kurdish leader,” said Joost Hiltermann, an Iraq expert at the International Crisis Group.

Article 140 is a provision in Iraq’s Constitution that mainly addresses Kurds’ territorial grievances. “So in terms of his record, he must be quite acceptable to the majority of the members of parliament,” Hiltermann said.

Talabani has had a long and often dramatic career as a politician. He joined Kurdish politics at an early age while studying law at Baghdad University. He quickly ascended the ladder and became a favourite of Kurdish leader Mullah Mustafa Barzani in 1960s. In 1966, he fell out of favour with Barzani and a decade later founded his PUK in Damascus, Syria.

Talabani’s rivalry with the Barzani family became a defining feature of his political life. His disagreements with Mullah Mustafa’s son, Massoud Barzani, grew so deep that in 1994 that the two sides engaged in a bloody civil war in Iraqi Kurdistan, leaving thousands dead.

Four years later, the two leaders signed a peace deal in Washington. After the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, Talabani went on to be the Kurds’ main representative in Baghdad and, following the parliamentary elections of January 2005, was unanimously elected by the parliament as Iraq’s president.

By Charles Fromm and Mohammed A. Salih
WASHINGTON, Mar 11 2010 (IPS)

The United States should accept an “Islamist authority” in Somalia as part of a “constructive disengagement” strategy for the war-torn country, according to a new report released here by the influential Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) on Wednesday.

The 39-page report urges the U.S. to recognise that “Islamist authority” even if it includes al-Shabaab, or “the youth” in Arabic, an Islamist insurgent group that has declared loyalty to al Qaeda.

It calls the current U.S. approach toward Somalia of propping up the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) “counterproductive”. Not only is it alienating large sections of the Somali population, but it is effectively polarising its diverse Muslim community into so-called “moderate” and “extremist” camps, the report says.

While the report encourages an “inclusive posture” by the U.S. toward local fundamentalists, it suggests the U.S. should show “zero-tolerance’ toward transnational actors attempting to exploit Somalia’s conflict”, apparently referring to al Qaeda.

“The Shabaab is an alliance of convenience and its hold over territory is weaker than it appears. Somali fundamentalists – whose ambitions are mostly local – are likely to break ranks with al-Qaeda and other foreign operatives as the utility of cooperation diminishes,” says the report, authored by Bronwyn Bruton, a CFR international affairs fellow. “The United States and its allies must encourage these fissures to expand.”

However, David Shinn, a former U.S. ambassador to neighbouring Ethiopia in the 1990s, disagrees that the al-Shabaab leadership will be ready to join any future political arrangement in the country.

“I think al-Shabaab has become more radicalised and I don’t see any pragmatic leaders in al-Shabaab today. Many in the rank and file maybe pragmatic, the gun-carriers, but they are not the leaders,” said Shinn, who also served as U.S. ambassador to Burkina Faso in the late 1980s.

“I don’t see cracks in the leadership and I don’t see pragmatics in the leadership. A lot of the report is predicated on the idea that it is possible to negotiate with al-Shabaab and I think that’s wishful thinking,” he said.

The report also warns against continued support for the U.N.-backed TFG since it has proven “ineffective and costly”.

“The TFG is unable to improve security, deliver basic services, or move toward an agreement with Somalia’s clans and opposition groups that would provide a stronger basis for governance,” the report says.

The TFG was established in 2004 through U.N. mediation in Kenya in an effort to end the ongoing crisis in Somalia. The TFG moved to Somalia in 2005 but has been unable to make “any progress on state building tasks” due to internal divisions, the Brussels-based International Crisis Group (ICG) said.

It was hoped that the installation of Sharif Ahmed, the former head of the Union of Islamic Courts, as president in January 2009 would attract a sufficient number of Islamist leaders to subdue or at least fragment al-Shabaab’s forces. But Shinn says the TFG has become “marginally stronger” in recent months.

“She [Bruton] seems to begin with the assumption that the TFG is doomed to fail. I am not convinced that it will fail,” said Shinn, who was a member of the Advisory Committee to the report. “The fact the TFG under President Ahmed has now existed for more than a year has already surprised many so-called Somali experts. It’s just wrong to make the assumption that it’s going to fail.”

Entitled “Somalia , A New Approach”, the report comes at a critical moment in the evolution of U.S. policy toward Somalia . Earlier this week, the New York Times reported that U.S. Special Operations Forces (SOF) are helping the Somali government, which has about 7,000 troops in the capital, plan an impending TFG military offensive aimed at dislodging al-Shabaab fighters from Mogadishu.

The report details two decades of strife in the Horn of Africa nation, the establishment of the TFG, and its ongoing ensuing power struggle with the al-Shabaab’s movement and its allies.

Bruton contends that the U.S. policy of providing indirect diplomatic and military support to the weak TFG has only “served to isolate the government, and…to propel cooperation among previously fractured and quarrelsome extremist groups.”

The report calls on the United States to make a final attempt to help the Somali government build public support by drawing in leaders of the other Islamist groups. But it urges the administration of President Barack Obama to consider major policy changes should the TFG fail or continue to be marginalised to the point of powerlessness.

The TGF, which is backed by some 5,000 African Union (AU) troops in a U.N.-authorised peacekeeping mission, controls only several blocks of Somalia’s sprawling capital of Mogadishu and the Aden Adde International Airport, while al-Shabaab controls vast swaths of land to the south, and parts of the capital as well.

Historically, Washington’s interest in the volatile East African nation has been limited to security issues, and most recently to denying sanctuary to al Qaeda or its affiliates on Somali territory. In recent years, the U.S. has carried out a number of attacks on targets in Somalia believed to be linked to al Qaeda.

However, some analysts believe that the U.S. help could easily lead to strengthening the insurgent movement in an already complicated set of circumstances.

“The administration has decided to move aggressively to support the TFG and is providing training, intelligence, military advice, and hardware to the TFG army in anticipation of a major TFG offensive against al-Shabaab,” said David R. Smock, vice president of the United States Institute of Peace’s Centre for Mediation and Conflict Resolution.

“This is a major American gamble which could backfire. The offensive could easily fail, which might lead the U.S. to get even more heavily engaged. We have been burned badly in Somalia before, and we could be burned again,” he added.

In late 1992, the administration of former President George H. W. Bush sent troops to Somalia as part of a U.N.-authorised operation to protect the delivery of humanitarian and food relief to starving communities there. But, in an aborted “nation-building” enterprise, U.S. military forces became increasingly engaged in the ongoing warfare between and among clans that followed the ouster in 1991 of the Siad Barre regime.

Then-President Bill Clinton began withdrawing U.S. troops after 18 SOF soldiers were killed during a botched helicopter raid against one clan leader in Mogadishu in October 1993 and completed the withdrawal early in 1994.

The CFR report also recommends a decentralised development strategy in collaboration with “the informal and traditional authorities” on the ground. It calls for restraining Ethiopia, which has been involved in Somalia’s conflicts for years.

Bruton suggests that the U.S. should not “own the Somali crisis” and needs to launch a diplomatic campaign to involve European and Middle Eastern countries to support Somalia’s stabilisation and address its humanitarian and developments needs.

A U.N. report on Wednesday alleged that up to half of the food aid delivered by the World Food Programme (WFP) to Somalia is being diverted to corrupt contractors, local U.N. workers and Islamist militants in the country. The WFP has rejected the allegations, calling them “unsubstantiated”.

Excerpt:

In the run-up to Iraq’s parliamentary elections next week, the once-united Kurds are not only suffering deep fissures but are expected to lose their privileged kingmaker position after the polls.

This lack of unity coupled with the rise of several strong coalitions in the rest of the country may lead to the decline of Kurdish power and influence in Iraqi politics, experts say.

For the last seven years, Kurds maintained a united bloc in Baghdad, leading to an unprecedented ascendency of Kurdish power. As a result, for the first time since the establishment of the modern Iraqi state in the 1920s, Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, became Iraq’s president. Iraqi constitution granted Kurds extensive rights, especially in the area of self-rule.

But unlike the two previous elections in post-war Iraq, after the upcoming polls, Kurds may no longer enjoy an influence on par with the past years.

“…I don’t think Kurds are very well positioned coming into this election,” said Kathleen Ridolfo, an independent Arab affairs’ analyst, during an Iraq event at the American Enterprise Institute on Monday.

“(Their influence in Baghdad) depends on how well they can play their cards and who will they align with. Kurds are definitely in a difficult position,” she said.

The internal Kurdish divisions crystallised last July when various opposition groups emerged victorious from Iraqi Kurdistan’s regional parliamentary elections, securing nearly 30 percent of the seats. The main reason behind the opposition’s birth was growing discontent with the two major Kurdish parties, the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK).

The PUK is led by Talabani, and Masoud Barzani, the current president of the Kurdistan region, heads the KDP. The two parties run the Kurdish government which is in charge of the three northern provinces of Irbil, Sulaimaniya and Dohuk in northern Iraq.

The major opposition group is Gorran, or Change, a secular group whose founders were mostly senior officials who defected from Talabani’s PUK. Gorran succeeded in gaining large popularity in local Kurdish elections through an anti-corruption platform that appealed to many people. The other main opposition party is the Kurdistan Islamic Union (KIU), a moderate Islamist organisation.

The atmosphere is reportedly tense in Iraqi Kurdistan these days, with various groups accusing each other of campaign violations and “undemocratic acts”. Gorran has severely criticised the two ruling parties, in particular the PUK, and charged they are intimidating and assaulting supporters.

Many Kurds fear such small incidents may lead to some serious violence. Kurdistan underwent a bloody civil war from 1994 to 1998 that left thousands dead.

Although the KDP and PUK are officially allies on the same list, a fierce competition is also taking place between them under the surface. Alongside several small parties, the KDP and PUK have formed the Kurdistan Alliance list for these elections, but each party campaigns mostly for its own candidates.

Because the PUK lost its stronghold of Sulaimaniya to Gorran during the local Kurdish elections last summer, it is vital for PUK to gain enough seats so that it can present itself as an equal partner to KDP once again. After the local Kurdish vote in summer, KDP emerged as the most powerful Kurdish party. Any major loss in these elections for PUK will seriously hurt its position in Kurdish and Iraqi politics.

Many in Iraq and outside wonder how the current divisions among Kurds will reflect on their role and influence in Baghdad in the next four years. With the U.S. troops scheduled to leave Iraq by the end of 2011, many Kurds fear their possible lack of power in Baghdad will mean they will have an extremely hard time dealing with other Iraqi groups.

There are a range of unresolved disputes between Kurds and Arabs over the oil-rich Kirkuk region and other territories claimed by both Kurds and Arabs, as well as the oil and gas law, the powers of the autonomous Kurdish government versus the federal government in Baghdad, and the status of Kurdish Peshmarga forces.

With the physical rift within the Kurdish camp a growing reality, senior Kurdish leaders emphasise the need for “united positions” by Kurds in Baghdad.

“It is very important for us to have a united position. We can have different lists and parties and opinions in our own (Kurdish) parliament and fight in our own parliament, but when it comes to (Kurdish) national issues, then we must undoubtedly put aside other things and insist on how to defend our existence and protect our achievements,” said Masoud Barzani, the Kurdish region’s president, during a speech in Irbil last week.

It is not clear to what extent the Kurdish opposition groups like Gorran will cooperate with the KDP-PUK coalition in the Iraqi parliament. In the past four years, the KIU’s five-member independent bloc in the Iraqi parliament closely cooperated with the main Kurdish bloc on the key issues of disagreement between the Iraqi government and the Kurdish government.

Although Gorran leaders have said they will not compromise on Kurdish rights in the Iraqi constitution, it remains to be seen in what ways and how they will cooperate with the KDP-PUK coalition, if at all.

“In terms of the goals and the basis of our work, we have the same goal and basis (as the KDP-PUK coalition). But in terms of the style of our work, we are different from them,” said Noshirwan Mustafa, the head of Gorran, during an interview with the Arabic-language Al Jazeera channel in early February.

The current array of Iraq’s political forces can both guarantee a role for Kurds or seriously limit their power and influence in the future government and parliament.

Because there are more and smaller coalitions for the parliamentary elections this time, no single coalition is thought to be able to form the future government. It might even possibly take more than two coalitions to form the cabinet.

The major coalitions are State of Law, led by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, and the Iraqi National Alliance, whose major components are the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, led by Ammar al-Hakim, and Muqtada al-Sadr’s group. Both of these coalitions are composed of mostly Shia groups.

A third strong coalition is the largely secular al-Iraqiya, a combination of Shia and Sunni elements, led by former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, a secular Shia.

According to Iraqi law, the coalition with the highest number of seats will be assigned to form the government, but it will most likely need other partners to pass the 50+1 threshold to form the cabinet. Knowing that, major coalitions have started to court the Kurds in order to gain their support when it comes to forming the future government.

Even PM Maliki, with whom Kurds have not been on good terms, recently expressed his readiness to enter into a coalition with Kurds, saying they have played a “principal” role in reshaping the Iraqi state.

“I cannot see any scenario that other groups can bypass the Iraqi Kurdish coalition,” Ahmed Ali, an Iraqi analyst at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, told IPS. He says the internal Kurdish splits “might give the impression that the Kurdish parties would be somehow weaker”, but in any event Kurds will be sought after by other coalitions.

By Mohammed A. Salih
WASHINGTON, Feb 19 2010 (IPS)

The improving security situation in Iraq in the recent years has meant more space for the United Nations to play an active role in the country’s development in various sectors.

Ad Melkert Credit: UN Photo/Evan Schneider

Top on the list of U.N. priorities has been helping with Iraq’s political development and, within that context, conflict resolution. With Iraqis preparing for parliamentary elections next month, the U.N. has been deeply engaged in helping Iraqis to organise successful elections, given its experience in arranging such elections in many other post-conflict countries.

As ethnic tensions persist between various groups, especially Kurds and Arabs in the northern part of the country, many are also closely watching the role the U.N. is playing on that front.

IPS correspondent Mohammed A. Salih sat down with Ad Melkert, the head of the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI), in Washington to discuss the country’s situation with regard to the upcoming elections and resolution of ethnic disputes.

Melkert has held senior positions in the U.N. such as under-secretary-general, and has also served as a member of the World Bank’s Board of Directors. Before joining the U.N., he was a member of the Dutch parliament and minister of social affairs and employment, and became the head of the Dutch Labour Party in 2001. He was appointed the U.N. Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Iraq in July 2009.

Excerpts from the interview follow.

Q: Do you think that we have the right kind of circumstances available in Iraq in order to have fair and free elections? A: Well, I mean there are a number of important conditions in place. There is an election law. There is the technical organisation that we think is at a higher level than before. It doesn’t mean that it will be perfect, but it is there and there is quite some substance and resources to that.

There is also a genuine interest among Iraqi people to participate in the elections. Time will tell how that will work out on the election day. So, nothing is guaranteed, but I think there is reason for cautious optimism about the run-up to the elections and the election day

And then, of course, the big challenge to all candidates is what to do with the results and that’s another important phase, in fact, for the consolidation of democracy in Iraq.

Q: What about the role of the U.N. Assistance Mission for Iraq? In what ways is UNAMI assisting Iraqis to make sure that the elections can be as free and fair as possible? A: There is the responsibility of the Iraqi sides, and particularly the independent high electoral commission. The U.N. is there as an advisor and, say, provides technical support. That is an important role. But the U.N. acts at the request of the Iraqi government. And it is also important to distinguish responsibilities in that regard.

Q: What about the ban on the 145 candidates? How do you think that will perhaps affect people’s perception, whether inside Iraq or outside, in terms of the legitimacy and fairness of the upcoming elections? A: We have always said as the U.N. that we can understand; or let me say it is the legitimate right of the Iraqi parliament to adopt a law as they did to exclude people with a Baath past from holding public office.

But having said that it is very vital that in the application of that law, a process is followed that is transparent and consistent and respects also the rights of the individual candidates. And there we have concerns and we have kept concerns that transparency has not been part of the process. So it’s hard to verify actually.

That could also be a concern to Iraqi voters. However, they will have chance to vote for members of the same party of those candidates who have been excluded, which is different than what was the original idea. But on that point, we have made clear we thought that was not in accordance with international standards and I was happy to see that that point and the case has been withdrawn.

Q: So in terms of how this ban affair was handled by the Iraqi authorities, you think there was not indeed due process and probably, as some have charged, it was an act of political score-settling on the part of some groups? A: No, I cannot say it from my perspective in that fashion. I can just say because it’s difficult to verify, it leaves questions open that actually should not be open questions.

Q: Let’s move to the issue of disputed territories. What has UNAMI done to address and resolve the problems and tensions along the so-called trigger line between the Kurds and Arabs and other ethnic groups as well? A: Well, in the recent months, we have been working with both the Kurdish, the Arab and Turkoman communities to start to address issues with regard to property, education and language rights, missing persons and detainees, which is all still, say, in an initial stage.

But what we see is an increasing willingness of parties to look for constructive ways forward. And we hope that we can accelerate that process and also bring it to the political level of the key issues that must be addressed sooner or later – and rather sooner than later in order to enhance stability in that particular part of Iraq.

Q: What is your biggest concern, as the U.N. head in Iraq, when it comes to the issue of the disputed territories? I mean, what is the worst fear that the U.N. has that could probably come true in that part of the country? A: Well, my concern would be that people might find it, say, easier, so to speak, to have the open issues pending for a long period of time. I think that there are many examples in history that when you don’t arrange an intrinsic conflict properly and timely, then you will run into issues at a bad day and relatively small incidents can suddenly explode into something much bigger. And that’s what we have to prevent. And we hope that politicians in Irbil and in Baghdad will be very much aware of that and help to avoid that from happening.

Q: Your predecessor, the former head of the U.N. in Iraq, Stephan De Mistura, apparently drafted a report on how the issue of the disputed territories could be resolved but never released that report. Do you intend to release that report to the public in Iraq in order to bring another aspect to the public debate in that country on the issue? A: Well, these reports were draft reports really meant to open up a dialogue and I believe that they are still in the draft stage and we should not concentrate our efforts in completing or perfecting those reports. But rather on the basis of what we have learned, say, from collecting historical evidence and interpretation, look to the future and try to establish an agenda for the future. And that will be the emphasis we will give to it.

Q: Is there any particular suggestion in that report that you would perhaps like to share here? Anything about how the U.N. thinks that problem could be solved? A: Well, not now!

Q: On Wednesday, the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, Christopher Hill, said that the U.S. believes the solution for the disputed territories should be a “negotiated solution.” However, you know that in Iraq, Kurds are particularly keen that the solution should come through the constitution’s article 140. What is the vision that the U.N. has on that? A: I think this is also very good example where it would be important to listen to parties and to try to find common ground. I am sure that around the article 140, it is possible to find common ground. We will try to advise accordingly, but let me not anticipate how that advice will be.

Q: A lot of people, especially the Americans, have been complaining about what they say is the negative role that some of Iraq’s neighbours play in that country. As the head of U.N. mission in Iraq, do you also share those views? Have you also observed any negative role played by any neighbours? A: I have observed the need for Iraq to have the space. That it is important for the future to have the space to the route to an autonomous development, for Iraqis to decide about the Iraqi future. And I think that will be something that is relevant in the interaction with many partners.

Excerpt:

By Mohammed A. Salih and Charles Fromm
WASHINGTON, Feb 16 2010 (IPS)

A report by the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) on press freedom around the world in 2009 depicts an especially gloomy situation in the Middle East and North Africa, where authorities continue to use repressive measures to muzzle journalists.

Highlighting the greatly deteriorating press conditions in Iran, CPJ’s report, released Tuesday, accuses the country’s authorities of one of the “most vicious and widespread crackdowns on the press in recent memory” following last June’s disputed presidential elections, which saw incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad re-elected.

More than 90 journalists and media workers were detained by Iranian security forces, including several foreigners, according to CPJ. In one case, the authorities rounded up most of the staff of Kamaeh Sabz, a newspaper close to the main opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi. Many of the detained journalists have reportedly been tortured.

The government restricted access to the internet and mobile phone services and highly limited foreign journalists’ ability to cover the protests. Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei branded foreign media as “evil” and accused them of trying to create discord in the country.

“Restricting the foreign press appeared to serve the dual purpose of limiting coverage of internal upheaval and the graphic abuse of protesters, while pinning the unrest on Western interference in Iran’s internal affairs,” the report said.

Next door in Iraq, improving security conditions meant a relatively safer environment for journalists, although harassment and attacks continued.

While four journalists were killed in the country during 2009, for the first time in six years, Iraq was not the deadliest nation for journalists, as the Philippines was scene of the worst massacre of journalists last year.

The CPJ report criticised Iraqi authorities for failing to “address impunity in journalist murders”, noting that by the end of last year, not one person had been convicted out of 89 cases of journalists killed explicitly because of their work since the U.S.-led invasion of the country in 2003. A total of 140 journalists were killed in that six-year period.

Despite last year’s low death toll and no reported abductions of journalists, Iraqi authorities launched a campaign of harassment, assault and legal action against the press, CPJ said.

“Officials don’t want journalists to write about things such as security issues, violations of human rights, lack of basic services and corruption,” Ziad al-Ajili, director of the Journalistic Freedom Observatory in Iraq, told CPJ. “They are imposing restrictions on journalists – and the direction they are taking is more toward authoritarianism.”

In Iraq’s northern Kurdistan region, a court in Sulaimaniya ordered Hawlati, one of the most popular Kurdish newspapers, to pay a hefty fine of 10 million Iraqi dinars, nearly 9,000 U.S. dollars, based on a lawsuit by Iraq’s President Jalal Talabani.

Hawlati’s editor, Abid Aref, was also personally fined three million Iraqi dinars, almost 2,500 U.S. dollars. Hawlati had translated a critical article by U.S. scholar Michael Rubin in 2008 that accused Talabani and Massoud Barzani, the president of the Kurdistan region, of corruption and undemocratic governance.

With the Middle East and North Africa witnessing the fastest growth of internet penetration in the world, online journalism and blogging have played a highly significant role in drawing attention to governments’ human rights abuses.

In Egypt, Wael Abbas, a well-known human rights activist and blogger, made a name for himself by posting videos of police brutality and civil unrest in the wake of Egypt’s presidential referendum in 2005.

Since then, he has paid the price for his commitment to advocacy. He has been prevented from leaving the country and is often subjected to harassment, detention and arrest by state security officials and the police, the report says.

Egypt, Tunisia, and Morocco have sometimes suspended the broadcast of satellite news channels, particularly Al-Jazeera, for highlighting sensitive human rights, political, or religious issues, the report notes.

“In Tunisia, people learned about human rights violations mainly from satellite TV stations and particularly Al-Jazeera, which was seen by many Tunisians as a breath of oxygen,” said local journalist Naziha Réjiba. Réjiba received CPJ’s 2009 International Press Freedom Award.

Morocco is home to an infamous press code, which can levy decades-long prison sentences for libel against the king. The law was revised in 2002, but many changes were seen as cosmetic. Article 41 of the code extends the law’s applicability to Islam and Morocco’s territorial integrity as well.

Morocco’s courts, in addition to executive power, were also given the authority to suspend or close newspapers.

“We counted many cases of physical abuse against journalists in many areas, the most recent occurring in Casablanca,” the head of the Journalists’ Syndicate, Yunis Moujahid, told Menasat, an online clearinghouse for journalism in the Middle East.

He added that it is imperative to adopt regulations that guarantee better conditions for journalists to practice their profession in respect of national and international law.

However, CPJ’s report asserts that Morocco has seen an increase in human rights reporting, since a truth commission began examining abuses committed during the 1961-1999 reign of King Hassan II.

Although the hearings of the Equity and Reconciliation Commission ended in 2005, the independent press has continued to report on abuses – and not just under Hassan, but also under his successor, Mohammed VI.

Still, authorities censor, jail and harass journalists to silence coverage of the royal family, contends the report.

In Israel and the Occupied Palestinian territories, Israel’s decision to bar international press access to the Gaza Strip during its three-week military campaign in the coastal territory last year was highlighted in the report.

This policy is described as part of “a massive public relations battle over coverage in the international press.”

It also mentions the Israeli army’s targeting of news media buildings in Gaza for air strikes, and the taking over of local television and radio frequencies to distribute Israeli military propaganda.

Meanwhile, rival Palestinian ruling factions of Fatah and Hamas detained and harassed members of the media they perceived as biased.

The CPJ report highlights deteriorating conditions for the press in many other countries around the world as well. In the Philippines, 31 journalists and media workers were killed during an ambush by unknown assailants, ranking it “worst among peacetime democracies, trailing only war-ridden places such as Iraq and Somalia.”

The report also criticises Russia for doing little to bring to justice those responsible for the murder of 19 journalists during the past 10 years, with a murder conviction won only in one case. As three journalists died alone last year in Russia, CPJ says the “brutal reality” for the country’s press has not changed.

Excerpt:

The recent expansion of U.S. missile defence systems in the Persian Gulf just days after President Barack Obama warned Iran of “growing consequences” if it did not accept the West’s conditions over its nuclear programme signals a possible change of approach by Washington even as uncertainty still prevails how it will deal with Iran eventually.

Gen. David Patraeus, the top U.S. commander in the Middle East and South Asia, said on Monday that his country had expanded land-and-sea-based missile systems in the Gulf and the Mediterranean in response to what the superpower views as Iran’s growing missile threat.

President Obama’s harsh words against Iran and the announcement of upgraded anti-missile systems in the Middle East have come after a failure of the U.S. administration’s diplomatic initiative to engage Iran. That failure and the missile build-up will likely further increase tensions between Iran and its neighbours on the one hand and Iran and the U.S. on the other.

The U.S. has based upgraded Patriot missile systems in the four small Gulf nations of Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Bahrain. Iran has strongly criticised the U.S. move, accusing the West of trying to create “rift and insecurity” in the Gulf.

The move has raised questions about U.S. motives for expanding and upgrading its missile defense systems in the region.

“It’s hard to say whether it’s preparation for military action or essentially part of U.S. policy to further isolate Iran from the regional states and indeed sell more arms to regional states,” Nader Entessar, an Iran expert and chair of the Political Science Department at the University of South Alabama, told IPS.

“But any time that you have an up the ante like that, the consequences of what may follow are unpredictable even if the intention is not necessarily to have near term or medium term military confrontation,” Entessar said.

Although many in the region and the West brand Iran as a “threat”, the country has one of the lowest rates of military spending in comparison to other Gulf countries like Saudi Arabia and UAE, which have spent 25 billion dollars on weapons over the past two years.

However, Iran has carried out a number of missile tests in the past and possesses missiles that can reach as far as Israel or Eastern Europe.

With all the talk about the “Iranian threat”, the question is what type of threat Iran really poses to the countries in the region.

“I don’t think Gulf countries generally see Iran as a conventional military threat,” said Chas Freeman, a former U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia and a former assistant secretary of defence for international security sffairs. “The concern about Iran has to do with Iran’s political prestige.”

Gen. Patraeus has reportedly said that now the tiny country of UAE has the military capabilities to take out the Iranian air force.

Iran’s political prestige comes from its extensive ties with both states and non-state actors in the region, in particular in places like Lebanon, Iraq, Syria and the Palestinian territories.

More than 30 years after the Islamic Revolution, Iran enjoys strong relations with mostly Shia groups in the Middle East, but also Sunni groups such as Palestinian Hamas and Islamic Jihad. That has not only deeply worried Sunni Arab powers in the region like Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt, but also the U.S. and Israel.

Now the traditional powers of the Arab world have added what they allege is Iran’s support for Huthi Shia fighters in Yemen to their long list of grievances against the Shia power.

Iran and the U.S. have had a history of troubled relations, especially since the Islamic revolution in Iran in 1979 which led to the overthrow of Mohammed Reza Shah Pahlavi, a close U.S. ally in the region. The storming of the U.S. embassy in Tehran by revolutionary students and the U.S. aid to Saddam Hussein during the eight-year war between Iran and Iraq only exacerbated the tense relations following the Revolution.

The Islamic Republic’s officials have repeatedly shrugged off accusations that they pose any threats to the region’s countries and often accuse the U.S. and Israel of vilifying Iran in the eyes of its neighbours and the larger world.

Despite the public pronouncement of concern with regard to Iran’s attitude and policies in the region, the Islamic Republic has no history of aggression against any of its neighbours. The only war the post-Revolution Iran fought, the Iran-Iraq War, was initiated by Saddam Hussein, who enjoyed western support throughout the conflict.

In a meeting with Qatar’s crown-prince Sheikh Tamin bin Hamad Al Thani on Tuesday, Iran’s Parliamentary Speaker Ali Larijani said “Iran has no problems with its neighbours and has never had any intention of aggression against any country.”

“Imam Khomeini’s foreign policy theory was one of Islamic union, strengthening unity and cooperation among Muslim countries and this is the strategy of the Islamic Republic of Iran in the Islamic world,” said Larijani, referring to the founder of the Islamic Republic.

However, domestic developments in Iran appear to have seriously limited the ability of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s government to come up with any serious initiative. In the wake of the Jun. 12 presidential elections last year, the country has witnessed widespread protests against perceived fraud in the elections.

While Washington says all the options are on the table, a military attack, some experts say, would be highly costly and therefore highly unlikely in the foreseeable future.

“Despite Washington’s sabre-rattling, the threat of reverting back into recession makes one thing clear – when it comes to Iran, all options are not on the table,” wrote Henry Barkey and Uri Dadush, experts at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in an analysis for The National Interest, a quarterly journal of international affairs and diplomacy.

They argue that any attack on Iran would cause oil prices to skyrocket to possibly as high as 150 dollars a barrel sending the global economy into a new round of recession. Iran, Barkey and Dadush contend, would then encourage its Lebanese and Palestinian allies, Hezbollah and Hamas, to attack Israel.

And last but not least, an attack on Iran will give the “embattled regime in Tehran an occasion to rally” its disgruntled people against foreign aggression.

As Iran and the West fail to reach a deal on the former’s controversial nuclear programme, uncertainty over how to handle Iran is still prevalent. Although the U.S. has pushed hard for tougher economic sanctions, it has met stiff resistance from China, whcih has lucrative business deals in Iran, especially in oil and gas sector.

Iran’s negative response to western proposals, on the basis that they were not fair, has left a disappointed U.S. adopting an increasingly aggressive tone and course of action to an extent that some say is reminiscent of President George W. Bush’s hawkish years.

“We are back to what the Bush administration was trying to do, back to this notion of regime change once more,” says Entessar. “Back to the ascendancy of the neoconservatives again in the administration as well as outside who are putting pressure on Obama. And that does not bode well, in my judgment, for any kind of breakthrough in the future.”

Iraq’s upcoming parliamentary elections are widely considered a barometre of the country’s progress and march toward stability, but they could also have a serious destabilising impact, as the U.S. prepares for a major reduction of its troops by August.

A volatile and divided nation, Iraq is desperately attempting to recover from decades of war and dictatorship. Washington has promoted elections in the hope that the ballot box will become the medium through which political scores are settled.

The U.S. is hoping to see a more stable Iraq emerge from the March elections to allow for its timely withdrawal of troops, but increasing tensions in parts of Iraq threaten to add to the country’s myriad of problems.

The abrupt decision by Iraq’s Accountability and Justice Commission (AJC) on Jan. 7 to bar 14 political groups, mostly representing Sunni Arabs, from running in the upcoming elections could turn the much-awaited polls into a vehicle for more instability.

The AJC, in charge of ensuring that high-ranking former and current Baath Party officials of former president Saddam Hussein will not return to government, said its decision was based on new “evidence” showing connections between the 14 groups and the Baath Party.

The most prominent among these groups is the National Dialogue Front, led by the secular Sunni politician Salih Mutlak who has been part of the country’s political process over the past seven years despite his uneasy relations with many Shia Arab and Kurdish groups.

Elections have been viewed as especially crucial in reintegrating the Sunni Arab minority into Iraq’s political process by giving them a proportional representation in the country’s governance to compel them to renounce the insurgency.

Sunni Arabs who held most of the senior jobs in Saddam Hussein’s government saw their regions become the primary battleground of a bloody struggle between insurgents on the one hand and the Iraqi government and U.S. forces on the other.

Central to the national reconciliation plans in Iraq, as Washington hopes, is the return of more moderate elements of the Baath Party to the current political process. Although outlawed in Iraq, the party is said to have a presence outside Iraq’s borders, particularly in Syria.

If approved by the country’s electoral commission, the decision to exclude the 14 parties from the elections could alienate significant sections of the Sunni Arab population, especially in light of Mutlak’s rising popularity among Sunni voters, as the provincial elections in late 2008 showed. Mutlak’s faction also did well in the provincial election last year, managing to come second among several Sunni groups.

“It will have serious consequences and will reduce Sunni representation and especially change their attitude toward the powers that be,” Joost Hiltermann of the International Crisis Group, which has issued several reports on resolving Iraq’s internal conflicts, told IPS.

Since late 2007, major Sunni insurgent groups have abandoned the insurgency in the hopes of finding a foothold in the country’s politics, but their relations with the Shia-led government in Baghdad remain relatively tense.

Calling the decision by the AJC “political and linked to foreign will”, Mutlak also appeared to implicitly accuse Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki of standing behind the decision.

A statement by the head of the European Parliament’s delegation for relations with Iraq, Scottish lawmaker Struan Stevenson, cited Mutlak’s “uncompromising positions” against Iran’s “meddling” in Iraq as the “true” reason behind the decision.

In an ambitious strategy, Mutlak had joined forces with former secular Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, a Shia Arab, and current Vice-President Tariq al-Hashemi, a Sunni Arab, to create a powerful cross-sectarian coalition for the future elections known as al-Iraqia.

Mutlak has vowed to seek to overturn the decision through the country’s Supreme Court or, if necessary, the United Nations. Other al-Iraqia leaders have threatened to boycott the elections if the current AJC decision is upheld, something that could discourage more Sunnis from participating in the vote.

Severe tensions among political factions in Baghdad are nothing new, but elections have now heightened tensions in the country’s safest and most stable region as well: Kurdistan.

In recent weeks, tensions between the party of the incumbent Iraqi President Jalal Talabani and the major Kurdish opposition group, Gorran (Change), have escalated to alarming levels. Several Gorran activists have been targeted by unknown assailants, leading to the death of one Gorran supporter in Sulaimaniya Province, the seat of Talabani’s power.

Adding fuel to the fire is the increasingly hostile rhetoric in the two party’s media outlets and meetings where Talabani and his one-time deputy and current Gorran head, Noshirwan Mustafa, have exchanged brazen accusations over their past and current roles in Kurdish politics.

The heightened tensions have raised fears that there could be an outbreak of violence in Kurdistan. Kurdish political leaders convened an urgent meeting to discuss the situation, calling on the hostile parties to exercise self-restraint and end the media war.

“We will not allow Kurds to shed each other’s blood. It is true that we have different opinions but these differences have to be settled inside parliament… and should not be deepened to disrupt Kurdistan’s [security] situation,” read a statement by the office of Kurdistan’s President Massoud Barzani after the meeting on Jan. 10. The Kurds underwent a bloody civil war in the mid-1990s between various groups, especially Talabani’s Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and Barzani’s Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), leading to the deaths of thousands.

Although Kurds have managed to spare their region from the bulk of the turmoil that engulfed Iraq following the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, elections now threaten to bring a new round of instability as incumbent parties appear reluctant to relinquish power to newcomers like Gorran.

Gorran, a broad coalition of people with diverse political backgrounds, managed to surprise many in Kurdistan and abroad when it defeated a joint ticket of the PUK and KDP in Sulaimaniya Province during the Kurdish parliamentary elections last July.

Sulaimaniya is the largest and most populous of the three provinces that make up the autonomous Kurdistan region. For decades, it has been the power base of Talabani’s PUK. Its longstanding rival and current ally, KDP, dominates the other two and is less threatened by Gorran.

Now, as Iraq’s parliamentary elections approach, Gorran is determined to repeat that victory, while the PUK is anxious not to sustain another loss. A poor performance by the PUK would not only seriously diminish the ambitions of Talabani to regain Iraq’s presidency, but could also push an ailing PUK to the margins of Kurdish politics.

Popular resentment over the KDP-PUK’s joint administration of the Kurdish region over the past 18 years provided the fertile ground for Gorran’s emergence. Gorran, which now has 25 seats in the 111-member Kurdish parliament, has promised to bring more accountability to the Kurdish government and fight endemic corruption and political nepotism in the region.

So far, in spite of irregularities and countless complaints, with the assistance and intervention of the U.S. and the U.N., Iraqis have been able to hold elections whose results have been largely accepted by the majority of Iraqi groups.

Often, during these periods of tension, the U.S. has acted as the deal-broker and has kept the wheels of the political process rolling. The question, as Hiltermann of the ICG says, is whether in the long term Iraqis will be able to organise fair elections once the U.S. troops are out.

A recent meeting between Iraq’s Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and Kurdish President Massoud Barzani appears to be a crucial step in lowering tensions in the country, but it has also prompted questions as to whether the two leaders can put an end to their differences.

The meeting came as the fever of presidential and parliamentary elections in Kurdistan subsided and at a time that the U.S. is actively pressuring both sides to return to the negotiation table.

It was the first time in a year that the two leaders held direct talks in the northern resort town of Dukan – with the apparent mediation of Iraq’s President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd.

While the two leaders exchanged positive words in a largely conciliatory gesture and decided to continue high-level contacts, sceptics were hoping these would be genuine moves toward an eventual resolution of a range of disputes between the two sides.

“I hope this visit by PM Maliki to Kurdistan region will not be only an election propaganda and that the visit will lead to a resolution of differences between [Kurdistan] regional government and the central government,” Dhafer al-Ani, the head of Tawafuq bloc – the largest Sunni Arab group in Iraqi Parliament – said in a statement.

In fact, with Iraq’s parliamentary elections scheduled for January, some may see this as an attempt by Maliki to regain Kurds’ favour in order to retain his office after elections.

While the recent meeting marks a rapprochement between the two sides, there is no indication that it would necessarily lead to a resolution of differences. Both leaders will risk their popularity and possibly political careers if they would want to make significant compromises – without which a deal does not seem achievable.

A few recent developments appear to have prompted the meeting between Kurdish leaders and Maliki.

During his visit to Washington last month, U.S. President Barack Obama urged Maliki to show more flexibility toward other Iraqi groups in order to achieve national reconciliation. Three administration heavy weights – including Vice President Joe Biden, Defence Secretary Robert Gates and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen – travelled to Iraq in July to drive the point home to Maliki and Kurdish leaders that Washington was keen to see both sides resume dialogue.

But all had to wait until Kurdish parliamentary and presidential elections ended.

Nationalistic rhetoric had surged during the campaign, especially as Barzani and Talabani’s joint ruling coalition was trying to gain more votes by highlighting “threats” facing Kurds from others. On more than one occasion, Barzani said he would make no compromise with Baghdad over Kurdish demands.

With a strong opposition born out of those elections, the question for many was whether Kurdish policy vis-à-vis Baghdad would undergo any significant changes. During recent Kurdish elections the joint ruling coalition of Barzani and Talabani won only around 58 percent of votes, according to initial results announced by the electoral commission of Iraq. The two other major opposition groups have won around 37 percent of the vote in what was a shock to the political establishment in Iraqi Kurdistan.

However, Barzani himself was re-elected as Kurdish president, drawing nearly 70 percent of votes. But, opposition members have accused Barzani of not handling Kurd-Baghdad politics very well.

Barzani’s meeting with Maliki before final election results are announced indicates a willingness on the part of the Kurdish leader to keep the initiative in dealing with Baghdad in his hands – while not involving the future diverse parliament that much.

With the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq scheduled by the end of 2011, many think Kurds do not have the advantage of time on their side. That comes as the national government is becoming more powerful day-by-day, at times at the expense of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG).

“KRG has to come to some sort of an agreement with Baghdad soon, because it is not strong enough to combat Baghdad in the long run,” Michael Gunter, a professor of Political Science at Tennessee Tech University, told IPS.

“Who is going to look after Kurdish national interests in the long-run, and after the U.S. leaves the country,” said Gunter who has written on the Kurdish situation for years.

Kurds have been the closest U.S. allies within the country since the invasion of Iraq in 2003, and the U.S. military has at several times intervened to prevent the breakout of violence between Kurdish and Iraqi army forces. The latest instance was when Iraqi army troops were heading to a Kurdish town called Makhmur, east of Mosul. As there was a serious chance of clashes, the U.S. military managed to defuse the tensions and convince the Iraqi units not to enter the town.

As tensions between the Kurds on one side, and the central government and Iraqi Arabs on the other side have increased in recent months, some in Washington and Baghdad have accused Kurds of adopting a maximalist and uncompromising approach. But many inside Kurdistan fiercely oppose any such notion.

Shaqfiq Qazzaz – a veteran of Kurdish politics – rejects any branding of Kurdish positions as “extravagant and extreme.”

“Whenever Iraq is in trouble, it is Kurds who are asked to accommodate and compromise… They set redlines, but forget that Kurds have redlines of their own as well,” Qazzaz, who was a minister in KRG until a few years ago, told IPS in a phone interview from Irbil, Iraq. “There is a certain extent to which Kurdish leaders can make compromise, otherwise they will be on the losing side and their people will not accept that.”

KRG’s differences with the Baghdad government include the borders of Kurdistan, oil and gas exploration rights, the power of the KRG versus Baghdad, and the status of the Kurdish forces known as Peshmarga. At the heart of the disputes is the chronic issue of Kirkuk that has complicated Kurdish relations with almost all governments in Iraq since the country was established in 1920s.

His visit to the U.S. this week was meant to be a show of statesmanship, much different than when he was in Washington last time.

In July 2006, when he met with former President George W. Bush, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki was a dwindling, embattled politician of whom nobody expected much. His very survival was in doubt, perhaps even by the most optimistic observers. However, this time came a confident yet realistic man to boast of his accomplishments.

“The whole world can see our achievements at the democratic level and with regard to pluralism in our country; and the success of elections is a proof that we have succeeded as a democratic state and we are moving forward,” Maliki said in an address at the United States Institute of Peace in Washington.

To complete his image of a realistic statesman, he took pains not to appear as someone who has lost touch with reality.

“I do not want to depict a rosy picture and say we don’t have challenges. We still have challenges to face but we are back in the position that we can face these challenges,” Maliki declared.

In fact, the thing that would best characterise his visit this time was his constant swinging between realism and a bit of idealism rooted in his ambitions for the future of the country. For some, it gave a sense of contradiction as to what he had to say about Iraq.

He proudly said the security situation was getting so much better that not only was there no need for U.S. troops to be redeployed to Iraqi cities and towns, but that his government was considering the possibility of pulling out Iraqi army units from urban areas and giving security tasks solely to police.

Hoping to project a sense of normalcy in the war-torn country, Maliki tried to promote Iraq as a new destination for business. In Maliki’s Iraq, security is not the sole issue anymore. In his meeting with President Barack Obama on Wednesday deepening cultural, educational and scientific ties were high on the agenda.

But in yet another bounce-back to reality, he said if worse came to worse, Iraq would be willing to have some U.S. forces stay to help with training and supporting Iraqi military beyond the December 2011 deadline set in the security agreement between the two countries.

Obama has pledged to withdraw all U.S. combat forces from Iraq by the end of August 2010. But as a renewed campaign of violence has plagued the country, some are questioning whether Iraqi security forces are fully capable of taking over security tasks after U.S. troops’ scheduled withdrawal.

Increasingly worried that security gains in Iraq might be endangered, Obama urged Maliki to work more seriously on the national reconciliation front. But Maliki says he is not going to talk to those opponents who have “Iraqis’ blood” on their hands.

Attempting to take a more independent line in the internal matters from that favoured by the U.S., Maliki’s government has reacted furiously to news that the U.S. had talked to some of Maliki’s opponents in Turkey.

It leaves him with a more daunting task in the future: how to make use of U.S. support and yet be independent in his policies.

“For his part, Maliki faces a delicate balancing act… in his relations with the United States – if he is perceived as too close to Washington, he could lose support at home, but he can’t completely distance himself either,” wrote Greg Bruno, an expert at the Council on Foreign Relations on Maliki’s relations with the U.S.

But despite any perceived fluctuation, the prime minister demonstrated that he is keen to seek “cooperation” with the U.S. rather than domination by the superpower.

“The fact that he is coming here after the SOFA (security agreement) is to say that Iraq and U.S. should talk as equals and partners now,” Mishkat al-Moumin, an Iraq expert at Middle East Institute told IPS. “I think he is trying to manage difficult positions and walk a fine line yet at the same time keep his balance.”

Although some believe Maliki’s closed association with the U.S. might affect his popularity at home, Al-Moumin believes Iraqis do not see it that way.

“What the average Iraqi citizen thinks now is that there is relative security and services are better than before… I feel he is truly popular now in Iraq,” said al-Moumin who was a minister of environment in Iraq in the post-war interim government of Ayad Allawi.

And Maliki’s willingness to allow a member of his party who is the country’s trade minister to be dismissed by the parliament on charges of corruption matters more to ordinary Iraqis than his relations with the U.S.

The consensus on his record is that despite the many limitations he faces domestically, the Shia Arab prime minister has presented himself as a man of action, someone who has managed to navigate through Iraq’s complex and complicated politics with a good degree of success so far.

While many believe his initial appointment as prime minister by Iraqi parliamentarians was not due to his merits but rather his perceived weakness in 2006, he is now thought of as a “powerful and popular” leader.

He has confronted insurgents and militias firmly, survived deteriorating relationships with those allies who voted him to office, and won astounding victory in the country’s provincial elections earlier this year.

Through a series of divisive yet shrewd tactics he has now created a popular base for himself. He now appears in charge in Baghdad and is craving to obtain more legitimacy through national elections next year in order to push ahead with his designs for the future of the country more forcefully.

He has already spoken of some of what he intends to do if he had more power. He wants to create a stronger centralised government in Baghdad, and restructure the political system to allow Iraq to have a presidential system instead of the current parliamentary system. He complained in his USIP speech that the constant discord inside parliament has put too many limitations on him to do a better job.

But in what Maliki sees as a source of opportunity for better governance in Iraq, many of his domestic rivals see dangerous indications that a new dictator is about to be born.

Amid all the optimism that the prime minister has brought to Washington, there is myriad problems that he has to tend to back home, such as rising ethnic tensions between Arabs and Kurds in the country, unresolved disputes between his government and the regional Kurdish government on the extent of their powers, and the serious challenge of an insurgency that is trying to make a comeback.

Iraq’s parliamentary elections to be held next January will be a true test of whether the majority of Iraqis see in him a man competent enough to run the country for another four years or not.

The indefinite postponement of a referendum on Iraqi Kurdistan’s controversial draft constitution just days after a visit by U.S. Vice President Joe Biden has given rise to speculation that Washington may have played a role in the delay.

Despite initial expectations that the charter would be put to a vote on Jul. 25 amid Kurdish parliamentary and presidential elections, just a few days after Biden landed in Iraq, the country’s Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC) said it was impossible to hold the vote on that date.

While there has been no official confirmation of Biden’s possible role in the delay, a series of events and statements strongly indicate possible behind-the-scenes diplomacy by the U.S. to prevent new problems from emerging as the Barack Obama administration desperately lobbies for national reconciliation.

Biden, who was appointed by Obama to oversee the administration’s Iraq policy on Jun. 30, arrived in Baghdad on Jul. 2 to push Iraqi leaders for “political progress that is necessary to ensure the nation’s long-term stability,” a White House statement said.

After his visit to Iraq, Biden told ABC News’s George Stephanopoulos that he had been asked by Iraqi officials in Baghdad to “communicate to the Kurdish leadership, who I have a close relationship with, that their passing a constitution through their parliament in Kurdistan was not helpful to the process that was under way.”

The Kurdish draft constitution had heightened tensions between Kurds and other ethnicities in the country such as Arabs and Turkomans, as well as the Iraqi government.

The major source of contention was provisions declaring oil-rich Kirkuk and a number of other areas deemed disputed territories to be “historically” and “geographically” part of the Kurdish homeland. Those areas are currently outside the jurisdiction of the Kurdish government.

Although Biden had planned to visit the north to meet with senior Kurdish leaders Massoud Barzani and Jalal Talabani, a severe sandstorm prevented his plane from taking off. But after returning to Washington, the vice president called Barzani and Talabani to press “the need to reach a resolution on Iraq’s outstanding reconciliation issues”, according to a statement from Biden office on Jul. 7.

A statement posted on Barzani’s website, in turn, described the “outstanding issues” as territorial disputes, oil and gas legislation and political reconciliation.

But it was Iraq’s Shia Arab Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki who gave near confirmation of the U.S. influence. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal published on Jul. 9, Maliki said Biden had promised him to urge Kurdish leaders to delay the referendum. The prime minister added that he and Biden had both agreed that the proposed Kurdish constitution was bound to “make a lot of trouble and create a lot of differences”.

Following Biden’s visit, the IHEC took many in Iraq by surprise when it announced on Jul. 7 that it could not hold the referendum. The IHEC cited technical reasons as well as concerns that its “integrity and credibility” could be tainted if it yielded to immense pressure from Kurdish leaders to hold the referendum.

Many inside Kurdistan had also criticised the draft, but on different grounds. Kurdish critics believed the constitution granted too much power to the president of Kurdistan and had called on the IHEC to postpone the vote.

The document was seen mainly as an artifact of Barzani’s Kurdistan Democratic Party and Talabani’s Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. Barzani is the president of the Kurdistan autonomous region, while his longtime rival and now “strategic ally” Talabani is the president of Iraq.

But, ignoring domestic calls, the Kurdish leadership rushed to pass the charter as quickly as possible. They were optimistic that the IHEC would heed their demand to hold the referendum on Jul. 25.

Tariq Sarmami, an advisor to the Kurdish parliament speaker, told the Kurdish official news agency AKnews on Jul. 1 that the IHEC “had shown readiness to prepare grounds for a referendum on the constitution” on the presumed Jul. 25 date.

Nevertheless, Kurdish officials’ efforts were for naught as the IHEC rejected their demands.

Two days after the IHEC’s rejection, on Jul. 9, enraged lame-duck Kurdish parliamentarians had to give in to the fait accompli. They voted to delay the referendum but did not set a new date, raising speculation that due to outside pressure they may not want to pursue it for a while to come.

During the session, Kurdish parliamentary speaker Adnan Mufti voiced his suspicions of interference in the IHEC’s work by Maliki’s government and implicitly accused the U.S. of playing a role.

More signs of U.S involvement are emerging as Adm. Michael Mullen, chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the U.S. military, visited Kirkuk on Monday with the aim of urging Kurds, Arabs and Turkomans there to reach a power-sharing agreement. The U.S. had been widely criticised in the recent months for not doing enough to settle disputes among Iraqi factions, especially Kurds and Arabs.

Joost Hiltermann of the International Crisis Group (ICG) believes that unilateral decisions by Kurdish leaders such as the draft constitution were partly due to U.S. reluctance to throw heavier diplomatic weight behind efforts to address the ethnic problems in the country.

But Biden’s very new central role to steer U.S. policy in Iraq, he says, shows that “Obama’s administration means business”.

“And his visit to Iraq is a sign that the U.S. is serious in its efforts to broker a deal (on problems between Kurds and Iraqi government),” he told IPS in a phone interview from Jordan.

However, as attempts to forge an agreement intensify, the key question is what kind of a deal is possible and sustainable.

“We proposed a grand bargain on this issue in our most recent report that combines territory with oil and sharing powers between Baghdad and Irbil (the Kurdish capital),” said Hiltermann, referring to a Jul. 8 ICG report. “These issues cannot be resolved in isolation, they have to be combined as they are really so the ground.”

Upcoming polls may further complicate ethnic relations in Iraq. In addition to regional Kurdish elections due in a few weeks, Iraq’s national elections will be held next January. If the current deadlock is to be broken, some argue, politicians in Iraq need to avoid inflammatory remarks and think outside election cycles.

“The game so far is to drag their feet and appear uncompromising but at the end there is a realisation that things need to be brought to the negotiation table,” Scott Carpenter, an expert at Washington Institute for Near East Policy, told IPS. “They know if problems aggravate, there will be real difficulties and that will not be in anybody’s interest.”

Carpenter believes the Balkans should stand as a stark lesson to Iraqi policymakers.

“People need to look at Sarajevo and what happened in Serbia and Bosnia,” he said, referring to the bloody ethnic conflicts in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s. “You don’t want this and if you really believe that way, then leaders have to stand up and avoid more tensions.”

Relations between Iraq’s various Kurdish, Arab and Turkoman ethnicities are going through a new round of complications since a provision in the draft constitution of the country’s northern Kurdistan region declared a range of disputed areas part of the historical Kurdish homeland, infuriating non-Kurds in the country.

All this comes against a backdrop of already high ethnic tensions and desperate U.S. attempts to stabilise Iraq as it prepares for a gradual withdrawal.

The controversial draft constitution passed in late June by Kurdish parliamentarians in the northern city of Irbil proclaims several key areas such as oil-rich Kirkuk, Khanaqin and districts around Mosul part of the “historical-geographical entity of Iraqi Kurdistan”.

Out of 97 lawmakers present at the session, 96 voted in favour of the document. Officials have said they will soon put the charter to a popular referendum in the three provinces of Kurdistan. Despite some internal opposition, it is expected the voters will approve the draft.

The outrage among Arab and Turkomen political factions in the country came swiftly. Rejecting the provision in the Kurdish constitution “totally”, Arab members of the Kirkuk provincial council called on national authorities and the “Iraqi people” to “intervene seriously so that everyone knows Kirkuk is a national Iraqi issue and no one can decide on it on their own for their political gains.”

An ethnic flash-point, Kirkuk has witnessed a dramatic rise in violence over the last few weeks. Two bombs in Turkoman and Kurdish parts of the province left hundreds dead and injured signaling a clear determination by insurgent groups to exploit ethnic tensions.

Describing the Kurdish draft constitution as ” in defiance of some of the articles” in the national constitution of Iraq, Mohammed Mehdi al-Bayati, a Turkomen deputy in the Iraqi parliament, told Aswat al-Iraq news agency that “the constitution the Kurdistan parliament passed is a negative message for the stability of Iraq”.

Despite considering the disputed territories part of Kurdish soil, the draft constitution does not call for any forcible takeover of those areas and defers the matter to be settled through an article in Iraq’s constitution. Article 140 of the national constitution addresses longstanding territorial problems between Iraq’s Kurds and Arabs and lays down a road map to resolve the issue.

However, non-Kurds believe that the roadmap is devised in a way that will eventually give the control of those areas to Kurds. Disputed areas include large chunks of land scattered through Kirkuk, Nineveh, Diyala and Salahaddin provinces in northern Iraq.

Under former President Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi government expelled large numbers of Kurds and Turkomans from those areas in what is commonly referred to as “Arabisation”. The strategic goal was to tilt the demographic balance in favour of the country’s Arab majority in those areas rich with natural resources like oil and gas.

Ironically, as Arab and Turkomen parties accuse Kurds of land-grabbing, critics in Kurdistan say the draft constitution does not take a clear position on the “Kurdish identity” of disputed territories, accusing Kurdish leaders of compromise and equivocation on the issue.

And while Arabs in Baghdad are increasing pressure to force Kurds to back down from their claims to disputed areas, Kurdish leaders appear to be more responsive to criticism from within Kurdistan.

“Kurdistan region’s president will not compromise on a span of Kurdistan’s territory,” the office of Kurdish President Massoud Barzani said in a statement.

The Kurds’ dispute with other groups in the country is multi-faceted. One the one hand, it involves territorial rows with neighbouring Arab, both Shia and Sunni, and Turkomen populations. On the other hand, there are deep differences between the federal government in Baghdad and the Kurdish government over their respective powers on oil exploration and foreign policy, as well as territory.

In a bid to assert his authority and beef up his nationalistic credentials, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has taken a tough stance toward what he and many in Baghdad see as Kurdish expansionism and overly independent policies. While his Shia-led government has uneasy relations with Sunni Arabs, many allege Maliki is propping up Sunni Arabs in the north in their disputes with Kurds.

Although officially part of Iraq, the Kurdish government signs oil deals with international firms, establishes diplomatic relations with foreign countries, controls a 100,000 strong army and has forces in all disputed areas.

Kurdish leaders dismiss Baghdad’s criticisms, saying their moves are constitutional, and have threatened to secede from Iraq without those powers. In fact, elastic articles in the hastily-written national constitution have given both sides significant room to maneuvre and claim constitutional legitimacy.

With the gap between the views of Kurdish and Iraqi politicians widening, chances of another conflict in Iraq appear to be rising.

“They seem to be on a collision course and the only question is the severity of the collision… No one wants a collision but I can’t see a way to resolve this issue,” Wayne White, an Iraq expert at the Middle East Institute, told IPS.

Any eruption of violence between Kurds and the Iraqi government will dash U.S. hopes for stability in a country already grappling with bloodshed and a paralysed economy. This has raised the question for many as to what role the U.S. can play to possibly forge a deal between Kurds and Arabs.

“I think because of the increased power of the central government, and the increased perception among Kurds that the U.S. is siding with Sunni Arabs and the central government, and the increased power of the KRG (Kurdistan Regional government), the U.S. is marginalised,” said White, adding that there is a deep distrust between those sides. “The U.S. cannot do that much.”

As Iraqis witness a spike in violence after a months-long relative lull, the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has decided to put its security agreement with the U.S. to a public referendum, although the move appears to be only heightening a sense of uncertainty over the fate of the country.

Last year, Iraqi and U.S. negotiators included a provision in the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) for a referendum on the presence of U.S. troops on Iraqi soil, to be held six months after the deal went into effect. Although the referendum was supposed to be conducted in July, recently Iraq’s cabinet decided to hold it along with national parliamentary elections in January 2010.

The government allocated about 100 million dollars for the polls last week, and cited financial and time constraints as reasons for the delay.

According to SOFA’s roadmap, the U.S. should retreat from Iraqi cities by Jun. 30 this year, and from the country in its entirety by January 2012. However, it is not yet fully clear whether the U.S. will embark on a full withdrawal or keep some forces in troubled areas like Mosul and Kirkuk in the north, as well as the capital Baghdad.

Discussions of the referendum come against a backdrop of rising violence in recent weeks.

Experts believe that while al Qaeda and other insurgent groups have been significantly weakened, they are still capable of carrying out lethal attacks aimed at dragging the country’s Shia majority into a new round of intense violence. That is in addition to high tensions at the fault lines between the country’s Kurds and Arabs in the north.

One critical question is if the Iraqi public votes against the SOFA, will Iraqi security forces be ready to take over security tasks from their U.S. counterparts in 18 months?

Deadly attacks across the country over the past few days underline the fragility of the situation.

On Monday, bombings and shootings killed at least 33 people in Shiite neighbourhoods of Baghdad and surrounding areas, after a truck bomb last weekend killed some 75 people in Kirkuk Province in northern Iraq.

The attack Saturday against a Shia target in Kirkuk took place in a part of the country that is at the centre of disputes between Iraqi Kurds and Arab ethnicities. It was meant to touch on sectarian as well as ethnic nerves.

To many, the attack served as a grim reminder that if Iraqi security forces are not capable of securing the country in spite of the U.S. military’s support, they will be even less likely to accomplish it without that support.

Despite public statements by Iraqi politicians bragging about the new capabilities of their forces to meet security challenges inside the country, a Washington Post report last month depicted an ill-managed army with incompetent and corrupt commanders.

To make matters even worse, low oil prices over the past several months have adversely affected plans to better arm, equip and expand Iraq’s armed forces. The shrinking budget has meant the country has not been able to rebuild its navy and air forces.

In a recent interview with France’s Le Monde newspaper, PM Maliki acknowledged that Iraq’s army still faces serious logistical problems, relying on U.S. military aircraft for troop movements.

That has some experts convinced that despite his rhetoric supporting the referendum, Maliki is all too cognizant of the dangers of a premature withdrawal of U.S. troops.

“I think PM Maliki and some members of his circle were not very enthusiastic about the referendum and were demanded by some other parties like Sadrists (to put the SOFA up for a vote),” Matthew Duss of the Centre for American Progress told IPS.

Followers of the young Shia cleric Muqtada Sadr were staunch opponents of the security pact during the debate in the Iraqi parliament last year, decrying it as a legitimisation of the U.S. occupation.

Iraq’s upcoming parliamentary election scheduled for next January is a key factor behind the decision by the Iraqi government.

Maliki would have found it damaging to his nationalistic credentials to not agree to the referendum given that Iraqi voters showed during the last provincial elections that they can oust key parties. During those elections held earlier this year, the largest Shia party, the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, failed to hold onto power in several key provinces, including Baghdad.

But there are some who believe even if a referendum is held, Iraqi leaders will convince their people not to reject the agreement given that time is running out for the U.S. military in Iraq regardless.

“The referendum means little in terms of hard value, because now we have an American administration that is keen to pull out its troops from Iraq,” said Laith Kubba, a former spokesman for the Iraqi government.

“Iraqi politicians will align themselves with their interests and will not rock the boat very hard, since it is not in their interests,” Kubba said.

Whether Iraqi leaders venture to publicly sell the deal to their constituencies during an election season and what verdict the public will pass on U.S. military’s presence remains to be seen. In their attempt to balance nationalism with realism and political survival, Iraqi politicians have a hard struggle ahead of them.

When U.S. President Barack Obama announced his plan last week to pull out all U.S. combat troops from Iraq by September 2010, the news did not generate much enthusiasm among Iraqi Kurds.

A simple math operation reveals the reasons behind the Kurds’ anxiety – add the withdrawal plan to the recent staggering victory of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s supporters in the country’s recent provincial elections.

Kurds are now counting on Obama’s oft-repeated pledge for a “responsible” withdrawal, hoping their interests will be preserved. But a review of statements by Kurdish and U.S. officials reveals the two sides are mostly talking at cross purposes when they speak of “responsibility.”

Recently, Kurdish Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani gave his interpretation of the term “responsible.”

“I restate that the role of the United States should be to help resolve the problems in Iraq such as Article 140, the oil law, and the law on the distribution of its oil wealth,” Barzani told reporters in the northern city of Irbil, tallying the list of contentious issues between Kurds and Iraqi government.

Article 140 refers to a constitutional provision to settle the critical issue of disputed territories between Kurds and Iraqi Arabs, including the gold-prize contested city of Kirkuk which is afloat on some of the world’s largest oil reserves.

But for the U.S., “responsibility” appears to mean making sure Iraqi security forces can take over the task of protecting the country against rebellious forces once it leaves. To achieve that end, the U.S. is equipping and training Iraqi security forces. But this is hardly reassuring to Kurds, many of whom see a conflict with Baghdad forthcoming in some form in the future.

When asked whether the U.S. will act to resolve the problems between Iraqi Arabs and Kurds before leaving the country, U.S. State Department spokesman Robert Wood replied: “It’s not really up to the United States to reassure anyone” and that Iraqis had to work out their differences through their “democracy.”

But the balance of power in Baghdad is quickly tilting toward forces which Kurds do not perceive as amenable. Just shortly before Obama officially declared the U.S. withdrawal plan, the Kurds’ number one opponent in Baghdad, PM Maliki, found himself in a boosted position as his coalition of the State of Law scored a quite unexpected victory in nine of Iraq’s 18 provinces including Baghdad, the country’s most populous city of around six million. With Kurds and Baghdad at odds over several crucial issues, Obama’s withdrawal plan would only further strengthen Maliki’s position.

Disputes between the country’s Kurds and central government go back to the early days of the foundation of modern Iraq by British colonialism in 1920s. At the heart of contention are large chunks of territory marking the separation line between Kurdish and Arab Iraq.

Iraqi governments, most notably under Saddam Hussein, expelled tens of thousands of Kurds and Turkomans from those areas and replaced them with Arab settlers. While Kurds want to annex these areas to their autonomous region known as Kurdistan, the vast majority of the country’s Arab political parties vehemently oppose such plans. Kurdish attempts to expand their federal region have sparked fierce reactions in Baghdad.

Spearheading a growing trend in Iraqi politics to abort Kurdish efforts and stalling the establishment of new autonomous regions is Shia Prime Minister Maliki. He has called for further centralisation of power in Baghdad, accusing Kurds of going overboard with their demands.

Besides strengthening Maliki’s position, the provincial elections delivered a major blow to the Kurds’ only powerful ally in Arab Iraq that advocates federalism: the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council, previously known to be the most powerful Shia Arab party in the country.

With their power in Baghdad thought to be in decline, Kurdish leaders are these days loudly beating their anti-Maliki drum to draw international attention to their problems with the rest of Iraq. PM Barzani told the Associated Press last month that he thinks Maliki is seeking a “confrontation” with the Kurds.

Kurdish officials have even reportedly called on Obama to appoint a special envoy to resolve their long-standing problems with Iraqi Arabs.

One Kurdish official took it even further, telling the Associated Press that al-Maliki was a “second Saddam.” The alleged statement by Kamal Kirkuki, Kurdish parliament deputy speaker, was so ill-calculated that he had to issue a statement denying that he ever gave an interview to the AP.

As tensions appear to escalate, a consensus is taking shape among many analysts that things are moving toward a possible flare-up point.

“The threat (of conflict) is real,” Kirmanj Gundi, head of the Kurdish National Congress (KNC) in North America, told IPS in a phone interview from Nashville, Tennessee, where the largest Kurdish community in North America resides.

“It’s unfortunate that the Kurdish leadership became more vocal about this only recently,” Gundi said. KNC is a non-profit organisation lobbying for Kurdish interests in the U.S. and Canada.

But concerns about a possible outbreak of conflict between Kurds and the Iraqi government have gone far beyond Kurdish circles.

“It is critical for the U.S. to start thinking about this now because as we proceed with the disengagement, our influence will wane in Iraq,” said Henry Barkey from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, of the need for the U.S. to address existing problems between Kurds and the Iraqi government before it leaves the war-torn country.

Barkey authored a report for the Washington-based think-tank on how to prevent conflict over Kurdistan. “Therefore, we need to hit the iron when it is hot. And so, it is very important to help and we haven’t done this in the past, to help look at some of these issues,” Barkey said on the sidelines of an event at Carnegie to discuss his report last month.

While Washington appears indifferent, at least in its official discourse, to calls for helping forge a common understanding between Iraqi Kurds and Arabs, tensions are continuing to build.

In an attempt to flex its muscles, the Iraqi government recently announced it will not recognise the visas stamped by Kurdish government on the passports of foreign visitors. It also tried to send an army division to take over security tasks in Kirkuk but had to halt the plan for the time being as it met stiff Kurdish opposition.

The coming two years – from now until the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq – will be decisive in determining how the Kurds’ relations with the central government and the country’s Arabs will turn out. But all signs are that Iraq is far from a long-term stability.