Turnabout for the Kurds

O h the Kurds.

Our favorite downtrodden minority in the Middle East has had a bad few weeks.

Earlier this month it seemed as though Kurdistan might be ready for a shiny new seat at the United Nations. But a tragic turn of events has the long-dispossessed minority driving backwards. The man who arranged the Kurdish independence referendum Kurdish president Masoud Barzani is now set to resign and Iraqi troops have occupied large parts of Kirkuk the Kurds’ putative capital.

How’d we get here?

The fateful day was October 16 when the Iraqi army backed by Iran-affiliated Shiite militias moved into Kirkuk and captured key oil fields largely without resistance. Those oil fields were the key to Kurdish independence dreams but also at the heart of the dispute with Baghdad. Iraq doesn’t want to give away what represents 40 percent of its national oil store to the Kurds whose economy in turn depends on crude exports.

So why wasn’t there a tooth-and-nail fight for the engine that would drive Kurdish independence? Iran happened. The PUK (Patriotic Union of Kurdistan) a rival to Barzani’s Kurdish Democratic Party struck a deal with Major General Qasem Soleimani commander of the Quds Force the elite branch of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards. Soleimani made an offer the PUK couldn’t refuse: either withdraw or we’ll run you into the mountains. The PUK got the message allowing the Iranians to walk in. Barzani was of course livid calling the PUK traitors to the Kurdish cause.