We can use another ally in the Middle East. For now ISIS is avoiding pockets of resistance.
Via The Guardian
Iraq inched closer to partition on Thursday as the president of the country’s autonomous Kurdish region asked MPs to start making plans for an independence referendum.
Speaking in the Kurdish parliament in Irbil, Massoud Barzani said he no longer felt bound by the Iraqi constitution, which enshrines the unity of the state, and asked MPs to start preparations for a vote on the right of self-determination, which would represent the Kurds’ boldest move towards statehood in 94 years.
“The time has come to determine our fate and we should not wait for other people to determine it for us,” Barzani said. The Kurds’ historic ambition for a nation state has been given new momentum by the lightning advance of Sunni militants from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isis) – and Iraqi politicians’ inability to act decisively in the face of the insurgent threat.
Iraq’s national flag is now rarely seen in northern Iraq, and the Kurdish colours have been raised above all government buildings in Kirkuk, which Kurdish forces seized when the Iraqi army fled in the face of the Isis advance two weeks ago.
Government forces clashed again on Thursday with Isis militants near Tikrit, the home town of Saddam Hussein, which the army has been trying to retake for more than a week.
Kurdish fighters have engaged with Isis largely to defend Kurdish interests. In his speech Barzani said: “We will try to help our Shia and Sunni brothers … to get out of this crisis, but to be truthful we will [be responsible for] a new people [Kurds] who believe in coexistence, democracy and constitution. We will not deal with those who sabotaged the country.”
Earlier this week, Barzani suggested that an independence referendum could be held within two months, a move that would redraw Iraq’s current borders and in all likelihood spread deep instability in what remained of the country.
The fallout would be unlikely to stop there: Turkey, Iran and Syria are all skittish about Kurdish claims to sovereignty. Turkey, in particular, has fought a decades-long and bloody insurgency against Kurdish separatists in its south-east, who would be keenly watching developments.