Up North

Ah, Kurdistan, model of democracy, where Leila Fadel reports that a pass system has been put in place to restrict the movement of Arabs:

Every three months, Munawer Fayeq Rashid goes to the Asayech, an intelligence security agency in Irbil, and hands over his identification. The Shiite Muslim Arab never goes alone. He has to bring a Kurdish sponsor to vouch for him. [...] After a battery of questions and the testimony of a Kurd to vouch for them, would-be residents are issued special ID cards that allow them to live in the city. The card must be renewed every three months. If a person wants to visit another city in the Kurdish region, he or she must have a Kurdish sponsor in that city, too.

This seems to be about half "draconian measure necessary to keep Kurdistan relatively safe" and half "discrimination against Arabs for its own sake" but whichever way you look at it, it takes some of the sheen off Kurdistan-as-shining-model. Meanwhile, bloody fighting around a Kirkuk referendum remains just around the corner.

Comments

Kurdistan is Iraq's Kosovo. It's going to declare its independence in a few years.

Posted by Helter | February 19, 2008 1:21 PM

Seems entirely reasonable to me. If they're under constant threat of arabs sneaking up there blowing themselves up. We might consider something similar...

Posted by Pnut | February 19, 2008 1:22 PM

Kurds clearly aren't sold on the benefits of multiculturalism and ethnic diversity. Perhaps they've read Robert Putnam's Bowling Alone?

Posted by Juan | February 19, 2008 1:32 PM

Kurdistan-as-shining-model

If only! Matthew seems to be putting forth a straw man.

Kurdistan has always had a somewhat screwed up democracy. It was a "shining model" only in contrast to, well, the rest of the Middle East. But of course Kurdistan's democracy is young; these things take time. Nobody expects Kurdistan (or any fledgling democracy, for that matter) to turn into Belgium in less than two decades.

Posted by Al | February 19, 2008 1:50 PM

From an Iraqi/Kurdish viewpoint, it's hard to see how anything could trump the goal of a stable, legitimate state free of large-scale violence. By that standard, Kurdistan still looks pretty good.

Posted by lemuel pitkin | February 19, 2008 1:51 PM

From an Iraqi/Kurdish viewpoint, it's hard to see how anything could trump the goal of a stable, legitimate state free of large-scale violence. By that standard, Kurdistan still looks pretty good.

Kurdistan is currently the site of a pitched campaign to determine which of two competing corrupt oligarchies will rule it, so I don't understand appeals to "legitimacy." If your goal was stability and freedom from large-scale violence, of course, Saddam was pretty much the business.

Posted by Freddie | February 19, 2008 1:58 PM

"If your goal was stability and freedom from large-scale violence, of course, Saddam was pretty much the business."

Great point, Freddie. Too bad the Kurds are too stupid to realize how good they had it under Saddam.

Posted by Fred | February 19, 2008 2:07 PM

The benefit of using large numbers of deaths (Iraq War) to achieve a distant end (democracy in the MidEast) is hard to see. Particularly when there are other more plausible motives (American hegemony over a substantial slice of remaining oil reserves) for those deaths.

Peak Oil rather than Col. Bluster's (McCain's and other's) resolve will dry up American presence in Iraq far sooner than McCain's 100 years. We aren't, after all, pitching democratic woo in the hundred or so other democratic government abysses in the world.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | February 19, 2008 2:10 PM

Jeffrey Davis,

You do realize that we (and other oil purchasers) buy oil from Iraq, right? We don't get any hegemon's discount.

Posted by Fred | February 19, 2008 2:27 PM

"Nobody expects Kurdistan (or any fledgling democracy, for that matter) to turn into Belgium in less than two decades."

Even the Belgians have their troubles.

Bevrijden Vlaanderen!

Posted by Njorl | February 19, 2008 2:54 PM

Uh Freddie, you do know that under Saddam, Kurdistan certainly _wasn't_ free of large-scale violence. For Kurdistan at least, Saddam certainly wasn't the business.

Posted by Hektor Bim | February 19, 2008 3:06 PM

Nobody expects Kurdistan (or any fledgling democracy, for that matter) to turn into Belgium in less than two decades.

Well, except Dick "we will be greeted as liberators" Cheney.

And, um, Bush circa December 2005: "Democracy In Iraq Will Inspire A Region And Help Defeat An Enemy. When the new government takes office next year, Iraqis will have the only constitutional democracy in the Arab world, and Americans will have a partner for peace and moderation in the Middle East...As liberty spreads across the Middle East, the terrorists will lose their sponsors, recruits, and the sanctuaries they need to plan attacks." http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/12/20051212-1.html

Posted by anonymiss | February 19, 2008 3:33 PM

Fred, that's a rather pointless strawman. We're there to make sure the spice flows. Once there's not enough oil to make it worth our while, we'll skedaddle. More precisely, once there's so little oil that whomever controls won't be a threat, we'll skedaddle.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | February 19, 2008 3:47 PM

This isn't new, it has been in place for over two years. And there are restrictions on property ownership and purchasing for Arabs as well. Kurdistan is the new Lebanon, a half-democratic region with the apartheid of the other half hidden out of view from outsiders.

Posted by Haddad | February 19, 2008 4:23 PM

under Saddam, Kurdistan certainly _wasn't_ free of large-scale violence.

Right, that's exactly why I included that phrase in what (I imagine) Kurds want.

I'm sorry, but it's just not reasonable to hold people building a state in a poor, war-torn country to the same standard that we governments in rich countries. Given the circumstances, Kurdistan is entitled to a a lot of slack on things like pass laws that would be appalling if someone proposed them in the US or Europe. If the Kurds can establish a state with peaceful transfers of power, the rule of law, and an absence of organized killing, they deserve our full support -- and indeed our admiration.

Posted by lemuel pitkin | February 19, 2008 4:45 PM

This seems to be about half "draconian measure necessary to keep Kurdistan relatively safe" and half "discrimination against Arabs for its own sake" but whichever way you look at it, it takes some of the sheen off Kurdistan-as-shining-model.

I'd say none of the above. Too many Arab Iraqis have proved to be as irrational and barbaric as their counterparts in Saudi Arabia. It seems perfectly appropriate for the Kurds to want to exclude an element they consider destabilizing and, more importantly, foreign.

I should also mention that the Kurds, rightly or wrongly, probably still blame Iraqi Arabs for gassing them.

We're there to make sure the spice flows. Once there's not enough oil to make it worth our while, we'll skedaddle.

"The spice" was flowing just fine before we invaded. There's no conspiracy to steal Iraqi oil. Never was. We could start stealing Iraqi oil anytime we want. We haven't.

The US invaded Iraq because of the erroneous Neoconservative theory that Democracy causes an embrace of liberal modernity (which I personally believe is exactly backwards). Due to its location, the unique odiousness of its previous regime, and the fact that we were still technically at war with it, Iraq made an ideal test case.

Regarding this peak-oil, Ragnarok, doom-and-gloom stuff, I suggest you take it to a Dianetics convention. I hear they like science fiction at those.

Posted by Shinyk | February 19, 2008 4:49 PM

Ditto pitkin. Let's swear off the condescending digs at legitimate allies who have suffered appalling oppression, and are working in good faith to restore civilization to a place that has forgotten most of what it once knew about it.

Posted by Robert Powell | February 19, 2008 5:05 PM

The US invaded Iraq because of the erroneous Neoconservative theory that Democracy causes an embrace of liberal modernity (which I personally believe is exactly backwards). Due to its location, the unique odiousness of its previous regime, and the fact that we were still technically at war with it, Iraq made an ideal test case.

The jury is still out on this. How long has there been liberal modernity in the West. Not very long.

The Middle East is a mess because it was a Cold War playground and add in religion and the European Jewish colonial state Israel. It will take a while to recover.

Interesting to see how Bush's experiment in democracy is going. Palestianians voter for Hamas (i.e. against corrupt Fatah, whom Israel gave nothing to show the voters) and this week against Musharaff in Pakistan. Actually voting is kind of working. To bad anti-war people unrealistically need thing to get better at hyperspeed.

Posted by Peter K. | February 19, 2008 5:07 PM

Its not just about he past, its about the future.

The Arabs want the oil under Kurdish lands, have been trying to "Arabize" those regions for a long while now, and are NOT going to stop now. This has tradionaly involved moving Arabs in to displace Kurds in the oil-rich lands. One might understand why the Kurds have decided not to let this happen, now that they have the power to have a say in it.

Posted by libarbarian | February 19, 2008 5:10 PM

We don't get any hegemon's discount

In fact, American oil companies are trying to negotiate their discount as we speak by trying to get the Iraqis to agree to production sharing agreements. Discounted oil (essentialy) for decades in exchange for investment.

Further, having installed a friendly government and hundreds of thousands of troops on U.S. bases means we can control access to this oil as it becomes a scarcer commodity.

That's why Bush so confidently says that "history will judge the war as a success" despite the specatuclar clusterfuck it obviously is so far. He's betting on future oil wars in which he thinks the U.S. will now have an advantage, having staked our claim in Iraq.

Posted by trex | February 19, 2008 5:21 PM

The Middle East is a mess because it was a Cold War playground and add in religion and the European Jewish colonial state Israel. It will take a while to recover.

I disagree. British colonialism and US/Soviet power games certainly weren't good for the Middle East, but there are many examples of areas that were subject to both, yet have managed to move beyond both miedevalism and tribal culture. I suspect the Middle East's primary problem is its own culture, which was not created by but has, instead, survived colonialism and the cold war.

Interesting to see how Bush's experiment in democracy is going. Palestianians voter for Hamas (i.e. against corrupt Fatah, whom Israel gave nothing to show the voters) and this week against Musharaff in Pakistan. Actually voting is kind of working.

Voting is working insomuch as Middle Easterners may be getting less corrupt governance, but that's only relevent if you believe the primary problem in the Middle East is corruption (or, at least, rooted in corruption).

I don't. As I've said, I believe the Middle East's deficiencies are in its cultural inability to move beyond miedevalism, barbarism, illiberalism, etc. Take your Hamas example. Yes, Hamas is less corrupt than Fatah. But if that lower level of corruption comes with more miedevalism and barbarism, and an even greater rejection of liberal modernity, how is that an improvement? Ditto for Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Posted by Shinyk | February 19, 2008 6:04 PM

Matthew seems to be putting forth a straw man.

I don't know, I see the Kurds in Iraq described as "the good guys" regularly. Particularly by those supporting the Iraq war.

Christopher Hitchens wrote a lengthy article not too long ago claiming that an American mother whose son died "defending a free Kurdistan" would have something to be proud of.

This despite fairly repressive actions against dissent by the Kurdish leadership, the use of Kurdish militias to purge Arabs and Turkmen from northern cities, the attempt to grab the northern oil fields and support of groups bombing Turkish cities.

It looks like plenty of the commentors to this post agree with him.

Posted by Jinchi | February 19, 2008 8:51 PM

"In fact, American oil companies are trying to negotiate their discount as we speak by trying to get the Iraqis to agree to production sharing agreements. Discounted oil (essentialy) for decades in exchange for investment."

Oil gets sold for the market price no matter who extracts it, there's no discount. Iraq needs the capital, engineering expertise, equipment, and skilled personnel of leading oil companies to develop the full potential of its oil fields. Considering the amount of blood and treasure the U.S. (and, to a lesser extent, Britain) have spent liberating Iraq from its despotic dictator, and defending it from nihilistic terrorists, it would be fitting for Iraq to give those contracts to American and British companies.

Posted by Fred | February 19, 2008 9:23 PM

Fred: "You do realize that we (and other oil purchasers) buy oil from Iraq, right? We don't get any hegemon's discount."

This is one of the more moronic statements I've read recently.

On a par with:

Powell: "Let's swear off the condescending digs at legitimate allies who have suffered appalling oppression, and are working in good faith to restore civilization to a place that has forgotten most of what it once knew about it."

And followed by this nonsense:

"There's no conspiracy to steal Iraqi oil. Never was. We could start stealing Iraqi oil anytime we want. We haven't...

Regarding this peak-oil, Ragnarok, doom-and-gloom stuff, I suggest you take it to a Dianetics convention. I hear they like science fiction at those."

First of all, the oil situation is Iraq is a disaster in the first place, due to the sanctions before the war, the war, the insurgency since the war, and the general technical incompetence of the Iraqis at oil field maintenance.

Second, in comes the oil companies who want to sign PSA contracts to basically loot the oil over the next fifty years or whatever, until it runs out, giving the Iraqis a pittance for it. This has nothing to do with the "market price" some end user pays for it.

Third, the two main Kurdish political parties are basically run by warlords who are corrupt and known to participate in various occupations which would be illegal anywhere else but Kurdistan.

Not to mention the other little nationalist groups that run around under their protection, like the PKK.

Fourth, Peak Oil is by all accounts I can find quite real. Naturally, this doesn't mean oil is going away. It just means it's going to get more expensive (at least until they figure out a way to use nanotech or something to get to the shale oil and the "heavy oil" in places like Venezuela - which reputedly has five times the reserves of Saudi Arabia - if you can get at it.)

Fifth, anybody who doesn't remember the maps of Iraq with the oil fields laid out in Dick Cheney's little "energy commission" isn't paying attention.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | February 19, 2008 10:53 PM

Rephrasing Richard Steven Hack's second point:

The war is about oil, but not about getting oil to flow cheaply to U.S. consumers.

Posted by Glaivester | February 20, 2008 1:15 AM

Perhaps the most notable single thing about the war in Iraq is the amount of willful ignorance some people persist in trying to spread about it.

--"The US invaded Iraq because of...erroneous Neocon theory...". Wrong. Three-fourths of the US Senate, including a majority of the Democrats, are "neocons"? Please.

We invaded Iraq (twice) because of its persistently outrageous behavior in perhaps the single most geostrategically important place on the globe. Invading the neighbors, killing millions, developing AND USING wmd's, disrupting the world economy, on-going defiance of 16 Chapter VII Resolutions, including the ceasefire agreement...name another state with such a record. Just one.

--Oil is currently the lifeblood of the world economy. Wishing this wasn't so doesn't change that fact. We don't get the majority of our oil from the Persian Gulf, but our trading partners in Europe and Asia do. States have been going to war to protect unfettered trade in vital commodities since there were states. This is not a fact that's as exciting as various dark conspiracy theories to those wishing to project an image of hard-bitten, cynical truth-tellers valiantly opposing The Bad Guys, but it's the truth of the matter.

--While some may have imagined an immediate tidal wave of democratization in the Middle East from the liberation of Iraq, no one who knows very much about the region was among them. That said, it was the consensus of the leadership of the world's most important democracies that "regime change" in Iraq was the only plausible way left to address the problems the Ba'athist regime had created. If you remove a regime, you're obligated to replace it with something. Why not democracy? It will take a while, but most objective observers acknowledge that the current situation has significant potential for solving, or at least making progress on, a number of persistent problems.

Posted by Robert Powell | February 20, 2008 5:04 AM