The Bush admin­is­tra­tion has decided the “Kurds can keep their spe­cial status”:http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/05/international/middleeast/05KURD.html in Iraq, because the accel­er­ated timetable for hand­ing over sov­er­eignty by June 30 is too quick to solve the prob­lem.

“Once we struck the Nov. 15 agree­ment, there was a real­iza­tion that it was best not to touch too heav­ily on the sta­tus quo,” said an admin­is­tra­tion offi­cial. “The big issue of fed­er­al­ism in the Kur­dish con­text will have to wait for the Iraqis to resolve. For us to try to resolve it in a month or two is sim­ply too much to attempt.”

Indeed, this will be a thorny issue. There is wide­spread fear that a loose fed­er­a­tion — what the Kurds are demand­ing — could lead to inde­pen­dence for Iraqi Kur­dis­tan, trig­ger­ing insta­bil­ity through­out the region. Turkey is con­stantly mak­ing growl­ing noises that the Iraqis Kurds should be kept on a tight leash in Bagh­dad through a cen­tral­ized gov­ern­ment.
This deci­sion basi­cally for­mal­izes the cur­rent sta­tus quo, with the Kurds hav­ing their own gov­ern­ment that is more or less inde­pen­dent of Bagh­dad. They cur­rently have con­trol over their bor­ders with Syria, Iran and Turkey, their own secu­rity forces with the _peshmergas_ and sub­stan­tial abil­ity to col­lect taxes and other rev­enues. Where Kirkuk fits into all this is unclear, but the Kurds want it. As Mas­soud Barzani, head of the Kur­dis­tan Demo­c­ra­tic Party “said:”:http://www.krg.org/docs/mb-federalism-kurdistan-dec03.asp

The exist­ing [self-rule] sit­u­a­tion of the Kurds is their legit­i­mate right and it is based on the right to self-determination, which is part of inter­na­tional law. After 12 years of self-rule, with­out the con­trol of the Bagh­dad gov­ern­ment, the Kurds will not accept less than their exist­ing sit­u­a­tion. They aspire for the inclu­sion of the other Kur­dish areas in the Kur­dis­tan region, which, before the lib­er­a­tion of Iraq, were sub­ject to the pol­icy of demo­graphic change by the [for­mer] cen­tral author­ity.
Those who are inter­ested in the issue of a united Iraq, should know very well that it would be dif­fi­cult for them to con­vince the Kur­dish peo­ple after all these tragedies, ordeals and dis­place­ment poli­cies to remain deprived from their rights in Iraq. This makes it essen­tial that the brother Arabs respect the Kur­dish deci­sion and would not be hes­i­tant regard­ing [the ful­fil­ment of] any right of the Kur­dish rights in Iraq. By this I mean that there are now some Iraqi and for­eign sides that, to some extent, point to the fed­er­al­ism of gov­er­norates, which is rejected by the Kurds, because the Kur­dish peo­ple have not been strug­gling through­out his­tory for sep­a­rat­ing the Kur­dish gov­er­norates from each other. They have strug­gled for the safe­guard­ing of Kurdistan’s his­tor­i­cal bor­ders and not dis­man­tling it. The Kurds’ achieve­ments in 1970 [when their polit­i­cal move­ment signed the 11 March 1970 agree­ment with the Iraqi gov­ern­ment, rec­og­niz­ing an autonomous sta­tus for the Kurds to be pro­claimed within four years], were far more than fed­er­al­ism of the gov­er­norates, which is called for now.
The Iraqi issue should not be set­tled sep­a­rately from the Kur­dish issue, because the Kur­dish peo­ple, who have a cause, con­sider that fed­er­al­ism is the best solu­tion for their issue. There­fore, all future [Iraqi] gov­ern­ments should avoid the fatal errors that suc­ces­sive Iraqi gov­ern­ments in Bagh­dad have com­mit­ted, and not neglect the will of the Kur­dish peo­ple, because it is a will which is gen­er­ated from an end­less strength. The Kur­dish peo­ple will not allow its will, which is insep­a­ra­ble from the will of the Kur­dis­tan par­lia­ment, to be neglected.

As for the Amer­i­cans to just kind of pass this issue off on the Iraqis, it’s wor­ri­some, but not really sur­pris­ing. The Amer­i­cans orig­i­nally planned to rapidly rein­te­grate Iraqi Kur­dis­tan into the new Iraq, but the post-war chaos and the CPA’s strug­gles to estab­lish itself quickly caused that plan to be jet­ti­soned. The _peshmergas_ were exempted from the gen­eral order to dis­arm Iraqi mili­tia. And after the CPA asked them to dis­man­tle check­points between their ter­ri­tory and the rest of Iraq, the Kurds were then asked to re-establish them when the secu­rity sit­u­a­tion failed to sta­bi­lize.
As Barzani said, this is _the_ issue that will lit­er­ally make or break a new Iraq, and the wrong moves made in the heat of the moment could lead to the splin­ter­ing of the coun­try, civil war or a regional con­flict involv­ing Turkey and Iran. It really needs to be han­dled del­i­cately, and the Amer­i­cans — as the dom­i­nant power in the region — need to be deeply involved. (In the same way the Amer­i­cans should be involved in the Israeli-Palestinian con­flict.) Nation­al­ism runs deep in Iraq, Kur­dish and oth­er­wise, and I’m not con­vinced that events and the pas­sions of a Kur­dish pop­u­lace won’t get out of hand, despite the best inten­tions of politi­cians.
Still, maybe this will work out OK. But don’t for­get the Turkomen and the Arabs of Kirkuk. They will protest loudly about this, and prob­a­bly vio­lently. The Kurds will have to be on their best behav­ior to prove to the Turks to the north and the Sunni Mus­lims to the south that they can be trusted to respect their rights in areas under Kur­dish con­trol. No, Kurds don’t have their rights respected in Turkey to the degree that “Turkomen are pro­tected in Iraq”:http://www.back-to-iraq.com/archives/000360.php#000360 — even now. Yes, it’s a dou­ble stan­dard. But it’s a stan­dard that has to be met if the Iraq is to stay uni­fied.
Boy, this just delayed my essay on the Kurds.