Analysis: A Tale of Two Iraqi Cities
Council on Foreign Relations
June 29, 2006
Prepared by: Lionel Beehner
To date, most of the ink spilled on Iraq has been devoted to the country's escalating violence, its substandard reconstruction, the Sunni Triangle, or the political goings-on in the Green Zone. Less attention has been paid to the south and north, whose provincial councils are looking to break further away from Baghdad. Yet the future of a democratic Iraq could depend on flashpoints like Basra and Kirkuk.
Both cities are politically fractured, militia infested, and oil rich. Kurds refer with reverence to Kirkuk (GlobalSecurity.org) as their Jerusalem. They stand accused by Shiite nationalists and Sunnis—both generally opposed to federalism—of reversing years of Saddam-imposed Arabization and repatriating the city with expelled Kurds, the better to influence a December 2007 referendum on the city's future (VOA). Some in Baghdad—not to mention Ankara—say if Kirkuk falls to the Kurds, full-fledged autonomy may come next. That is why, as CFR Fellow Steve Cook and Adjunct Senior Fellow Elizabeth Sherwood Randall say, Turkey has pressed Washington to change the Iraqi constitution, which calls for a referendum on Kirkuk's status next year.
Meanwhile, Basra has emerged as what Eurasia Group's Peter Khalil calls "the lifeline to the Iraqi government." The city holds Iraq's richest oil fields and conveniently hugs the Persian Gulf. Shiite militias, criminal gangs, and a corrupt governor all vie for control of Basra's violence-prone streets. Smuggling remains rampant. Political consensus is rare.
Read the rest of this article on the cfr.org website.
Copyright 2006 by the Council on Foreign Relations. This material is republished on GlobalSecurity.org with specific permission from the cfr.org. Reprint and republication queries for this article should be directed to cfr.org.
|
NEWSLETTER
|
| Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list |
|
|
|
