New battle in Iraq gives Iran the upper hand

For months, there have been warnings that the Islamic State's eventual defeat in Iraq and Syria would only spark a number of far more complicated and arguably more dangerous conflicts. We may now be seeing the first of those conflicts erupt in northern Iraq, where two close US allies have commenced combat over the future of the nation, The Washington Post reported.

Adding to the dangerous mix is the alleged involvement of Iranian-backed militia in the fighting, which comes just days after President Trump singled out Tehran's “destabilizing” activities across the Middle East as he announced his plans to decertify the nuclear agreement with Iran. Any rash decisions on Trump's part could be a boon for exactly the Iranian activities he has denounced.

The dispute is centered around Kirkuk, an ethnically and religiously mixed city in the country's north that straddles Iraq's sectarian lines and sits next to major oil fields. The city had been under the control of Kurdish forces since 2014, when Iraq's national army crumbled in retreat from the Islamic State. Early Monday, Iraqi forces pushed back. The Washington Post said that Baghdad-allied troops said they had seized a military base, an oil field and other key infrastructure from Kurdish forces.

Overnight, as those troops approached, there were widespread fears of considerable bloodshed: Kirkuk is home to sizable populations of Kurds, Arabs and Turkmen, and relations among the groups have long been uneasy. In the end, the skirmishes were smaller but still worrying — one video shared online showed a number of dead bodies wearing the uniforms of Kurdish peshmerga soldiers. "This is the result of disobedience of Masoud Barzani," the Iraqi fighter who was filming said, referring to the leader of Iraqi Kurdistan.

But there are concerns that the battles could be a prelude to greater violence if the two sides don't de-escalate — a situation that would force the United States to make some awkward choices about whom it should back if push really comes to shove.

It's startling how quickly things have deteriorated. Just a few months ago, the Defense Department said the level of cooperation between the Iraqi government and the Kurdish Regional Government was “unprecedented,” dubbing the peshmerga a “critical partner in counter-ISIS operations.”

Then came the independence referendum that Barzani held on Sept. 25, in which almost 93 percent of Iraqi Kurds voted to break away. The referendum did not have the backing of Baghdad, and most of the international community — including the United States, normally a staunch Kurdish ally — opposed the referendum on the grounds that it undermined Iraqi statehood. Iraq's neighbors were furious about the vote, which seemed to embolden claims for statehood among their own Kurdish minorities. Iran in particular seemed incensed, given the close ties between Iraqi and Iranian Kurds.

Source: MENA