Kurdish Mediocrity

Lilan Ahmad | Exclusive to iKurd.net

Love is blind. This applies to the Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) strategic relationship with the United States. The weapons, empty statements of support, and endless compliments on the Peshmerga’s fighting capabilities have done little but inflate the heads of Kurdish leaders. This has essentially engendered total political overconfidence and ultimately translated into the failed September Kurdish referendum.

For the Kurds, having fearlessly fought for independence since the aftermath of World War I, the referendum is little more than a symbol of Kurdish mediocrity.

I thus argue that aside from the KRG’s desperate inclination to win the hearts and minds of its Kurdish populace for the sake of its own political survival against the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), if there is to be any future prospect of independence, then it would be in the Kurd’s best interest to see these same leaders prioritize political reform and independence at home.

The rapid economic development from 2008 to 2012 was predominately financed by Iraq’s oil wealth and not a self-sustaining Kurdish economy. The KRG’s decision in 2014 to bypass Baghdad with independent oil sales via Turkey, in tandem with the drop in oil prices and the costs of the military campaign against the Islamic State, exacerbated its economic vulnerability.

Although the KRG has cut spending and raised taxes, it failed to ever effectively address its financial and political issues. Hence we see a strong public diplomacy campaign reaching as far as the public relations offices of H&M where models donned traditional Peshmerga garb back in 2014, celebrating its Peshmerga’s fight against evil. Campaigns like these have done well in distracting its Kurdish populace and to a greater extent, the United States, away from the pertinent domestic issues that point to the incompetent leadership being usurped by KRG representatives.

Hero Ibrahim Ahmed, her son Qubad and Bafel Talabani — PUK leader and Jalal Talabani’s wife Hero Ibrahim Ahmed (C), her son Qubad (R) and Bafel (L), have been accused by observers and Kurdish opposition of amassing huge wealth for the family instead of serving the population, March 8, 2017. Photo: iKurd.net/NRT

Currently, the KRG is more than $20 billion in debt, it hasn’t fully paid its civil servants in more than two years, and it is encountering further worsening living conditions.

With that being said, rather than appeasing to the cries and wishes of the U.S., the KRG would do well to reinvest in the kinds of institutions that can lead to and ultimately sustain an independent entity. This means a dynamic parliament, an independent judiciary, and an anti-corruption agency that works in conjunction with the Judiciary. These institutions are pivotal to a well engined, just civil society.

If, however, the KRG continues to settle for its role as a mere chess piece amongst its neighbors and an American proxy, we will eventually lie witness to a Kurdish spring. Once denoting a positive connotation, now brewing with growing discontent – particularly from Kurdish youth.

Lilan Ahmad, a Kurdish writer based in Iraqi Kurdistan. She is an occasional contributing writer for iKurd.net.

The opinions are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of iKurd.net or its editors.