The Permanent and New Realities Facing the Kurdistan Regional Government: Options and Prospects

摘要

This article analyzes the permanent and new realities of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG). The permanent reality is that it is merely a landlocked, rump territory surrounded by powerful enemies. Thus, a guarantee of continuing US protection remains the number one priority of the KRG. On the other hand, the new reality is that the KRG has become a de facto state since the defeat of Saddam Hussein in 1991. The US shattered the highly centralized unitary state of Iraq when it overthrew Saddam Hussein in 2003. The resulting civil war is leading to what seems a new reality of a decentralized Iraq partitioned de facto between the Shiites, Sunnis, and Kurds. Intelligent statecraft would seem to suggest working within this new reality to achieve a new stability. An acceptable model for the Kurds in the new Iraq may be found in Quebec's position in the Canadian federal system. Although the provinces own the natural resources in Canada, the federal constitution establishes an equalization program that shares the wealth with the other provinces. If federalism does not work, however, the KRG will move toward independence.