Why do we say that the Iraqi Kurds are trapped in a cocoon of gradual independence?

On the evening of September 29, the Iraqi government will close all international air routes in the northern cities of Erbil and Sulaymaniyah, cutting off the Kurdish Autonomous Region’s air corridors leading to the outside world. This is one of the punitive restrictive measures taken by the Iraqi government in response to the Kurds' unilateral organization of an independence referendum. According to the request of the Federal Parliament, the Iraqi government will not only take over all exit ports in the Kurdish area and station troops in disputed areas such as Kirkuk, but also instruct all governments and companies not to continue oil trade with the Kurdish area. The Iraqi government's countermeasures have been actively coordinated by neighboring countries such as Iran and Turkey. The Kurds, who risked promoting gradual independence, are trapped in a cocoon and face "isolated island" survival.

On the 25th, the Iraqi Kurdistan Region ignored the warnings and dissuasion of the federal government, neighboring countries and the international community and insisted on launching an independence referendum within and outside the Kurdistan Region. On the 27th, the Independent Referendum Commission announced that the referendum collected 3.086 million valid votes, with a voting rate of 72%, of which 92.73% were in favor of the vote, 7.2% were against, and there were approximately 250,000 invalid votes. The committee said the valid votes included electronic votes from Kurds living in exile abroad. It is estimated that there are more than 30 million Kurds in the Middle East, including 20 million in Turkey, about 10 million in Iran, about 5.5 million in Iraq, and more than 2.2 million in Syria. In addition, there are about 10 million Kurds in Europe, Armenia and Georgia.

This referendum not only covers the three autonomous provinces recognized by federal law, Huk, Erbil and Sulaymaniyah, but also includes Nineveh, Tamim, Diyala and Saleh al-Din and other parts of four provinces. The above-mentioned areas were once occupied by Kurds. After the British promoted Iraq's independence from the Ottoman Empire in the 1920s, successive governments changed the population structure through "Arabization" and forced immigration. For a time, Arabs and Turkmen became the peripheral areas outside the three provinces of the autonomous region. the dominant ethnic group in the region. However, Kurdish leaders have always regarded the Greater Kurdistan Region as their traditional territory and have long been in overt and covert competition with the central government.

Affected by the ideological trend of various ethnic independence movements after World War I and the influence of geopolitical forces, the Kurdish separatist movement in Iraq has always been relatively strong and has the most significant actual results. Even if they coexist peacefully within the two political frameworks of the Republic of Korea and the federal system, the Kurdish political parties have always emphasized the equal status of Kurds and Arabs, opposed giving Iraq exclusive Arab attributes, and boycotted the relationship between Iraq and other Arab countries. United under the banner of pan-nationalism and claiming to reserve the right to establish an independent nation at any time. The long-term turmoil and war in Iraq, as well as the intervention of external forces, especially the subjective and objective support from Iran and the United States after Saddam Hussein came to power, have made the Kurdish separatist movement increasingly fierce, and they have used a "salami-cutting" method to promote gradual independence, gradually forming a referendum showdown situation.

During the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s, the Iraqi Kurdish armed forces joined forces with the enemy Iran to attack the Central Army from the north and south, which had lost its battlefield advantage. For this reason, they were attacked by chemical weapons in retaliation. After the Gulf War in 1991, the Kurds and the Shia Arabs in the south rebelled again. The United States and Britain designated a "no-fly zone" to suppress the Iraqi government's use of air force to counter the rebellion. The Kurdish region has since entered the period of "independent kingdom". When the United States overthrew Saddam Hussein's regime in 2003, Iraq's traditional power structure and political system were completely overturned. Not only did a Kurd become president for the first time, he also successfully promoted Iraq's transformation from a communist state to a federal system, thereby gaining semi-independent legal status: the Kurdish region not only It has independent legislative, judicial and executive powers, as well as independent armed and border control powers.

In the following ten years or so, the continued stable and safe development environment, abundant natural resources, oil revenue and foreign investment have promoted great changes in urban and rural areas of Iraq's Kurdistan Region, and have further fermented separatism. The Kurdish government actively encourages Kurds to return and settle in traditional settlement areas, and also threatens and induces local Arab and Turkmen residents to emigrate, promoting the reversal of the population structure of the greater Kurdish region. After the "Islamic State" armed forces seized northwest Iraq in 2014, the Kurds rose to become a key ally of the United States in counter-terrorism. Not only were they protected by thousands of U.S. troops and received generous financial and equipment support, but they also used the war on terrorism to seize cities and territories to expand and consolidate their control over the second-largest U.S. military. The actual control of the city of Mosul and the oil town of Kirkuk laid the foundation of strength for the independence referendum.

Iraqi’s Kurdish leaders have repeatedly claimed that the referendum will not directly lead to the independence of the Kurdish region, but is an expression of political will and is the basis for negotiations with the federal government to expand political and financial rights. Some analysts believe that the current leaders of the Kurdistan Region have been in power illegally for two years and are trying to create crises to rally public opinion and maintain power. However, the independence referendum is an extremely dangerous step on the ground and is one of the key steps towards legal independence. It will inevitably lead to firm opposition from the federal government and trigger categorical boycotts and joint sanctions from neighboring countries such as Iran, Turkey and Syria.

On the 28th, the Iraqi Kurdistan Region government announced its rejection of a series of blockades and power reduction measures by the federal government, calling them "both illegal and unconstitutional collective punishment" and would launch a legal fight. Iran and Turkey not only quickly cooperated with the Iraqi government's air blockade and port control, but also held unilateral and joint military exercises in border areas to conduct armed demonstrations. Previously, Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey have formed a new axis of cross-faction geopolitical competition. In the future, they are bound to form a new community of interests, destiny and security to safeguard sovereignty and territorial integrity, and work together to contain and attack any country. Kurdish separatist attempts.

Therefore, the Iraqi Kurds are just beginning to ask for trouble.