Apparently Mosul has fallen to ISIS (The Islamic State of Iraq and Al-ShamsAl-Sham (Damascus); Al-Shams (literally ‘the sun’) translates here as ‘the Levant’ (thanks to Ankaralı Jan on Twitter for the correction)). This is not good news; ISIS is an al-Qaida affiliate, rumoured to be funded by Saudi Arabia, rumoured to have had any Saudi funding emphatically withdrawn, rumoured to be seen as ‘too extreme’ by al-Qaida. As for Mosul, it’s in the North. Iraq is the shape of a truncated triangle; it has six land borders, three long and three relatively short. In the south it borders Jordan (SW), Saudi Arabia (S, long) and Kuwait (SE); carrying on round, you get to Iran (NE, long), Turkey (N) and Syria (NW, long). (Historic Kurdistan straddles northern Iraq, southern Turkey, north-east Syria and north-west Iran; this is one reason why the Kurds have never got anywhere (or been allowed to get anywhere) with state-building.) Mosul, in the North, is more or less midway between the north-eastern regions, bordering Iran, which are held by the Kurdish Regional Government and the regions bordering Syria which are already effectively held by ISIS. (Another correction: got the geography completely scrambled in the first draft. Confession: I tend to get East and West confused on maps if I can’t see Wales or Russia.)
Meanwhile in Cheetham Hill:
I know this is basically anecdotal taxi driver journalism stuff but the shawarma joints run by Syrian Kurds on our part of Cheetham Hill Road were buzzing tonight. These are a fairly recent phenomenon here, and seem to have in large part replaced a wave of vaguely Iranian cafes that suddenly appeared around 2008. Whatever. The thing is, a while back I noticed that one of these places had a collection box for medical aid for Rojava on the counter and when I asked about it I ended up having an interesting chat with the man behind the counter slinging the fatteyah dough, a job for which he seemed to be considerably overqualified.
Anyway, the idea was that Syrian Kurdistan – Rojava – would take the opportunity of the anti-Assad uprising to establish de facto autonomy, then come to terms with Iraqi Kurdistan and then, when the time was right, there would be a Kurdish state. We didn’t get into the PKK-Turkey situation.
Well, as of a couple of hours back there was a buzz all the way up the road, from Bakery and Company to the Cheetham Star, and there were bills and posters up with the red-yellow-green tricolour, also the Kurdish ‘sun’ flag. I didn’t have a conversation with anyone. It was obviously ‘our thing’, people huddled around some guy talking on a cellphone and repeating what he was hearing to the group. But I did get the impression that the schedule had moved forward.
Like I say, strictly anecdotal stuff, the view of a viewer of interested parties from faraway Manchester 8. But I’ve also seen pictures ISIS grubbing out the border posts between Syria and Iraq and it seems to me that no-one is in a position to put them back. That has implications all over the region. Sykes-Picot, he dead.
Following up Jamie’s post, I read this article from yesterday (11th June) on the BBC Web site. The title is “Battle for Mosul: Critical test ahead for Iraq” – which says it all, unfortunately. Some extracts and comments:
Governor Atheel Nujaifi made a desperate appeal on the night of 9 June for citizens to use their personal weapons to form self-defence militias in their neighbourhoods in an effort to limit ISIS gains. The next step will be the regrouping of the disintegrated units, including those where policemen and soldiers stripped off their uniforms and abandoned vehicles, weapons and outposts.
Not sure what the thinking is here – people have taken off their uniforms, dropped their guns and run away, but now they’re going to be regrouped?
New armoured, artillery and aerial forces will be brought up to Mosul for the operation,
(“The operation” appears to refer to “regrouping”, above.)
though scraping together such forces is getting increasingly difficult due to the growing number of major ISIS assaults in the Baghdad suburbs and cities like Ramadi, Samarra, Tuz Khurmatu, Sharqat and Mosul. The only source of fresh forces available in Iraq is the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) Peshmerga, an infantry force with some artillery and light armoured vehicles.
“See? We’ve got plenty of people in the region! No problem!
Peshmerga forces have recently moved forwards along the line of disputed territories claimed by both the federal government and the KRG, including securing the areas of Mosul city east of the Tigris River. Gaining the KRG’s active support to take part in the clearance of western Mosul may only be possible if Baghdad is willing to make concessions to the Kurds on issues such as the international marketing of KRG oil and revenue-sharing between Baghdad and Iraqi Kurdistan.
And we’re back indoors (“Mr Al-Maliki? Your ten o’clock’s here…”) Not to make a virtue of the creation of ‘facts on the ground’ stuff or anything, but I think the way things are going, the making of concessions might be a bit more definite – & might be a done deal before ‘Baghdad’ has much to say about it.
For the Baghdad government of caretaker Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, the recovery of Mosul is a test of leadership at a critical moment when he is seeking reappointment.
Could we lay off the “who’s up, who’s down” just for a moment? I mean, there’s this war…
Iraq’s Kurds need stability in Mosul, which is just one hour’s drive from the KRG capital of Irbil. Many Kurds live in or around eastern Mosul and ISIS control of the city could pose a grave security threat to the Iraqi Kurdish region, which prides itself on providing a safe environment for investors.
Unless either (a) KRG talk to ISIS and ISIS say “we’ll take this bit, you can have that bit and we’ll leave you to it”; (b) KRG don’t trust ISIS an inch but decide to capitalise on the partial power-vacuum created by the collapse of central government control anyway; or (c) both of the above. The KRG could take the view that they can look after the security of the Iraqi Kurdish region on their own more effectively than the Iraqi government – and that they can do the job better if they’re not also trying to fight the Iraqi government’s battles for it. Apart from anything else, they’re on the spot, and the Iraqi government is a long way away. (That ‘hour’s drive’ to Irbil is 60 miles, incidentally, so an hour may be optimistic – but Baghdad to Mosul is 250 miles by road. It is a major road, but I imagine there are a few hold-ups at the moment.)
Iraq’s Sunni political, tribal and religious leaders have the most to lose from ISIS’s growth … Taking an optimistic view, these overlapping interests could create the potential for political dialogue and speedier government formation, potentially lessening tensions between Baghdad and the KRG. Alternatively, ongoing discord between the Maliki government and its Kurdish and Arab opponents could disrupt the government’s counter-offensive, allowing ISIS to consolidate its hold on western Mosul.
Ooh, speedier government formation. Call me an incorrigible optimist, but I do like to take a few minutes out of a busy day to think about political dialogue and speedier government formation. They may say I’m a dreamer… Again, there’s this weird urge to turn the actual civil war into a sand-table exercise whose success or failure will have implications for real politics.
It strikes me that the ‘optimistic view’ isn’t looking very good at the moment – or even very realistic. More to the point, it only is the optimistic view if we put the interests of the al-Maliki government at the top of the list, rather than (say) the interests of all the people who live in Iraq. (Which might coincide, but I don’t think it’s been demonstrated.) For the KRG, in particular – and their sympathisers up Cheetham Hill Road – standing the Peshmerga down, and getting dragged back into endless horse-trading with an Iraqi government they don’t respect, might not be the ‘optimistic’ outcome at all.
Workers’ Playtime 