From Al Jazeera. Any opinions expressed are those of the authors, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Iraq Business News.

Tens of thousands of Sunni Muslims in Iraq have taken part in anti-government protests to demand the creation of their own federal region.

Al Jazeera’s Omar al-Saleh reports that the organisers of the demonstrations say they want to avoid war:

From Al Jazeera. Any opinions expressed are those of the authors, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Iraq Business News.

In an interview with Al Jazeera from London, Sabah al-Mukhtar, a political analyst said, he doubts that a federal system could work in Iraq.

“I don’t think it’s going to happen,” Mukhtar said. “The idea of federation cannot be based on sectarian or ethnicity. It’s usually a geographical situation”.

Mukhtar also said that there is “no effective” government in Iraq that could solve the recent sectarian violence.

“The dictatorship of Saddam Hussein has been replaced by the dictatorship of Maliki,” he said, referring to Iraqi President Nouri al-Maliki:

By Shwan Zulal.

This article was originally published by Niqash. Any opinions expressed are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Iraq Business News.

The disputes between Baghdad and Iraqi Kurdistan have led some local politicians to call for the semi-autonomous region to secede from Iraq and become its own country. But, as one Kurdish commentator argues, this is far from realistic. Because now it’s all about money and oil, not politics.

Recently there has been a lot of comment about an independent Iraqi Kurdistan. As tensions between Baghdad and the semi-autonomous, northern state of Iraqi Kurdistan continue, the Kurdish have been playing the “independence card”, with local politicians and commentators airing their views on the subject like never before.

It is no secret that the majority of Kurds, if not in fact, all of them, would love to see an independent Kurdistan. And the easiest way for a Kurdish politician to become popular is to call for an independent state.

Although the Kurdish president, Massoud Barzani, has recently given the impression that he wants to see an independent Iraqi Kurdistan, the political party to which he belongs, the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP), and the other major political party in the area, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), have so far resisted similar temptations. In fact, most Kurdish politicians are still talking about a “united Iraq” despite Kurdish public opinion against this idea.

And they have a point. If you are a Kurdish politician and you need to maintain diplomatic relations with your neighbours, and if you’re aware of the economic and political realities for Iraqi Kurdistan, then it’s very hard to call for Kurdish independence and really mean it.

Russian-based news agency RT interviews an anti-capitalist campaigner about the excalating tensions between Baghdad and Iraqi Kurdistan:

(Source: RT)

The following article was published by Reidar Visser, an historian of Iraq educated at the University of Oxford and currently based at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs. It is reproduced here with the author’s permission. Any opinions expressed are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Iraq Business News.

For some time, Iraqi politicians have been discussing a bill proposed by President Jalal Talabani, of the Kurdistan Alliance, on the subject of administrative changes to boundaries of governorates that were altered by the Baath [Ba'ath] regime.

In principle, this discussion has been kept separate from the bigger question of article 140 of the Iraqi constitution on disputed territories. Some politicians have presented the bill as a preparatory step towards the implementation of article 140. Others, including Prime Minister Nuri a-Maliki, have cited the Talabani bill as something that necessitates postponement of the creation of federal regions in parts of Iraq affected by the bill.

For a long time, the Talabani bill was known mainly through paraphrases. By now, it is however clear that the proposed law is very short and basically just involves the cancellation of all “unjust” boundary changes by the former regime in pursuance of its “political goals”.

If implemented to the letter, this would mean altering the administrative boundaries of Iraq to the pre-1968 situation, roughly as on this map from 1966:

Baghdad would swallow Salahaddin, Kirkuk would grow a good deal, Najaf and Muthanna would cease to exist.

Importantly, in a consistent implementation, Kurdish-majority Dahuk would also revert to Mosul/Nineveh! Now, presumably that is not what Talabani wants (the Kurds mainly want a bigger Kirkuk), and presumably he is using the words “unjust” and “political aims” in order to create a justification for going back to 1968 generally speaking – but not, of course, when it comes to land given to the Kurds by the Baathists. But that doesn’t make a lot of sense. Dahuk was given to the Kurds by the Baath precisely in pursuance of political “aims”, namely that of creating the first zone of administrative autonomy for a Kurdish minority in any modern Middle Eastern state. To the many Arabs in northern Mosul who suddenly found themselves in a Kurdish-majority governorate, the decision may well have been seen as “unjust” first and foremost.

That is why the new Talabani draft law is just another article 140 in disguise. It is trying to create a cloak of objectivity but it has in fact exactly the same failings of subjectivity as article 140 has – disputed territories exist only in the eye of the beholders. As such, the new draft law of Talabani is likely to prove inflammatory to the derailed Iraqi political process rather than a means of facilitating greater rapprochement.

Last year the oil-rich state of Basra announced it wanted more independence from Baghdad. This year it changed its mind. Decision makers say the timing is wrong, critics say Baghdad put locals under pressure, according to this article from NIQASH.

Any opinions expressed are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Iraq Business News.

When the oil rich province of Basra announced that it would seek to become a federal region – that is semi-autonomous from the central Iraqi government in Baghdad – it caused problems. And now that the region has announced it will no longer seek autonomy, the decision is also seen as controversial.

“Now is not the right time for raising the federalism issue,” the spokesperson for Basra’s provincial council, Hashem al-Luaibi, told NIQASH. According to al-Luaibi, reasons why included the fact that the local electoral commission apparently didn’t agree with the region’s request and the fact that there were issues with Iraq’s neighbouring states as well as other issues.

The Iraqi constitution allows provinces to become semi-autonomous regions if several conditions are fulfilled: two thirds of council members must approve the bid for independence after which a referendum can be conducted among the people of the state. Basra’s council started taking steps toward autonomy in late 2010 and went so far as to forward their request to the federal government. Apparently the request was ignored.

However right up until today it is hard to say whether the 2.4 million people of Basra want more independence from Baghdad or whether the politicians of Basra are pursuing the goal for their own ends. And now that the bid for independence has been dropped, it is even hard to know which politicians were for the idea and which were against and why they have changed their minds.

There is even conflict on this issue between politicians from within the same blocs. Many of the local politicians who voted for independence last year were actually members of the State of Law bloc, which is headed by the current Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Al-Maliki himself has been opposed to the idea of increasing independence for Iraq’s provinces.

Basra council member Ghanem Abdul Amir Najem, also a member of the State of Law bloc, explained that for many of the politicians who had voted for independence, it was because they wished to fulfil the promises they had made to their electorates.

Basra is home to potentially 60 percent of Iraq’s oil as well as the country’s only sea port. Yet despite the oil and other income the state should be getting, it does not seem to be reaping any rewards. If the state was more independent, advocates of federalism say, it would better be able to manage its own resources.

Najem then went on to explain why he felt the bid for independence should have been dropped, at least temporarily. It was all about “timing”, he said, as well as worries about the costs of independence. The revenues the state gets would need to be used to fund the new administration instead of providing citizens with much needed services.

Meanwhile Mahmoud al-Taan, head of economic development at Basra’s provincial council, disagreed. “The elected [local] government will have more power to make decisions related to taxes and it would be able to increase its intake of oil revenues as well,” al-Taan said. However he too believed that the timing for an independence bid was wrong. The chance of intervention by foreign powers at a time when Iraq was unstable was more likely.

The more religious politicians on the council had had their own reasons for originally supporting Basra’s bid for independence. Firstly they had felt that “it expressed the will of the religious authority” – they were referring to the fact that debate about whether Basra should become more autonomous dates back to 2006 when influential Shiite Muslim-backed political body, the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, suggested that the all the mainly Shiite Muslim states of Iraq become more independent. But now, they too felt that the timing was wrong.

Critics of the decision to withdraw the bid for independence were quick to suggest other possible causes for this.

“The explanations are baseless and unrealistic,” Wael Abdul Latif, a Shiite Muslim and the former governor of Basra, said. Previous to this bid, the most recent, serious attempt at autonomy for Basra had been launched by Latif in 2008. And although Latif was a fervent supporter of independence for Basra, he and his supporters were unable to collect enough signatures to endorse a referendum.

At the time, Latif said he had been blocked by politicians in Baghdad who had put energy into ensuring that the referendum didn’t happen. In 2008 Latif says he produced documents that indicated there had been illegal interventions to hamper the autonomy project. This included bribery, pressure and even the issuing of fatwas, religious opinions, that said that anyone who supported Basra’s bid was sacrilegious.

“All of those who were with us in 2008, who supported the creation of a region, have withdrawn simply in order to keep their jobs,” Latif argued. “Council members changed their minds for the sake of their political careers and to stay in the good books of their leaders,” he added, referring to the State of Law list politicians whose list leader, al-Maliki, was opposed to federalism.

A local legal expert and council member, Tareq al-Abarseem, says that the discussion around Basra’s bid for independence, does not just reflect the tug of war for power between the provinces and the central government in Baghdad. They also reflect the aspirations of local politicians who want more power for themselves.

However now that Basra’s bid for independence has been put aside – for the time being, at least – the local council are working on the middle ground. Rather than trying to break away from Baghdad completely, they’re trying harder to extend the powers of local councils – a kind of middle ground between centralism and federalism, if you like.

And this sits well with the Iraqi Prime Minister’s own policies, announced in November 2011, which compromise by granting provinces more power but which maintain national unity at the same time.

Al-Abarseem thinks sticking to the middle path is positive for Basra. “It will help in developing locals qualified to manage the province, should the federal process [and any bid for Basra’s independence] be restarted,” he concludes. “And if the federal project remains on hold, then it will help provincial councils fulfil their promises to the electorate.”

(Source: NIQASH)

The following article was published by Reidar Visser, an historian of Iraq educated at the University of Oxford and currently based at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs. It is reproduced here with the author’s permission. Any opinions expressed are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Iraq Business News.

In Washington, a Window-Dressing Exercise; in Diyala, another Federalism Bid

The arrival in Washington of Iraq’s prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, has been accompanied by considerable media hype. A key talking point for the Obama administration is the idea that Iraq is facing a more positive future as 8 years of occupation are coming to an end.

Among the indicators of progress cited by President Barack Obama today are the statistics of violence in Iraq, which currently stand at an all-time low. Obama also mentioned a series of “indicators” that strictly speaking relate to the future rather than the present, such as the “expected” increase in Iraqi oil production and the “scheduled” meeting of the Arab League, to be held in Baghdad. Additionally, much attention has been given by the US media to recent statements by Maliki to the international press that all emphasise the idea of Iraqi sovereignty towards its neighbours.

Opponents of the Obama administration, on the other hand, are trying to highlight possible indicators of Iranian hands working behind the scenes. Previously, the so-called special groups and the Sadrists more broadly have received attention; recently, the fate of the pro-Baathist Iranian opposition group Mojahedin-e Khalq, still camped in Iraq, as well as the pro-Iranian suspected terrorist Ali Musa Daqduq – currently in US custody in Iraq – have been suggested as bellwethers with relevance for the coming period and possible test cases re continued Iranian clout in Iraq.

The following article was published by Reidar Visser, an historian of Iraq educated at the University of Oxford and currently based at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs. It is reproduced here with the author’s permission. Any opinions expressed are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Iraq Business News.

The Iraqi government has presented its draft for the annual 2012 budget law.

In light of the recent surge of interest in federalism in Sunni-majority areas of Iraq, the government’s approach to federalism issues in next year’s budget is of particular interest. The allocation of money to central government ministries, ordinary governorates, and federal regions can tell us a lot about the facts of Iraqi federalism in a setting where the legal and constitutional frameworks remain hazy.

What is clear from the 117 trillion Iraqi dinars budget is that it is the existing federal region – the Kurdistan Regional Government – that continues to get the best deal from the allocation of money. The budget envisages that Kurdistan oil exports will amount to 175,000 barrels per day in 2012, which is about 6.7% of the anticipated total Iraqi daily production of 2,6 million barrels. By way of contrast, the KRG will receive a 17% allocation of the expenditure budget (around 16 trillion ID) after the deduction of so-called “sovereign” spending covering mainly external defence and foreign diplomatic service. By increasing its exports, the KRG contribution to the national income is up from about 4.5% in 2011, but it is perfectly clear that the Kurds remain dependent on a big subsidy from Baghdad.

Compare the 16 trillion ID Kurdish share of the budget with what goes to the ordinary governorates. The oil-producing governorates will continue to get their one dollar per exported barrel fee, but this is not expected to make up more than 1.7 trillion ID in total, or just a tenth of the total Kurdish budget share. This despite the fact that a governorate like Basra contributes the lion’s share of Iraq’s total 2.6 million bpd production. Similarly, the pilgrimage fees that were introduced in 2010 will produce a mostly symbolic contribution to the governorates of Najaf, Karbala, Baghdad and Salahaddin. (In 2011 budget this income was given to the border governorates instead.) Additionally, the investment headings for all of Iraq amount to no more than 30 trillion ID in total for the entire country.