At any rate, money has definitely been set aside for exports for Kurdistan to resume, and the Kurds skilfully managed to avoid controversy over the issue in parliament by seeking assurances from the finance minister from Iraqiyya instead of attempting to spell the issue out in the budget law itself. Some commentators have hinted that there may be transparency issues here, but DNO regularly reports its profits so some numbers should emerge eventually. It is of course remarkable that a party like Iraqiyya should go as far as this in underwriting a Galbraithian economic model for Iraq, but it can be explained in terms of realpolitik with reference to the party’s ongoing campaign to seek Kurdish support for the establishment of the strategic policy council that at least its leader, Ayad Allawi, remains focused on.
The bigger challenge for the Kurds these days seems to come from the people in their own streets. That applies to other parts of Iraq too: Tension is simmering in Kut and Ramadi as well. In other words, the test for all of Iraq’s leaders going forward, regardless of whether they are Shiites, Sunnis or Kurds, is whether they can do more than divvying up the spoils between themselves and actually deliver the services and jobs that the Iraqi people are asking for. The budget is only a first step.
Note: The exchange rate for the Iraqi Dinar (ID) has been calculated at 1,200 ID to the US dollar. “Billions” and “trillions” are given in accordance with Anglo-American usage in which a billion is the same as a “milliard” in many European languages and Arabic and a trillion is 1,000 “milliards”.
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