Destruction and death in the country of two rivers

Reflections on the war in Iraq and the emergence of the Islamic State (ISIS)

D. Anton

The situation in northern Iraq is extremely complex. 
The predominant population in the northeast of the country is of Kurdish origin. Iraqi Kurdistan consists of about 8 million inhabitants in 78,000 km2, with capital in the city of Erbil with 1.5 million inhabitants. 
Most of the population in this area is bilingual in Kurdish and Arabic languages. Also Aramaic (Assyrian neo-Aramaic), Turkic and Armenian are spoken by their respective communities.
Sunni-affiliated Islam is the main religion with little expression of Shiite Muslims (who are mostly in southern Iraq). There are other religious groups of varying importance. Assyrians of Aramaic speakers (about 80,000 people) are Christians, Yezidis, who are ethnically Kurdish but not Muslim (estimated at about 500,000) have their own religion that is related to ancient Persian Zoroastrianism.
To make the situation more complex, it is known that in Iraqi Kurdistan there are vast hydrocarbon deposits (at least 45 billion barrels) that make it the sixth oil reserve in the world. Several companies have signed agreements with the Kurdish government (usually with opposition from Baghdad) including Exxon, Total, Chevron, Talisman, GenEnergy, Hunt Oil, Gulf Keystone Petroleum and Marathon Oil. Effective extraction under Kurdish control began in 2007. Due to its economic power and geopolitical position, the Kurdish state (which is not internationally recognized) in fact is functioning as such.
The northwestern sector of Iraq (outside Kurdistan) is composed of mountainous and arid areas and is crossed by the Tigris River whose sediments generate the main agricultural lands. The population of this area is predominantly Sunni with small Shiite, Assyrian-Christian and Yazidis minorities. The main city of this area is Mosul with more than 1.5 million inhabitants.
The successive wars in Iraq, the US invasion, the overthrow and the death of Saddam Hussein, led to deep political instability triggering contradictions that were controlled during the dictatorship of Hussein.
The Kurds took advantage of the situation by creating a controlled area that has practically transformed itself into an independent state.
On the other hand, the continued military, political and cultural intervention of the Western powers in the Middle East led to an energetic reaction of the radical sectors of Islam, particularly the Iraqi and Syrian Sunnis, which led them to connect with the violent groups of Al Qaeda. From this alliance emerged an ultra-radical movement seeking to build an Islamic state (called the "caliphate") in northern Iraq and Syria. This group (ISIS) is extremely fundamentalist, trying to convert the non-Islamic groups by force and terror. The local communities (mainly Assyrian-Christian and Yasidis) who have managed to conserve their religions for many centuries do not wish to convert to Islam. 
The strategy of forcing the conversion led to measures of extreme cruelty with these populations. The details of these abuses are only partially known, and disturbing images have appeared in the media. It is clear that ISIS is systematically violating the human rights of Assyrian Christians, Yasidis and Kurdish communities in the territory they control. The only force capable of stopping this advance of ISIS seems to be the Kurdish army (peshmergas). With the support of the US and Western European countries the Kurds have recovered part of the areas previously under the power of the ISIS. The complexity of the situation makes it difficult to anticipate the political future 
However it seems that there are two ethnic-religious causes that deserve international support: the survival of the religious minorities, and the right of the Kurds to have their own state. For this to happen, the Kurdish communities have committed themselves fully to the autonomist struggle including the female peshmergas brigades. This fact, in violently patriarchal societies, shows a social, political and military aspect that calls attention and allows us to hope that in the future this discriminatory situation may begin to change. The Islamic State, on the other hand, represents the unbridled, discriminatory and fundamentalist reaction to the cultural and political changes that have taken place in the Iraqi.East Syria regions.
In fact, the extreme sectarianism of the Islamic State has managed to unite the political protagonists against it and it seems that it will not last long as a viable territorial force.  
However, after the disappearance of ISIS the conflicts for control of the area will continue. These territories are very important from a strategic point of view, particularly because they are the regiona thorugh which oleoducts and gasoducts are planned to transport the valuable Gulf hydrocarbons towards the Mediterranean coast and Europe.
From "Lands of Little Rain and Much Blood", Danilo Anton, Piriguazu Ediciones.