| Would an Independent Kurdistan be a Failed State?In a July 4th article for Newsweek, Michael Rubin writes that “an independent Kurdistan would be a failed state.” He argues that a host of problems would make the Kurdish state akin to South Sudan, Eritrea, Kosovo or East Timor. The problems that Rubin lists include water sharing disputes with neighboring states, contested borders, questions involving citizenship of Kurds in Iraq or Arabs in Kurdistan, economic difficulties, corruption, a Peshmerga “militia” “no different than Shiite militias,” the personal rule of President Masoud Barzani, and Iran and Turkey’s opposition to South Kurdistan’s independence. All of this adds up to a somewhat strange argument, given that Iraq appears to be the failed state and the Kurdistan Region is where tourists, business people, foreigners, minorities, refugees and internally displaced people all go and feel safe. Was it not the Peshmerga, with only a fraction of the military hardware in the hands of the Iraqi Army, the Shiite militias and the Islamic State (ISIS), that performed most effectively against the ISIS jihadis? Was it not these same Peshmerga who completed all the military objectives set before them in the Mosul campaign by November of 2016? If autonomous Kurdistan, even while cut off from its share of the Iraqi budget since 2014, is so much more successful than Iraq, isn’t it a bit peculiar to argue that Kurdistan – because of Rubin and company’s pessimism – should remain a part of Iraq? Was there ever an independence movement only willing to move forward if no potential problems or major obstacles present themselves? Possibly – although we never heard of them because they never moved forward. |
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| Catalonia to declare independence within 48 hours of a yes voteTHE people of Catalonia will go into their referendum on October 1 knowing that if a majority vote Yes, the Catalan Government will declare independence the following day, as soon as ballot papers are counted. Gabriela Serra, a member of the pro-independence coalition that governs Catalonia, said yesterday: “If the majority of votes are for creating a Catalan republic, obviously independence will have to be declared immediately.” Serra was speaking as the Catalan Government formally began the process of extracting the region from the Spanish legal system, with the ruling coalition set to vote through the changes in the regional parliament next month.The law change is necessary because the Government of Spain have so far used court actions and legal cases to block the referendum which would ask the 7.5 million Catalonians one simple question. Catalonia has already paid homage to Scotland with the announcement of the question: “Do you want Catalonia to be an independent state in the form of a republic?” It is said to have been inspired by the question used in Scotland’s referendum in 2014: “Should Scotland be an independent country?”. Yesterday also saw the results of an opinion poll by El Confidencial which asked Catalans if they would vote in the referendum and if so, how would they vote. Some 70 per cent of those surveyed said they would vote, and of them 47 per cent would vote yes against 44 per cent voting no. The coalition in Barcelona said a new electoral body will be created under the incoming law in order to monitor the referendum process and eventually declare the winner. All citizens older than 18 years will be eligible to vote, including those living abroad – a condition which was not used in the Scottish independence or UK European referendums. |
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