Aug 22, 2014

Targeted US military strikes in coordination with Baghdad and Erbil have helped push back the Islamic State (IS) in Iraq’s Mosul area, at least for now. This military aid coincides with attempts to choke the extremist group’s revenue sources and create a political system that reconciles Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds. These efforts are complicated by the very nature of the IS threat in Iraq, which is a reaction by Sunni Arabs not only to former Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's sectarian policies, but also to the entire post-2003 order. This includes territorial and resource claims made by the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in disputed areas. Stabilizing Iraq in the face of IS will ultimately require a deal not only between Baghdad and Erbil, but also among Iraqi Arab, Kurdish and other minority group leaders over boundaries and the revenues and resources linked to them.

Embedded within IS are former Baathist military officers, Ansar al-Sunnah, Jihad and Reform Front groups, Jash al-Islam and other radical factions. While these alliances are unlikely to revive pan-Arab nationalism or be sustained by the divided Sunni Arab community, they reflect a broader revival of the insurgent Jaysh Rijal al-Tariq al-Naqshabandi (JRTN) and its weddedness to Islam, Arab nationalism and Iraqi territory. IS has explained its takeover of some Kurdish regions as part of its desire for land it claims to be part of its proclaimed caliphate, and it described its recent offensives in Sinjar and Jalalwa as efforts to take back disputed territories that the KRG has controlled since 2003 and which it contends is “not a part of the Kurdistan region.”

IS's penetration into Ninevah and the disputed territories reflects competing nationalist politics alongside radical sectarianism. The Ninevah plain is not only the homeland of the Assyrians and populated by Arab, Yezidi, Kurdish, Turcoman and Shabak communities, but it straddles Mosul, the heartland of Sunni Arab nationalism in Iraq and Saddam Hussein’s former military officers. Ninevah province borders Dohuk and Erbil governorates in the Kurdistan region, which are controlled by Massoud Barzani, president of the KRG and leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP). Ninevah province contains important oilfields and the Mosul Dam, both key to critical energy production.

Since 2003, securing the Ninevah plain has been a Barzani priority, reflecting the KRG’s desire to finalize the status of the disputed territories (as per Article 140 of the Iraqi constitution) and differentiate the Kurdistan region from Arab Iraq. This effort has involved reappropriating and "Kurdifying" lands; providing security, jobs, and services to local populations; and signing contracts with international oil companies for Ninevah and other disputed areas. It has also involved reframing Kurdish identity based on being "Kurdistani" citizens — those who live inside the Kurdistan region and the disputed territories — and claiming the pre-Islamic Yezidi community as authentic Kurds despite discrimination against them. Kurdifying the territories has also been encouraged by the political and security vacuum in post-2003 Iraq and Baghdad’s failure to implement Article 140.

While these territories and populations have been targeted by al-Qaeda groups since 2003, they became IS battlegrounds after the Mosul coup in June, when the Iraqi Security Forces withdrew from the disputed areas, and the KRG peshmerga moved deeper inside, at least until they were pushed back by IS days ago. These territorial battles can also be seen as IS’s attempt to settle scores with Iraqi Kurds and return borders to their pre-1991 status. The territories can be viewed as part of a caliphate, a unified Iraqi state, or a distinct Sunni Arab region within a federated Iraqi state.