Clashes Fuel Debate Over U.S. Plan to Leave Iraq
KIRKUK, Iraq -- Many in this divided city want American troops to stay longer than the Obama administration has said they will, and a tense standoff on the southern and western edges of town last week showed why. Here, on a bridge, behind the mud brick walls of an abandoned mill and inside a hospice, Kurdish troops from the north were in positions on the outskirts of Arab neighborhoods.
To calm the latest flare-up of the longstanding ethnic rivalries here has required a rush of high-level diplomacy, including phone calls from Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. to Kurdish leaders and, a rarity in Iraq today, the deployment of American troops.
The confrontation did not turn violent -- precisely, many believe, because of the presence of American troops. But they will leave by the end of the year, if the current schedule stands, and many here fear that could lead to ethnic strife, even civil war.
The Kurdish soldiers, known as the pesh merga, were deployed last month by leaders in the semiautonomous northern region worried about Sunni Arab insurgents attacking peaceful demonstrators in the streets. But the action was viewed by local Arabs, American diplomats and military officials and the Iraqi government as provocative and illegal.
Kurdish officials said Monday that the troops had withdrawn as part of a deal with the Americans and the central government, although a witness in Kirkuk reported seeing the troops in their same positions, and an Arab lawmaker in the local council said that only some soldiers had left.
Sheik Burhan Mizher, an Arab member of the provincial government who like many interviewed here worries about the prospect of civil war after the Americans leave, said some pesh merga forces were still positioned around Kirkuk on Monday. He said of the American troops, "Of course, we want them to stay."
In the debates under way in Washington and Baghdad about where the American and Iraqi relationship heads after eight years of war, those who argue for a continued American military presence beyond this year -- and there are many among the diplomatic and military ranks of both countries -- cite Kirkuk as the centerpiece of their case.
Perhaps the greatest unfinished chapter of America's war in Iraq will be the status of Kirkuk, an ancient city that today is fought over by its three main ethnic groups, Kurds, Arabs and Turkmens, each making historical claims to the land and the oil that flows beneath.
"From my point of view, President Obama wants to win a second term and show that he keeps his promises to the American people," said Hassan Toran, a Turkmen member of the council. "This will affect Kirkuk."
If the Americans leave, Mr. Toran said, "Anything can happen." In Iraq, Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki is hemmed in by a bloc of politicians loyal to the anti-American cleric Moktada al-Sadr, who is opposed to any delay in the American withdrawal and whose support Mr. Maliki relied on to secure a second term as premier. Any extension of the American troop presence would require the politically risky decision by Mr. Maliki to ask for it.
Not only do American diplomats and military leaders argue for troops to stay, but outside experts do as well. A recent book written by six Iraq experts, led by Kenneth M. Pollack of the Brookings Institution, called peacekeeping in Kirkuk "by far the most important U.S. military mission now" and suggested that troops stay to "be a crucial substitute for the trust that undergirds stable societies." A report published Monday by the International Crisis Group called the pesh merga deployment a "deeply troubling development."
At their most pessimistic, those involved in trying to solve the Kirkuk problem compare it to Bosnia or Rwanda -- two socially mixed but politically divided lands that erupted in tragic and historic violence. When more optimistic, they cite the difficult but peaceful coexistence today of the French and Flemish in Brussels.
At the Kirkuk Provincial Council building, where recently a column of American armored vehicles were parked outside, the ethnic groups try to settle their differences through politics. But if democracy has emerged slowly in Iraq, it has come even more slowly here. When the rest of the country held provincial elections in 2009, Kirkuk did not. A constitutional provision that mandated a referendum on Kirkuk's status in 2007 has not been held.
"There is no dialogue at all," Mr. Toran said. "We all just give speeches through the media and accuse each other." On Monday, a rock-throwing brawl broke out between Kurds and Turkmens at a technical university in Kirkuk.
Recently, the provincial governor, a Kurd, resigned. He is to be replaced by another Kurd, an American-Iraqi who once lived in Silver Spring, Md. The provincial council head, a Kurd, also recently resigned, and is expected to be replaced by Mr. Toran.
But a council session last week illustrated the layers of ethnic and religious divide here in Kirkuk. As the council considered Mr. Toran's appointment, a Shiite Turkmen rival to Mr. Toran, who is Sunni, spoke against it, and the Kurds walked out to protest the theatrical display of identity politics. From a back row of the gallery, an American diplomat and two soldiers watched the proceedings.
On Kirkuk's streets, insurgent attacks are still frequent. Recently, an Opel packed with explosives detonated outside a hospital, leaving two dead: a young mother and a baby girl, just 5 hours old. The father lost his right arm.
"Here I am without a wife and daughter and arm," Samir Mahmoud, 27, said in an interview. "What can I do and where can I go? It's our calamity."
Across Iraq, the American invasion upended traditional notions of victimhood -- the long oppressed Shiites became ascendant, while the Sunni ruling elite under Saddam Hussein's Baath Party found itself on the margins of power. In Kirkuk, the Kurds, who had been brutalized by the former government's policies and weapons, have the strongest grip on power. The Arabs, many of whom were moved to the area by Mr. Hussein in his campaign to alter the demographics of the area and dilute Kurdish influence, are fighting for their own stake in the new Iraq.
"Shame on the other side," said Mr. Mizher, the Arab lawmaker. "They say we are Saddam. We are not slaves for anyone, for Saddam or for Baathists. We are Iraqis."
Ahmed al-Askari, a Kurd and head of the provincial council's security committee, speaks of reconciliation, but his choice of words betrays another agenda, as does a map on his wall that traces the Kurds' broader land claims, a line stretching in to Turkey, Syria and Iran. "Leave it to the original Kirkuki people and we will reach an agreement," he said.
Many in Iraq make a point of comparing America's historical shortcomings in race relations to their tortured present of ethnic and sectarian divide.
"Now, the president of America is black," Mr. Askari said. "We are working to learn democracy. Step by step, we will understand."