{"id":26528,"date":"2017-10-07T07:53:36","date_gmt":"2017-10-07T12:53:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=26528"},"modified":"2017-10-07T07:53:36","modified_gmt":"2017-10-07T12:53:36","slug":"kurdish-referendum-roils-the-mideast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=26528","title":{"rendered":"Kurdish Referendum Roils the Mideast"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Kurdish Referendum Roils the Mideast<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/header>\n
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The Kurdish referendum seeking independence from Iraq has created more uncertainty in the turbulent Mideast with Israel appearing to see value in the new chaos, reports ex-British diplomat Alastair Crooke.<\/p>\n

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One week after Kurdish leader Masud Barzani held his referendum on Kurdish independence from Iraq (with both the referendum and independence being contrary to the Iraqi constitution), the blowback has been fierce, angry and almost universal.<\/p>\n

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A map showing how Kurdish \u201cterritory\u201d spills over into several Mideast nations.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

What may have been conceived as a clever ploy by Masud\u2019s eldest son, Masrour, to bolster the Barzani family\u2019s flagging popularity by posing as a nationalist leader looks increasingly like a misstep. (Michel Rubin of AEI<\/em>, has noted<\/a> that \u201csome [U.S.] Congressional staff and leaders with whom [Masrour] has met, came away from their meeting convinced that Masrour sought independence more to be heir apparent, in what will become hereditary [Kurdish] leadership, than out of sincere nationalistic concerns.\u201d)<\/p>\n

And now, presidential and parliamentary elections \u2014 hastily called in the wake of the Oct. 3 death of former Iraqi President and Kurdish political leader Jalal Talibani \u2014 have descended<\/a> into a mess.\u00a0Rather than settle \u201cthe succession\u201d upon his eldest son, Masud Barzani may instead have opened a wider struggle over leadership of the Kurdish people.<\/p>\n

Yes, the KRG is reported as being\u00a0a democracy, but in practice it is run, explains, Michael Rubin, as a (corrupt) family enterprise<\/a> in which \u201cboth the Barzanis (and Talabanis) confuse personal, party, and public funds.\u201d\u00a0Rubin explains:\u00a0\u201cMasud Barzani is president and lives in a palace complex in a resort inherited from Saddam Hussein. His nephew, Nechirvan Barzani, is prime minister. His uncle, Hoshyar Zebari, was Iraq\u2019s foreign minister and is now finance minister. Masud\u2019s eldest son, Masrour Barzani, leads the intelligence service; and his second son, Mansour is a general, as is Masud\u2019s brother Wajy.<\/p>\n

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kurdish Referendum Roils the Mideast The Kurdish referendum seeking independence from Iraq has created more uncertainty in the turbulent Mideast with Israel appearing to see value in the new chaos, reports ex-British diplomat Alastair Crooke. One week after Kurdish leader Masud Barzani held his referendum on Kurdish independence from Iraq (with both the referendum and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,6],"tags":[14457,6963,968,442,1049,2788,16328,522,9099],"class_list":["post-26528","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geopolitics","category-liberty","tag-alastair-crooke","tag-consortium-news","tag-independence","tag-iraq","tag-israel","tag-kurdistan","tag-masud-barzani","tag-middle-east","tag-secession"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26528","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26528"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26528\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26529,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26528\/revisions\/26529"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}