Iran Turning the Screws on Baghdad, and America’s Kurdish Allies Are Suffering

As part of the Iranians’ extended campaign to solidify its status as Iraq’s overlord, the Islamic Republic is using its Baghdad allies to take over lucrative oil and gas assets in the country’s Kurdish autonomous region, raising the question of whether America will step up to help its Kurdish allies.The energy giant Halliburton this week joined two other international companies, Schlumberger and Baker Hughes, in informing Baghdad that it would comply with a ruling by Iraq’s national supreme court that bars foreign companies from cooperating with the Kurdish Regional Government. A KRG official at Erbil, who spoke to the Sun on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk on the record, noted that the court was established with no constitutional authority, and therefore existing contracts should supersede its rulings. Halliburton and the other conglomerates “never said they are going to pull out, only that they will abide by the court ruling,” the official said. “They have contracts with national companies.”Other Iraqi sources said that like everything else in Baghdad these days, the court is heavily influenced by Tehran’s mullahs. If companies like Halliburton ultimately end up heeding Baghdad’s latest squeeze, the Kurdish region’s successful democracy would suffer a heavy blow.Much of Iraqi Kurdistan’s economy relies on its energy sector. Now Iran is increasingly trying to snatch it away with the aid of Iraqi politicians loyal to Tehran. In addition to exerting pressure on politicians and the courts, Iran pushes its allies to attack the Kurds militarily. Last week, a Katyusha rocket shot by an Iranian-backed militia hit the Khor Mor gas field at Sulaymaniyah, in the Kurdish region. It was the third recent attack of its kind. While there was no serious damage, it was seen as yet another Iranian demonstration of its aims. The moves against the Kurdish energy sector are pushed by “Iran-backed Iraqi politicians,” the New York-based diplomatic editor at Rudaw Kurdish television, Majeed Gly, told the Sun. Mr. Gly, whose family has roots in the area near the Khor Mor field, says its gas reserves are among the world’s largest. For Baghdad’s pro-Iranian politicians, pushing Kurds out of the energy game could present the kind of “win that they never had in Iraq,” Mr. Gly says. “Iran has always had influence on Baghdad. If they win on this, they will now have full control” over the country. The latest flareup started shortly after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Seeing an opening, the autonomous Kurdish government at Erbil offered its gas fields as an alternative to sanctioned Russian energy suppliers. “We will become a net exporter of gas to the rest of Iraq, Turkey, and Europe in the near future, and help meet their energy security needs,” the Kurdish region’s prime minister, Masrour Barzani, said on March 28. Tehran started signaling even earlier that the entire Kurdish oil and gas enterprise is in its crosshairs. On March 13, 12 ballistic missiles landed on a private villa belonging to Kurdistan’s wealthiest oil and gas mogul, Sheik Baz Karim Barzani.Tehran took responsibility for the attack that was launched from Iranian territory, contending, along with some of its supporters in the American press, that the villa housed agents of Israel’s Mossad. An investigating committee appointed by Iraq’s parliament concluded there was no Israeli presence in the vicinity. Washington is addressing Iran’s aggression only meekly, so far declining to play hardball and pressure Baghdad, where it still has quite a lot of leverage.The attacks on Sulaymaniyah were “designed to undermine economic stability just as they seek to challenge Iraqi sovereignty, sow division, and intimidate,” the State Department spokesman, Ned Price, said this week. “We continue to stand with the Iraqi people, including our partners in the Kurdistan Region, against this kind of unacceptable violence.”He called for an investigation and prosecutions, but made no reference to the worst-kept secret in Iraq — that the Iran-backed militias now have a free hand to commit armed attacks. In October, a party led by the most vocal Shiite critic of Iran, Muqtada Sadr, won the largest number of seats in Iraq’s parliament. Negotiations to form a government have failed since then, however, and this month Mr. Sadr ordered the resignation of his party’s 73 elected parliament members. Baghdad’s political chaos is a boon for Iran, and a major threat to the Kurds that have been America’s most consistent allies in Iraq. America is “silent about a Baghdad kangaroo court’s egregious ruling that the Kurdish oil production is illegal,” a Washington-based Iraqi activist and president of the Future Foundation, Entifadh Qanbar, says. “The Iranians feel they have a free hand in Kurdistan.”

Iran Turning the Screws on Baghdad, and America’s Kurdish Allies Are Suffering

Iran Turning the Screws on Baghdad, and America’s Kurdish Allies Are Suffering

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