Iraq barely registers here now that our troops have left, but its improved stability and federal democracy are fragile. Iraqi Kurdistan is safest and elsewhere violence had dropped by 85% in two years. But corruption and lawlessness are rife with 900 child kidnappings this year in the south. Living standards have doubled but unemployment is 20%. Outside Iraqi Kurdistan, unions still need basic freedoms. Women’s rights have improved but are under pressure and media freedoms are weak.
Assuming no last minute veto or boycott by the Sunni vice-president, Iraq’s second parliamentary elections on 21 January could consolidate democratic politics and test the country’s stability, the staying power of the insurgency and the viability of the timetable for withdrawing US troops.
Prime Minister al-Maliki’s coalition is in a strong position, but atrocities may undermine it. Alliances between and across sectarian lines are in flux. Sunni voters are losing the habit of boycotts, thus stabilising politics and isolating insurgents. But it will take months to negotiate a new government and this could create further political, economic and security vacuums.
Electoral groundrules were only agreed after 10 fractious efforts, with eventual endorsement of open rather than closed lists so that voters can pick successful figures or reject crooks. They also agreed an ambiguous compromise to allow voting in Kirkuk where none happened at earlier provincial polls.
Saddam forcibly ‘Arabised’ this traditionally Kurdish province, which Kurds want back. Underlying this is a struggle over current management and potential control of Kirkuk’s huge oil and gas reserves. The lack of an agreed oil and gas law deters external investors who are key to increasing production. Iraq has the world’s third largest oil reserves but is only the 11th largest oil producer and relies on hydrocarbons for nearly all its revenues.
Some wrongly fear that a Kurdish Kirkuk could drive Kurdish independence and lethally unravel the borders which left Kurds in Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria as one of the largest stateless peoples.
Relations between Iraqi Kurds and Turkey have blossomed, however. Turkey trades extensively in Iraqi Kurdistan, recently opened a consulate and is improving Kurdish rights in Turkey. Ending the 25-year conflict with the PKK, which claimed 40,000 lives, seems possible.
But relations between Iraqi Kurds and some Arabs have plummeted. The Kurds suffered decades of Saddam’s genocidal policies but embrace a federal and democratic Iraq. Conflict could, however, escalate without a lasting deal on Kirkuk, in particular.
There is a dangerous gap based on cultural and ethnic differences, resentment and fear. Kurds see Baghdad building a strong central rather than federal state and constantly delaying agreed constitutional provisions to solve problems. Many in Baghdad favour a stronger state to deliver security, essential services and national unity. Improving Kurdish-Arab relations should be a major priority.
Meanwhile, extremists prefer bombs to ballots and seek to destabilise and divide. Massive bombs at several Baghdad ministries killed children plus civil servants vital to renewing Iraq. No one took revenge but further attacks are likely in the crunch period before elections.
The destablising ploys of some neighbouring countries fuel this dance of death. For political, strategic and ethnic reasons some neighbours are keeping Iraq on the boil and disrupting water supplies. They prefer Iraq as a consumer rather than a producer of goods.
The stakes are colossal. Al-Maliki’s Islamic Dawa party says Iraq can be a beacon for democracy, freedom and moderation in the Middle East where tyrannies have bred poverty, backwardness and extremism in what should be one of the most prosperous parts of the world.
Iraq has slipped down the global agenda, but its struggle for democracy should be nurtured and its requests for international assistance to overcome decades of dictatorship heeded. We need strategic relationships with Iraq at government and popular levels, to encourage trade and investment and back the unions. The Chilcot inquiry should hear from Iraqis whose views are often sidelined. Iraq’s interests and ours are deeply connected.