Why ISIS Exists

[kentuck]

http://www.commondreams.org/views/2015/03/06/why-isis-exists

<snip>
The Middle East is suffering the blowback from rotten U.S. policies, disastrous wars, and cultural turmoil. ISIS and its ilk are one result.

ISIS — or the so-called “Islamic State” — is the latest and most horrifying iteration of the modern terror groups that have plagued the region in recent years. With 20,000 to 30,000 combatants and recruits streaming in from all over the globe, the group is unlikely to be significantly degraded by U.S. air strikes — not when political conditions in the Middle East continue to favor it.

<snip>
Both views are fueled not only by decades of Western colonialism, but also by recent U.S. invasions, drone strikes, and the installation and support of corrupt and brutal puppet governments. When Washington holds hands with dictators, or strikes oil deals that benefit only the hyper-wealthy, hatreds are remembered and passed down over the generations.

Yes, ISIS has committed unspeakable atrocities. But it’s too easy to forget that the U.S. invasion of Iraq killed some half a million Iraqis by one estimate — most of them civilians — and wounded another million. Looking at the numbers, we can only imagine the thousands of Iraqi children killed by bombs who may have actually been burned alive or smashed by rubble. They died the sort of deaths that inflame Arabs and Muslims around the world. No mother, father, sister, or brother will ever forget.

....more

[Warpy]

1. Well, before the breast beating leaves too many bruises

also consider the multi decade export of extremist Wahab Islam by Saudi Arabia, schools funded by oil money set up all over the Islamic world to teach that particular brand.

That's why they look so insane to us, obliterating an ancient non Islamic past while butchering anyone who doesn't immediately lip service the dogma.

The core of the fighters, themselves, were former soldiers and government workers that idiot Bremer fired in Iraq because they were members of the Baathist Party. Deprived of their jobs in a destroyed country, they were left unemployed and dependent on relatives, the resentment festering for a decade. That's the immediate cause of ISIS.

However, the basic cause is extremist Islam, something that has been in the works for a few decades as it has been funded and exported all over the world.

In other words, this is no accident. It is a war to force orthodoxy, more than an anticolonial war.

[JackRiddler]

3. Good thing Saudi Arabia isn't the lynchpin of U.S. policy!

The U.S. does no business with them, right?

It's not like U.S. strategists are still bragging about what a great job they did helping Saudi Arabia export Islamist extremism to Afghanistan in the 1980s.

[Fred Sanders]

2. ISIS are relative punters compared to the holocaust of murder and unspeakable crimes unleashed by Bush war criminals.

[JackRiddler]

4. ISIS are the result of the murder and crimes of the Bush war criminals.

[Albertoo]

5. The US, primary cause of ISIS? **facepalm**

The radical Islam ideology has been invented by two persons who never lived in regimes influenced by the US:
• Wahhab: cut a power sharing deal with the Saoud dynasty
• Qutb: worked during the reign of anti-western leader Nasser

(1) ISIS is a hardware running with the wahhab/qutb software. (no US causality)

Another example: for internal politics reasons, general Zia ul Aq gave free rein/stoked the wahhab/Qutb ideology in Pakistan. Pakistan is emphatically not a US puppet.
That was for the ideological side.

Now, for the political side, the main driver is the Sunni/Shia divide. True, GW's catastrophic invasion of Iraq helped create insurgent groups, but

(2) the Sunni/Shia divide is a major driver of ISIS (no US causality)

• The young adults from around the world who came to fight with ISIS in Syria did so to help the Sunni majority horribly repressed by Alaouite-Shia Assad.
• The populations of Western Iraq who support ISIS do so because the government troops have turned into Shia militias under Maliki.
A stunning recent proof of that: Tikrit has been liberated from ISIS just days ago. Its population is running away for fear of reprisals from the government tropps, because the Tikrit population largely let ISIS slaughter the Shia soldiers during their occupation of the town.
• ISIS has in its program to wage war on infidels, which include the Shia (and they did kill quite a lot)

In short:
- did GW fuck up? Yes.
- were US policy mistakes the major cause of ISIS? No.

[JackRiddler]

7. I see your denial is particularly strong.

Who cares about Wahhab or Qutb? There would be no ISIS, with 20,000 fighters holding territory, except for the entirely unprovoked and imperialist war of aggression launched by the US-UK governments against Iraq in 2003. US-UK murdered hundreds of thousands of people, injured and traumatized tens of millions, leveled cities and infrastructures, intentionally tore down the prior institutions of state, poisoned the land and caused the destruction not only of the formerly secular nation of Iraq, but indirectly of Syria, which took in two million or more refugees. These were not "policy mistakes," they were criminal aggressions. The same US-UK governments have been the Western bulwarks backing the Gulf oil kingdom regimes who, in turn, promote the ideologies you seem to think are primarily to blame, and who provided pre-ISIS with its arms. (Now ISIS get their arms by taking them from the "Iraqi Army.&quot

[Albertoo]

8. your explanation is Americanocentric: the US is wrong for everything.

It's nice and cozy. Simplifies the world. ISIS? Blame the US. Climate change? The US. Tsunamis? There is probably a link to US imperialism, I suppose.

I repeat: yes, GW's intervention in Iraq was stupid. No, it is NOT the major cause behind ISIS.

Did GW create Boko Haram? Chechen islamic separatism? Al shebab? Pakistani madrasas?

To mirror your wording, I see your denial of a massive, worldwide revival of fundamentalist Islam is particularly strong. Muhammad al-Wahhab made his pact with the Saud dynasty even before the US existed as a nation. This ideology has been propagated with billions of funding from the Saudi and Qatari rulers. All this was independent of the US.

In the larger scheme of populations and ideologies, the Iraq war was just a big, unfortunate bump on a tragic road to obscurantism. GW's cock-up just unleashed what was brewing for decades, centuries.

[JackRiddler]

9. That's a false label. I merely remember what just happened.

Last edited Sat Mar 7, 2015, 02:04 AM - Edit history (1)

The Wahhabi ideology indeed arose centuries ago, which directly contradicts your argument. Twenty years ago, its adherents did not hold territory within Iraq or Syria, and had no prospects of doing so. There may have been little likable about them, but clearly, they were less extreme. There was no Islamist army able to threaten Baghdad. So what happened? The nation-state of Iraq was destroyed from without in an act of direct state aggression upon another state, one that is without parallel in the last 30 years. The fact that you call this enormous crime a "cock-up" already speaks volumes about your mindset: America, she doesn't commit crimes, she can only make mistakes in a rough world where others are the bad guys.

That's the situation with ISIS. There's no need to answer your silly questions about completely unrelated matters, some of which are FOXNEWS-level attempts at mockery (tsunamis, ha ha). These betray an extreme America-centrism. Why? Because you seem to be easily wounded by the facts, when these show the responsibility of the government you happen to identify with. It's no different than when Reagan claimed Democrats always "Blame America first." (It's not the "America" per se, that's an abstraction. We're talking about a system of political economy, policy, business models, and a variety of actors who have indeed contributed to phenomena like climate change - and the rise of ISIS.)

[snooper2]

11. a vacuum allows assholes to fill it

Problem #1 with disposing dick-hole Saddam...

Problem #2 fundies tend to fill said vacuums

Solution - Do everything we can short of ground invasion to eliminate fundies

[Albertoo]

19. Boko Haram? Chechen islamic separatism? Al shebab? Pakistani madrasas?

You just don't care.

What you like is to call the US baaad. It's cool, nobody will hurt you for saying that.

Try blaming Boko Haram, Chechen islamic separatism or Al shebab in a Pakistani madrasas.

And see what it gets you.

PS: you're so busy finding fault with the US you forgot to note one single detail: Wahhab, still before the US was a nation, declared Christians and Jews to be sorcerers (against the then mainline of Islamic theology). Newsflash for you: the penalty for sorcery in Islam is death.

So wahhabism, as invented by its founder, called for the death of anyone not a muslim.

Now, keep telling yourself the US is the cause for everything. It's simple and neat.
And doesn't tax the brain too much.

[JackRiddler]

25. Kill the messenger!!!

The thread topic is none of the distractions you want to bring in. There are Nazi movements across Europe, Hindu supremacists are in the Indian government, and asteroids orbit the sun - so what?

This thread is supposedly about ISIS. It is not about your Reagan-worthy fantasies about how Dem Liberals Blame America for All Bad Things. Your rhetoric is petty, self-pitying, shameful and very right-wing, but that is also beside the point.

On the topic of this thread:

The current existence and territorial position of an Islamist paramilitary in Iraq and Syria is the product of the war of aggression launched by the states of U.S. and U.K., which shattered the secular Iraqi nation and contributed to the eventual dissolution of Syria. There would be no ISIS holding territory without the U.S.-U.K. destruction of Iraq. Furthermore, something like ISIS was the predictable result of the 2003 war of aggression.

A lot of bad, violent ideologies dating back hundreds and even thousands of years are still floating around, including Christianisms in the Crusader mode and a version of Judaism that advocates genocide against Arabs. So? Ideologies are not actors in history. They become relevant through context and agency.

Furthermore, any readers above fifth-grade level and with the slightest sense unblinded by their own ideology will have no trouble figuring out which of the two of us is refusing to "tax the brain," refusing to listen or to respond relevantly, and ignoring elementary logic and facts. Thanks for playing and deal with it.

[Albertoo]

39. What a childish, narrow-minded answer

I made the effort to detail at length why the main causes of ISIS are
(1) the fundamnetalist ideology started by ibn wahhab even before the US existed as a nation
(2) the Sunni/Shia divide

You just brush all my facts aside, and just trumpet: never mind, it's the fault of the US

By all means, be my guest, just disregard the facts and keep on hating America.


btw, never knew that sticking to historical facts made me a Republican.

[BubbaFett]

16. US DESTRUCTION of Iraq is the ONLY cause of

destabilization in the region. A secular muslim warlord was a necessary evil.

[strawberries]

18. I will remember that

the next time I see NON US citizens being beheaded and burned alive while others laugh and watch

[BubbaFett]

20. That didn't happen when Saddam was in power

your argument makes no sense.

[strawberries]

22. I wasn't making an argument

which is probably why it made no sense

[BubbaFett]

23. argument:

a reason or set of reasons given with the aim of persuading others that an action or idea is right or wrong.

Yes, you made an argument. It made no sense, please clarify your position, if you have one.

[strawberries]

26. what are you my mother?

I have nothing more to say. Stories ends here

[BubbaFett]

27. you better be glad I am not your mother

I would do something about your sassy little mouth.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

35. Yes it did! Saddam had vast numbers of innocent people killed.

Failing to acknowledge that doesn't strengthen the case against the invasion of Iraq, it undermines it.

[840high]

32. ....x10

[butterfly77]

6. And stupid politicians ...

want more. They think they can bomb any and everyone and it won't matter, they think they can hide in their gated villages or racist little towns and they won't suffer any consequences. The weather doesn't give a damn where they are or who they are.

[spanone]

10. k&r...

[Scuba]

12. I was expecting a picture of Darth Cheney.

[RiverLover]

13. R&K!

We need to wake up. This is a never-ending cycle & a fight we can never win. Unless we just like playing wack the mole. It profits MNCs like Halliburton & the Oil industry & Defense industry corps like Raytheon and takes away money that could be spent on renewable energy, education, food stamps, job training, infrastructure, PUBLICLY-FINANCED CAMPAIGNS, clean water, etc.

And all the while there's the small matter of corps like GE not paying a dime in taxes. so the bill is on US.

[H2O Man]

14. "They hate us for our freedoms."

In yesterday's local newspaper, there was an op-ed by paleocon Patrick Buchanan that explained that ISIS poses no existential threat to the United States. It's a sad day when a clown like him is more honest and accurate regarding the "threat" that ISIS poses, than most of the Democrats who were elected to represent us in Washington.

[BubbaFett]

15. The removal of Saddam Hussein and our the destruction of Iraq

by the US resulted in the loss of stability in the region. This is why ISIS exists.

[brentspeak]

17. Completely wrong

When the US illegally deposed Saddam, it took out the strongman who acted as a bulwark against jihadism in Iraq, destabilizing the region. His overthrow made the US completely responsible for creating a political and military void which has allowed Islamist groups such as ISIS to come in and wreak havoc. That much is true. The US (and its coalition) are 100% on the hook for that.

But all the death and mayhem which the US invasion caused is not the source of ISIS' own barbarism. The jihadists' atrocities are their own, bringing into the 21st century a long-ago past of Middle East warmongers' own brutal history. The US isn't responsible for that.

[cali]

21. you're closer to the mark, i think. But, the U.S. is certainly a significant contributing

factor.

[BubbaFett]

24. The poster is 100% correct

[politicman]

30. Without the invasion, ISIS would not exists, thats a fact.

Who cares whether ISIS is responsible for the all the mayhem and bloodshed that they commit, they would not have the territory and ability to commit these horrors if not for the U.S invasion of Iraq.

An invasion that a majority of Americans supported at the time, so we cannot just pin this on Bush, as in a democracy the will and opinion of a people can usually force a corrupt government to think twice about engaging in an action such as the Iraqi illegal invasion.

But the main point I am trying to make is that you can blame all the atrocities on ISIS if that makes you feel better (god knows they are the ones that carry them out), but the fact that ISIS would never have had any power or territory to carry out its atrocities if Bush and the majority of the American public didn't approve of invading Iraq in an illegal manner in the first place.

It always amuses me when people try to dismiss or downplay an action that results in giving bad guys the ability to act like their bad selves.

Bush and America behind him illegally invaded Iraq, that created a power vacuum that bad guys such as ISIS decided to fill.

So using the logic of cause and effect, the U.S is directly responsible for giving every psychopath in the world an outlet for them to join and carry out their pyschopathic wants.

Its the equivalent of destroying a town in America which then enables all serial killers to take advantage of the resultant chaos to forge ahead with their serial killing wants.

[Albertoo]

40. No. ISIS = wahhbi ideology

Please check my posts 5, 8 annd 19.

ISIS would be alive and well, even if the USA did not exist as a nation, or even as a land.

[politicman]

41. Bullcrap

ISIS exists today specifically because of Bush's war on terror and the disasterous Iraq invasion.

Wahhbi ideology has been around for ages, and just like any extremism in any religion or political party, you cannot get rid of it completely because there will always be a fringe of people that embrace violence to promote their cause.

when busy said 'either you are with us or against us', that ended up forcing a lot of people to choose between their religion and American aggression.

The Iraq war and later the Syrian civil war provided the chaos for Wahhabis to bring their fringe groups out into the open and openly recruit without fear of being easily identified and destroyed.

Now, with the choice of choosing between their religion and America and its puppet governments in that region, many Muslims decided they would choose ISIS because even though they are evil, ISIS represented a way to strike back at America and its puppet governments.

[Albertoo]

44. You are wrong: the Quran and Wahhab did not wait for the USA to exist

in Kitab al-Tawhid, Ibn Abd al-Wahhab described followers of the both the Christian and Jewish faiths as sorcerers who believed in devil worship, and cited a hadith of the prophet stating that punishment for the sorcerer is `that he be struck with the sword.`[48]

al-Wahhab insisted mid XVIIIth Century that non muslims were enemies.

In that, he was theologically justified as he drew his wahhabi theory from a literal reading of the Quran, which, among many other violent and intolerant quotes, says: "Fight Those Who Do Not Believe" (Surah 9:29)

Besides, should I remind you that the muhamedan Arabs conquered all the Christian lands of North Africa and the Zoroastrian lands of Iran and Pakistan in the VIIth Century? Were they provoked into doing so by the evil and imperialist US policies?

[TheKentuckian]

31. and if not stupidly and wickedly unleashed the acts would not be happening

You empty the asylum and yeah you have a lot of fucking responsibility for the mayhem that follows.

The outcome was entirely predictable and you can point fingers at the psychopaths all you want but it does ring hollow to my ears when you are the one who purposefully set them loose.

[Deertoil]

28. Makes as much sense as any other excuse I've heard.

If not more so.

[pampango]

29. "When Washington holds hands with dictators ... hatreds are remembered and passed down over the

generations."

Very true and an action that we should avoid though ousting dictators has a cost as well.

[leveymg]

33. Add one more essential but not sufficient precondition for ISIS: destabilization of Libya and Syria.

Here's a lesser-known set of facts leading to the creation of ISIS:

John Kerry was actively wooing Assad until early 2011 when the Petraeus-Clinton faction took control over MENA policy, and regime change was brought simultaneously to Syria, along with Libya and Tunisia. The project was most aggressively led on the ground by covert operators from France and Qatar, to a lesser extent involving the U.S., U.K., Saudi Arabia, UAE and Turkey in funding, coordination, propaganda, logistics and support. Ongoing programs run by CIA and State Dept. were ballooned, and there were a lot of meetings, but mostly we watched civil war unfold as third-force special forces units (mostly Qatari) led armed uprisings in Libya and Syria. In March 2011, President Obama signed a classified "finding" coordinating efforts with Qatar and several other countries to overthrow Qaddafi. http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/30/us-libya-usa-order-idUSTRE72T6H220110330 A similar directive was signed ordering similar covert operations in Syria.

In April, 2011, Chris Stevens arrived in Eastern Libya where he took a lead role in organizing opposition militia. At the time of Stevens death on September 12, 2012, Ghadaffi had been killed the previous October after retreating to his tribal homeland in Sirte, and the Libyan army had dissolved. Opposition militia were in charge of the rest of the country and arms stocks. By that stage, there was an active pipeline set up for Islamic fighters and looted Libyan heavy arms -- along with shoulder-fired antiaircraft missiles (MANPADs) -- flowing into Syria by way of Turkey. That movement of MANPADs was first confirmed in a Times of London article published two days after the attack on the US compound in Benghazi. See, http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/09/28/1137620/-Times-of-London-Shipload-of-Looted-Missiles-From-Libya-Arrives-in-Turkey#

The death of Stevens and the spread across the region of heavy arms and Jihadist Libyan fighters armed and trained by Qataris using Saudi and Gulf money forced President Obama to reconsider the policy. CIA Director Petraeus, who was confirmed in September 2011 to succeed Leon Panetta, resisted winding down the operation. In a showdown White House meeting the following October, Petraeus was supported by Secretary of State Clinton and Defense Secretary Panetta. Obama's decision to wind down what has been referred to as "Operation Zero Footprint" came after discussions with national security advisor Tom Donilon. The rift within the Administration was first made public during Senate hearings the following February. See, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/08/us/politics/panetta-speaks-to-senate-panel-on-benghazi-attack.html?_r=0 Petraeus' ongoing affair with his biographer was exposed, and Secretary Clinton's resignation graciously accepted after the Inauguration. The rest, as they say, is history.

[lunatica]

34. ISIS is the spawn of our wars in the Middle East

We went after Al Qaeda even when they weren't there in Iraq like a rapist and are surprised we birthed ISIS. But, of course the Western world would never admit that.

[JonLP24]

42. Hits the nail in those 4 paragraphs

Best short-term explanation you can find from someone who is paid to give their view. I'm glad colonialism is mentioned because the effects of post-colonization are all over the place, it is usually overlooked when the identity politics involve Muslim sects. Central Africa Republic & Syria are neck-to-neck for most troubling situation in the word as well as South Sudan. The governments that are in control of these countries (the rebel coalition that did overthrow the government started giving it back to them after the genocide of Muslim majority towns & cities, a mob person even killed someone over an accusation he was Muslim.

The ideology originates from 18th-century Najd but regarding convincing others to join their cults a great deal of other factors contributed to this. "Battle of Fallujah" basically jump started the Iraq civil war and senseless slaughter shooting at anyone who is male but the vast majority of the armed forces were using the word "Haji" to refer to any and all people who live in Southwest Asia, even "Haji" was used to refer to TCNs. I bet you there are many atrocities or inhumane acts committed that we don't know about but people experienced.

I don't really know the point of mentioning this since I didn't try to tell others within the Army what he said given that he said in a bus full of troops including NCOs & maybe anyone else who didn't verbally express disapproval but one of the E-4s (was E-5 when I got out and who knows what rank he is now) who said he was in a combat related MOS before he became a Mechanic, he deployed before right after the plane landed in Kuwait & we got on the bus, a lot of soldiers such as myself never been there, I was several rows in front but I could clearly hear the conversation since this was the only group conversation going on from what I remember at-the-time. He was asked if the women that live there are "attractive", he emphasized yes & explaining why said he was clearing a home, saw a woman, with the weapon ordered her to lift up so he could see her naked, she complied & he liked what he saw according to what he said. Since he is the only person I'm aware of that could confirm what he did, don't know if he was trying to impress but was one to skirt the rules (but nothing major that I'm aware, purchasing alcohol at an airport in Iceland when deploying or coming back drinking alcohol in-route was a no go. I skirted the rules myself but I wasn't one with ulterior motives to harm or take advantage of people. Just weed & alcohol or not being at formation 100% of the time.

On edit -- I lost track of the point I wanted to make, I'm trying to find a post I made awhile ago with sources regarding the terror & oppression that is duped into joining IS or is radicalized due to the poverty & brutally experienced.

[JonLP24]

43. Found the articles I was looking for

The report, "Iraq: Still paying a high price after a decade of abuses", exposes a long chronology of torture and other ill-treatment of detainees committed by Iraqi security forces, as well as by foreign troops, in the wake of the US-led 2003 invasion.

One Iraqi woman, speaking on condition of anonymity, said her nephew was first detained when he was just 18. Held under the infamous Article Four which gives the government the ability to arrest anyone "suspected" of terrorism, he was charged with terrorism. She told, in detail, of how her nephew was treated:

"They beat him with metal pipes, used harsh curse words and swore against his sect and his Allah (because he is Sunni) and why God was not helping him, and that they would bring up the prisoners' mothers and sisters to rape them," she explained to Al Jazeera. "Then they used electricity to burn different places of his body. They took all his cloths off in winter and left them naked out in the yard to freeze."

Her nephew, who was released after four years imprisonment after the Iraqi appeals court deemed him innocent, was then arrested 10 days after his release, again under Article 4. This law gives the government of Prime Minister Maliki broad license to detain Iraqis. Article four and other laws provide the government the ability to impose the death penalty for nearly 50 crimes, including terrorism, kidnapping, and murder, but also for offenses such as damage to public property.

http://www.aljazeera.com/humanrights/2013/03/201331883513244683.html

The Shia dominated Iraq government, especially regarding Al-Maliki was well-known for using anti-terrorism laws against the Sunni population. So many elected Sunni officials had their homes raided by Iraqi military, one was killed during these home invasions. The Kurds (also oppressed by Iraq's government) helped the highest elected Sunni official escape a political prostitution (where he got the death penalty in a trial that took place without him) which the government is still fuming about.


------

Further, although it may seem that Massoud Barzani, president of the Kurdistan region, cut a deal with Sunni Arab officials and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan against Maliki, the Kurds are beginning to see a potential nightmare; a border controlled not just by ISIS but Baathist military officers and fueled by a strong populist sentiment. Saddam Hussein’s daughter, Raghdad, applauded the Mosul attack as “victories of my father’s fighters and my uncle Izzat al-Douri.” According to a report in The Voice of Kurdistan (Sawt Kurdistan) and local sources, al-Douri is reported to have visited Mosul governorate headquarters on June 12 after having been in hiding by “a country in the region.” Former Iraqi Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi, who fled Iraq in December 2011 and briefly took refuge in the Kurdistan Region before gaining Ankara’s support, also rejoiced after the ISIS takeover of Mosul, referring to it as a revolution of the oppressed, downtrodden and marginalized people in Mosul.

Indeed, the KRG has delicately balanced its relations with Sunni Arab communities thus far and was not directly targeted in the Mosul attack. In fact since 2005 Barzani has developed or strengthened his ties to moderate Sunni Arab leaders, mainly as part of an anti-Maliki alliance and for commercial purposes as demonstrated by his close ties with Mosul Gov. Atheel al-Nujaifi. The KRG also has welcomed the Iraqi military officers that fled Mosul into the Kurdistan Region, as well as hundreds of thousands of displaced families from Mosul.

Still, whether these arrangements can translate into hard political agreements between the KRG and Sunni Arab leaders over land and oil is highly questionable, at least in the short term. Despite shared Sunni affiliations Kurds and Iraqi Sunni Arabs have deep political differences and distrust, particularly regarding the Kurdish nationalist agenda. For instance, in addition to criticizing the KRG’s oil policy Sunni Arab communities seek to terminate the de-Baathification law and postpone Article 140 of the Iraqi Constitution — both of which are essential Kurdish political claims.

Further, Barzani’s ties to Sunni Arab leaders and Erdogan may stabilize communal relations and enhance business opportunities, but they have to be measured alongside the Kurdistan Region’s other influential neighbor — Iran. While Tehran’s influence extends throughout the Kurdistan Region it is particularly salient in Suleymaniya and among the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and Gorran Movement. These groups are not only wary of tying a Kurdish umbilical cord to Ankara, but they have their own commercial, political and security agreements with Tehran that requires support for Baghdad, even tacitly. This influence may also affect how far the Kurds can press ahead with Kirkuk. The PUK governor, Najmaldin Kerim, has not only won overwhelming support in Kirkuk but has successfully balanced Kurdish demands with Baghdad, and Kurdish, Arab and Turcoman communities in the city.

Read more: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2014/06/kurds-isis-mosul-maliki-krg-gains-leverage.html#ixzz3T2aR1VQW