Iran balks at Kurdish statehood threats

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http://atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MID-01-180714.html



Iran balks at Kurdish statehood threats
By Mahan Abedi
Jul 18, '14

As Iraq continues to disintegrate, its powerful eastern neighbor, Iran, struggles to keep up with a wide range of issues and threats which in due course may jeopardize Iranian national security.

For Iran, nothing is as potentially more problematic and threatening than the prospect of Kurdish independence. Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani's dramatic break with his customary silence on the question of Kurdish statehood has raised the stakes for all key regional and international players by signaling determined political intent in Erbil to push for independence.

An independent Kurdistan undercuts Iranian influence in Iraq. More worryingly for the Iranians, a nascent Kurdish state signals a permanent base for American and Israeli influence on Iran's doorstep. And as if this was not bad enough, Kurdish independence in Iraq will inevitably embolden irredentist Kurdish elements in Iran, which at a minimum, complicates the Islamic Republic's political and security calculations in the country's Kurdish-majority provinces in the west.

The threat of irredentism

It is difficult to escape the conclusion that Iraq's Kurdish leaders have displayed extremely cynical and irresponsible opportunism at modern Iraq's gravest hour. As the highly sectarianized and genocidal-prone militia group styling itself as the Islamic State (IS) spearheaded a massive rebellion in Iraq's Sunni heartlands, Iraqi Kurds exploited the unprecedented security vacuum by occupying oil-rich Kirkuk and other so-called "disputed" areas. These disputed areas stretch from the heart of Nineveh province in the north all the way to Khanaqin close to the Iranian border.