You can hardly blame Masoud Barzani, president of Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), for playing the pied piper. Yet while talk of independence for Kurds is not exactly a new subject, it is one that is being neatly stitched into the delicate patchwork of Washington DC’s Middle East small talk. The US president meets Mr Barzani at the White House on Tuesday.
Mr Barzani believes he is getting a lousy deal on three fronts: firstly, the KRG has little to show for giving ISIL a bloody nose in a number of key battles. Baghdad has also reneged on its oil agreements, so Erbil’s coffers are running low, and there is little for the Kurds to be cheerful about in the Iran nuclear deal.
The problem for the Kurds is that they have yet to decide with whom to align themselves with regionally: Iran (unlikely), Iraq (possibly) or Turkey (likely) and whether to cosy up to the US.
For the US, the Kurds are doing the fighting in both Syria and Iraq and are critical for battlefield victories. For the moment, at least. But if the three Kurdish regions form a political entity and strike for independence, this could upset the geopolitical apple cart, given that Iraq and Syria will be shattered and Turkey would also be thrown into turmoil.
None of those scenarios bodes well for the remainder of the Obama administration.
For the US president, his counterpart in Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, plays a central but divisive role. Last summer, Mr Erdogan refused to help the Kurds to fight ISIL, but then also allowed them a corridor for their own fighters.
Mr Erdogan is now championing the cause for a buffer zone in Syria, a notion tacitly linked to sending in his own troops, under a plan sketched out by his own experts and those of two Gulf countries.
Meanwhile, Bashar Al Assad has successfully distracted the Kurds. Just recently, his regime flirted with Kurdish leaders in the semi-autonomous north eastern province, offering them freedom of sorts, although he stopped short of offering full independence.
In return, one can only presume that the payback would be help for Mr Al Assad on the battlefield elsewhere, against a new generation of “moderate” fighters who are being trained in Syria by the Turkish army and US elite forces.
The offer by Mr Al Assad could be deemed as well-timed. It came just weeks before the parliamentary elections in Turkey, where much hope is placed on the Kurds winning a minimum number of seats, which will give them unprecedented political leverage.
Opposition leaders in Turkey contend that equality rather than independence is the real deal that the Kurds seek.
However, if post-election squabbling ensues and Mr Erdogan reacts to their wins in the election, this would marginalise them once again. No one in the Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party wants to think about going back to the old days of fighting for an independent country.
On Tuesday, while Mr Barzani courts Mr Obama and presents the idea of “self determination” – a euphemism designed to cover a multitude of sins – he may reveal that Mr Erdogan, and not the US president, holds the key.
Martin Jay is the English language editor of An Nahar in Lebanon
On Twitter: @MartinRJay
