Oil and National Identity
in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq

Examining the interplay between the oil economy and identity politics using
the Kurdistan Region of Iraq as a case study, this book tells the untold story
of how extractivism in the Kurdish autonomous region is interwoven in a
mosaic of territorial disputes, simmering ethnic tensions, dynastic rule, party
allegiances, crony patronage, and divergent visions about nature.
Since the ousting of Saddam Hussein, the de facto borders of the Kurdistan
Region of Iraq have repeatedly changed, with energy interests playing a
major role in such processes of territorialisation. However, relatively little
research exists on the topic. This book provides a timely, empirical analysis of
the intersections between extractive industries, oil imaginaries, and identity
formation in one of the most coveted energy frontiers worldwide. It shines a
light on relations between the global production networks of petro-capitalism
and extractive localities. Besides the strained federal relationship with the Iraqi
central government, the transformative effects the petroleum industry has had
on Kurdish society are also explored in depth. Moreover, the book fills a gap
in the literature on Kurdish Studies, which has devoted scant attention to
energy-related issues in the re-imagination of Kurdish self-determination.
This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of the extractive
industries, energy studies, conflict studies, Middle Eastern politics, and political
ecology.
Alessandro Tinti holds a PhD degree in Political Science and International
Relations from the Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies, Italy. He is currently
Research Fellow at La Sapienza University of Rome and Adjunct Professor at
the University of Bologna, Italy.

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Oil and National Identity
in the Kurdistan Region
of Iraq
Conflicts at the Frontier
of Petro-Capitalism
Alessandro Tinti

First published 2022
by Routledge
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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
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Names: Tinti, Alessandro, author.
Title: Oil and national identity in the Kurdistan region of Iraq: conflicts at the
frontier of petro-capitalism/Alessandro Tinti.
Other titles: Routledge studies of the extractive industries and sustainable development.
Description: Abingdon, Oxon; New York: Routledge, 2021. | Series: Routledge studies of the
extractive industries | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Summary: “Examining
the interplay between the oil economy and identity politics using the Kurdistan Region of Iraq
as a case study, this book tells the untold story of how extractivism in the Kurdish autonomous
region is interwoven in a mosaic of territorial disputes, simmering ethnic tensions, dynastic
rule, party allegiances, crony patronage, and divergent visions about nature. Since the ousting
of Saddam Hussein, the de-facto borders of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq have repeatedly
changed, with energy interests playing a major role in such processes of territorialization.
However, relatively little research exists on the topic. This book provides a timely, empirical
analysis of the intersections between extractive industries, oil imaginaries, and identity
formation in one of the most coveted energy frontiers worldwide. It shines a light on relations
between the global production networks of petro-capitalism and extractive localities. Besides
the strained federal relationship with the Iraqi central government, the transformative effects
the petroleum industry has had on Kurdish society are also explored in depth. Moreover, the
book fills a gap in the literature on Kurdish Studies, which has devoted scant attention to
energy-related issues in the re-imagination of Kurdish self-determination. This book will be
of great interest to students and scholars of the extractive industries, energy studies, conflict
studies, Middle Eastern politics, and political ecology” – Provided by publisher.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021025962 (print) | LCCN 2021025963 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780367751265 (hardback) | ISBN 9780367751289 (paperback) |
ISBN 9781003161103 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Petroleum industry and trade – Political aspects – Iraq –
Kurdistān. | Kurds – Iraq – Kurdistān – Politics and government – 21st century. |
Nationalism – Iraq – Kurdistān – History – 21st century. | Kurdistān (Iraq) –
Politics and government – 21st century. | Kurdistān (Iraq) – Ethnic relations.
Classification: LCC HD9576.I73 K878 2021 (print) | LCC HD9576.I73
(ebook) | DDC 338.2/728095554 – dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021025962
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021025963
ISBN: 978-0-367-75126-5 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-367-75128-9 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-16110-3 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003161103
Typeset in Bembo
by Apex CoVantage, LLC

in loving memory of Carla & Franco

Contents

List of abbreviations
Acknowledgements
Introduction: the trail of oil
1 The nature of conflict: on oil and violence

viii
x
1
9

2 The Kurdistan Region of Iraq: borders, identity, oil

52

3 The gate to statehood: Kurdish nationalism
and the oil dream

86

4 A nation divided: Kurdish infighting and black gold

121

5 No friends but the mountains: extractivism
and social control

152

Conclusions: the making of oil environments

175

Appendix
Index

187
188

Abbreviations

ANT – Actor-Network Theory
APOC – Anglo-Persian Oil Company
AUIS – American University of Iraq – Sulaimani
BP – British Petroleum
bpd – barrels per day
CDJ – Coalition for Democracy and Justice
EITI – Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative
GDP – Gross Domestic Product
INOC – Iraq National Oil Company
IOC – International oil company
IPC – Iraqi Petroleum Company
IR – International Relations
ISF – Iraqi Security Forces
ISIS – Islamic State of Iraq and Syria
KDP – Kurdistan Democratic Party (Partiya Demokrat a Kurdistanê)
KEPCO – Kurdistan Exploration and Production Company
KIU – Kurdistan Islamic Union
KNA – Kurdistan National Assembly
KNOC – Kurdistan National Oil Company
KODO – Kurdistan Organisation for Downstream Operations
KOMO – Kurdistan Oil Marketing Organisation
KOTO – Kurdistan Oil Trust Organisation
KRG – Kurdistan Regional Government
KRI – Kurdistan Region of Iraq
MNR – Ministry of Natural Resources
NGC – North Gas Company
NOC – Iraqi North Oil Company
PKK – Kurdistan Workers’ Party (Partiya Karkerên Kurdistanê)
PMU – Popular Mobilisation Units (Hashd al-Shaabi)
PSA – Production Sharing Agreement
PSC – Production Sharing Contract
PUK – Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (Yekêtiy Niştîmaniy Kurdistan)

Abbreviations ix

PYD – Democratic Union Party (Partiya Yekîtiya Demokrat)
SOMO – State Organisation for Marketing of Oil
TEC – Turkish Energy Company
UPP – Un Ponte Per

Acknowledgements

It is commonplace to start a book by saying that the author is greatly indebted
to all who in various ways contributed to its realisation. However, I truly am
and beyond all measure.
Firstly, my heart goes out to my Kurdish friends and the people of Kurdistan,
whose hospitality and kindness touched me deeply. I never felt like a stranger.
I hope my research did justice to the stories of sorrow and hope they shared
with me.
Foremost among them is Nabil Musa. His commitment and dedication to
environmental protection in the endangered waterways of his beautiful region,
even in the toughest conditions, truly inspired me. I am honoured to be your
friend, kaka.
To all the Kurds of the diaspora, I express my sympathy and respect. I was
welcomed with the greatest warmth, always and everywhere. My greetings
extend to Heyva Sor a Kurdistanê and all its branches.
This book is based upon the PhD research I carried out at the Sant’Anna
School of Advanced Studies in Pisa. I am grateful to my supervisor, Francesco
Strazzari, for his support in the project. I would like to thank Alessandra
Russo, Chiara Certomà, Arturo Marzano, Jan Selby, Matt McDonald, Joost
Jongerden, Filippo Menga, Francesca Borri, Linda Dorigo, Marina Calculli,
Maria Fantappie, Yaniv Voller, Kevin Dunn, Nancy Peluso, Fidan Mirhanoglu,
Hussam Hussein, Irene Costantini, Luca Raineri, Alice Martini, Benedetta
Argentieri, Zeinep Kaya, Alberto Tonini, Clemens Hoffmann, and Ruth
Hanau Santini for the precious suggestions, critiques, and feedback.
I would also like to thank Christine van den Toorn for hosting me twice
at the American University of Iraq – Sulaimani, and Sarah Mathieu-Comtois,
Jacqueline Parry, Bahra Saleh, Zainab Mera, Renad Mansour, Kerem Usslaki,
Mohammed Fatih, and all staff at the Institute of Regional and International
Studies for their patient and tireless assistance in every aspect of my stay.
My second period of fieldwork in Iraq was made possible through a grant
from POMEPS. The moment I received the news, at 3 a.m. in the morning,
I was ecstatic.
Since the very beginning, Un Ponte Per was my best ally on the ground.
Thank you Toon, Ismaeel, and Martina for including me in the organisation of
an extraordinary event – the Mesopotamian Water Forum.

Acknowledgements xi

The visiting period I spent at the Institute of Environmental Science and
Technology in Barcelona was a breath of fresh air. My thanks go to Mariana
Walter, Leah Temper, Daniela Del Bene, Lena Weber, Joan Martinez Alier, and
Rania Masri for the empathy and interest they have genuinely shown.
Serena was my greatest supporter throughout the journey. This book would
have never come into being without her. I owe her a debt of gratitude for this
and more.
The many conversations with Alice and Luigi were crucial in inspiring me
to think outside the box and develop the research. Most importantly, they are
amazing friends.
I am also grateful for the countless coffee breaks with Clara and Edoardo,
and for being there for each other during our doctoral studies.
I will never be able to thank enough Elizabeth for proofreading the
manuscript with such love and care. Her help was invaluable. I feel blessed to
have her by my side.
I wish Carla and Franco could read these pages. This book is dedicated to
them.

Introduction
The trail of oil

I arrived in Kirkuk in the early morning, driving from Sulaymaniyah. It was
June 2017, during Ramadan. The temperature would go up to over 40 degrees
in a matter of hours. Flames burned from flare stacks and black smoke poured
from facilities on the outskirts of the “oil city.” The smell of refining was all
around. As I got closer to central districts, I went through the security controls of several checkpoints managed by the Iraqi Federal Police and no longer
Kurdish Peshmerga. Different uniforms, different languages. Whilst the counteroffensive against the Islamic State1 (ISIS) was inching towards the last few
jihadist pockets in Mosul, ethnic acrimony was mounting again as the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) geared up for an explosive referendum
regarding the independence of the autonomous region. Although Kurdish factions were immersed in their own feuds, the referendum campaign blew on
the groundswell of deep resentment against the central government in Baghdad
and mutual accusations of betrayal and deceit. Once again Kirkuk was the
symbolic and military frontline in-between Arabs and Kurds, if not the ultimate embodiment of the historic hatred fragmenting Iraq into ethno-sectarian
components. In mid-October, the central government would respond to what
appeared to be the prelude to secession with the bloody re-deployment of the
Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) and Shi’a militias in the disputed territories, controlled by Peshmerga. I would once again return to Kirkuk a year later, after the
dust from the political fallout had settled.
At the time of my first visit, dark clouds were gathering on the horizon,
with the KRG President Masoud Barzani extending the scope of the referendum to all the “Kurdistani” areas outside the administrative authority of the
autonomous region and making it clear that any alteration of actual borders,
redrawn with the blood of the many martyrs who had sacrificed their lives
to tackle the ISIS insurgency, would not be tolerated. Despite the assertiveness of the KRG top brass, a breaking point was not yet in sight. Barzani also
warned that federal negotiations would resume after the vote (an obvious yes
vote) in order to reach a new, comprehensive agreement over borders, water,
and oil. Those three issues of bargaining so clearly stated in one sentence were
meaningful for the research interests that had brought me there. I was in the
Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI) to understand precisely how resource politics
DOI: 10.4324/9781003161103-1

2

Introduction

had been implicated in the re-articulation of Kurdish self-determination since
the downfall of Saddam Hussein in 2003.
It is no doubt that hydrocarbons have provided sustenance for institution
building in the Kurdish enclave. The Kurdish de facto state emerging out of the
end of Ba’athism is oil dependent as much as its parent state. The ruling oligarchy inherited the same mentality of building state legitimacy upon oil-driven
economic development, so much that optimism and confidence that Kurdish leaders have about the future is largely linked to the chance of generating
income from oil and gas production. After all, modern Iraq was carved out as
an independent country under the British colonial mandate because of energy
interests in no small part. Iraq has 145 billion barrels of proven oil reserves (BP,
2020), which make the country the fifth largest holder in the world. Added to
these are 112 trillion cubic feet of proven gas reserves. In light of these staggering figures, it is no surprise that the petroleum industry has dominated the
Iraqi economy since its nationalisation in the early 1970s, either directly or
indirectly. According to the World Bank (2018), oil accounts for more than
65% of GDP and 90% of government revenue. Oilfields are located for the
most part in the Shi’a-populated southernmost province of Basra along the
Shatt al-Arab, in the ethnically mixed disputed areas around Kirkuk, and in
the Kurdish autonomous region in the north.
During the Ba’athist autocracy, deposits lying in Kurdish-inhabited territories were kept out of development plans to curb local claims of political
autonomy. Kurds suffered violent persecutions, ruthless assimilation policies,
and economic marginalisation throughout the republican history. The UNenforced no-fly zone after the first Gulf War, to begin with, and the regime
change following the second US-led military campaign in Iraq commenced a
new era. Kurds took charge of their own destiny and made the exploitation of
oil and gas resources as the mainstay of economic independence from Baghdad
to the extent that the KRI is now touted as one of the most coveted energy
frontiers worldwide.
This book tells that story. It does so by relating the wild creation of an
extractive economy to a composite mosaic of long-held grievances, territorial disputes, simmering ethnic tensions, dynastic rule, tribal allegiances, crony
patronage, and the intimate bond with the natural environment. Such intersection at the heart of Kurdistan, even more so in the current historical conjuncture, sparked my interest. Oil is woven into a contentious texture delineating
multiple geographies: the KRI is a new hub on the global energy market;
a rentier economy in the hands of patrimonial elites split along party lines;
a purported haven of stability in the midst of disorder for foreign investors
in the West; the closest thing ever attained to the long-cherished dream of
an independent Kurdish state for millions of Kurds, not only in Iraq; and an
unruly, breakaway region for the Iraqi central government. These geographies
are riven by contestation. Oil acts as a catalyst for situated memories of ethnic
persecutions and foreign domination, warfare and rebellion, statelessness and
exile, and nationhood and citizenship.

Introduction 3

The viscous trail of petroleum is ubiquitous and tangible everywhere in
Iraq. It arrived much later to Kurdistan, but its pervasive presence is etched
deep into the fabric of the region. The endless line of trucks and petrol stations
along the way, the air fresheners carrying (with a hint of black humour) the
logo of Rosneft inside taxis, the acrid smell released by makeshift refineries and
smoke plumes billowing dark in the sky, the shiny five-star hotels and fancy
shopping malls standing next to skeletons of empty buildings and junkyards in
Erbil (a contrast that is striking evidence of the bust-boom cycle of petrodollars), even the street protests of teachers and civil servants over unpaid salaries
and vanished revenues – all these convey the impression that oil has left a trace
in everything. This does not mean that everything is about oil, of course.
However, the petroleum industry has had a deeply transformative effect on the
region and casts a long shadow on its future.
Despite the federal structure of the country, all Iraqi governorates largely
depend on budgetary transfers from the central government, including the
KRG. The semi-autonomous region, which is approximately the same size
of Switzerland and has a population of 5.2 million people (KRSO, 2018), is
the only sub-state authority collecting revenue directly through taxation, custom duties, and independent oil sales. However, the legal validity of the latter
has been harshly contested, thus opening a crack between the centre and the
periphery. The central government feared that the KRG’s oil policy would
undermine the integrity of the country. This dispute has intensified over time,
escalating exponentially since the suspension of revenue transfers from the centre in early 2014. The liquidity crunch was also compounded by the conflict
against ISIS, the resulting influx of 1.8 million refugees and IDPs, and the illtimed sharp fall in oil prices. As a result, the oil-driven economic boom has
swiftly faded.
The KRG case allows a more general point to be made. Oil runs into the
veins of industrial societies to such an extent that no other commodity has had
a comparable impact on modernity. Despite the urgency to move towards a
carbon-neutral energy future, we currently live in a fossil-fuelled world that is
still powered by conventional, carbon-intensive energy sources. For all its economic and strategic importance, a barrel of crude is worth far more than the
price it commands on the market. As the common saying goes, oil is thicker
than blood, all the more so for producing countries oil is tinged red with identity. Grounded in extensive empirical research and based on a rich theoretical
account, this book aims to reverse the traditional way of understanding the
nexus between oil and politics by showing the mechanisms through which the
extractive industry influences identity making.
In Culture and Imperialism, Edward Said suggested that the struggle over
geography “is not only about soldiers and cannons but also about ideas, about
forms, about images and imaginings” (1993: 7). In the same vein, this research
challenges the assumption that oil is merely a high-yield commodity imbued
with extraordinary corrupting power. The oil commodity chain is considered
here as a relational setting within which political subjectivity is renegotiated in

4

Introduction

new forms. Applied to the analysis of national identities in extractive countries,
oil taps into memories and symbols that define the criteria of collective identification. Put differently, the ways natural resources in general are imagined,
territorialised, commodified, and governed enter the fluid re-composition of
collective identities within the political community.
This argument might sound postmodernly vague. Barrels, pipelines, revenues, and export quotas are the usual buzzwords of energy talks. When
approaching the modus operandi of the petroleum industry, one gets familiar
with maps illustrating the location of fields underground and the ramification
of hubs and spokes aboveground that display conduits, pumping and metering
stations, transhipment centres, storage facilities, processing plants, and refineries. The geography of oil production looks very concrete, and it is. The “magic
touch of oil” (Fuccaro, 2013) on collective identities is no less tangible. The
transformative reach of black gold goes beyond the monetary rent and the
circuits of rent circulation it generates. Indeed, it goes to the point of restructuring politics as a whole. It is certainly the case with Iraq, where disputed soil
and nationalist narratives are soaked with oil. The recent Kurdish experience
elucidates it even better, showing that the seemingly impersonal commodification of crude is actually embedded into an ideological milieu of discourses that
translates into everyday practices of identity formation.
These are rather uncharted waters in International Relations (IR), which is
the discipline I was trained in. As is evident with the influential oil curse theory,
in most cases, IR scholars have looked at oil as either an object of geopolitical
competition or a trigger of domestic instability, thus indulging into deterministic assumptions that cannot see anything but a causative role. I, however, had
a different viewpoint when I set foot in Kurdistan. As the rationale behind this
study was to explore how the petroleum industry has influenced the evolution
of the Kurdish question in Iraq, I was interested in locating the material forces
of wealth accumulation within a broader perspective. In a nutshell, I wanted to
investigate the mutual exchange between resource materialities and practices
of signification. Formulated as such, the research question deviates from the
traditional agenda in IR.
The upshot is an interdisciplinary, critically committed, and ethnographically oriented piece of research that is aimed at re-politicising oil environments
through imports from political geography, anthropology, and ecological economics. Far from the beaten track, in particular, the book draws inspiration
from a political ecology approach to extractive industries and related conflicts.
It also embraces progressive understandings of identity and power in light of
critical theory. It is my hope that this syncretic endeavour may encourage a reengagement between IR and the matter of nature. As climate change is high
on the international agenda, and there is an emerging widespread awareness on
the need for global action to reduce greenhouse emissions, IR is increasingly
confronted with environmental and energy issues. A re-appraisal of the politics
of nature is therefore needed to uncover political agency in often blurred and
decentred processes. As an epistemological project that proceeds through the

Introduction 5

deconstruction of techno-political knowledge on nature, political ecology is
attentive to the taxonomies of winners and losers of natural resource use that
would otherwise go unnoticed.
The analysis of the extractive regime implanted in the Kurdish governorates
gives an insight into the full breadth of relationships binding together resource
ecologies, economic development, and governance. Although the idiographic
approach used here refrains from ready-made generalisations, the same approach
is suitable for application to other empirical cases. Whilst extractivism surely
needs to be contextualised in time and space, extractive localities are embedded
in global production chains underpinning the contemporary industrial paradigm.
For this reason, the story told in these pages says something about the “glocal”
dynamics that characterise the infrastructure of petro-capitalism everywhere.
Just as importantly, this book is intended to help fill a gap in the literature
on Kurdish Studies. Scant attention has been paid so far to the role energy
issues have played in the re-imagination and re-territorialisation of Kurdish
self-determination. This is notwithstanding the fact that the KRG has consolidated autonomy upon crude exports bypassing Iraq’s State Organisation
for Marketing of Oil (SOMO). Opposed by Baghdad, the production sharing contracts (PSCs) negotiated unilaterally by Kurdish elites have become the
battleground for federal disputes. After the independence referendum held on
25 September 2017, the tug of war took a violent turn with the military confrontation between ISF and Peshmerga two weeks later, with the latter ones
forced to withdraw from Kirkuk and surrounding areas. However, relatively
little academic research exists on the topic.
To make the story even more complicated, the Syrian civil war and its spillovers have set into motion the Middle Eastern security architecture in such a
way that Kurdish national mobilisations have had momentum both in Syria and
in Iraq. The “Kurdification” of the geopolitical scenario is the mirror image of
the withering of state legitimacy in the host countries. In the Syrian Rojava,
the TEV-DEM movement led by the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD)
managed to fight off ISIS and simultaneously put into practice a model of radical democracy (democratic confederalism) inspired by the writings of PKK’s
leader Abdullah Öcalan. This caused great concern in Turkey, which occupied
militarily Afrin and Azaz to break the territorial continuity of Kurdish-held
areas. Turkish troops entered northern Syria first in August 2016 and again
in January 2018, whilst a two-year ceasefire with the PKK had already been
broken in June 2015.
Against this picture and the profound changes underway, the following
chapters discuss the frantic re-making of political identities in Iraqi Kurdistan
and how oil has played an important part in all of it. The book is based on
multi-sited field research conducted between 2016 and 2017. Empirical material includes over 50 semi-structured and in-depth interviews, documentary
analysis, and participatory observation. After three years of musings on the
myriad of issues involved, these pages are an attempt at interpreting what oil
has meant for Kurds in Iraq.

6

Introduction

Structure of the book
Chapter 1 calls into question the environmental determinism ingrained in
mainstream IR theories on natural resource conflicts. Based on the epistemological rejection of binary distinctions that separate human and non-human
domains, it presents the added value of a political ecology approach to environmental issues. This implies dropping the state- and Western-centric assumptions that abound in the literature on this topic, as along with entering an
interdisciplinary dialogue. In line with well-established research, it is argued
that conflicts in extractive areas need to be understood within the commodity
chain, from local to global. At a theoretical level, the geography shaped by oil
production is seen as a relational setting involved in fixing a collective identity in time and space. Exploring the nexus between identity formation and
natural resource governance is precisely the original contribution laid down
in the book. Given the case at hand, considerable attention is paid to resource
nationalism. Besides setting the theoretical framework of the inquiry, the chapter also briefly explains how an interpretive epistemology was translated into a
methodological roadmap.
Chapter 2 is an introduction to the turbulent history of Kurds in Iraq and
the strained relationships with Baghdad, from the fall of the Ottoman Empire
and the foundation of the Kingdom in the aftermath of World War I to present
days. Without losing sight of transnational aspects and the mythology of the
Greater Kurdistan, the chapter reconstructs origins and evolution of Kurdish
political self-identification, from diluted ethnic consciousness to the emergence
of nationalist mobilisations. In line with modernist theories, Kurdish nationalism is explained as a reaction to the coercive assimilation into nation-state institutions. Concentrating on Iraqi Kurdistan, the construction of a Kurdish nation
is explored through the lens of territorial identity and competition with Arab
nationalisms. Against this background, the chapter details the transformation
of the insurgency into a state-building project supported by the international
community after the Gulf War. A detailed excursus on the birth of the petroleum industry in the country is also provided. In that respect, the ousting of
Saddam Hussein marks a watershed. Once a symbol of oppression, oil becomes
a symbol of redemption. On the heels of re-privatisation of the oil and gas
sector across the whole country, the exploitation of hydrocarbons has offered
Kurds an economic base to push forward in their quest for self-determination.
The main part of the book consists of three empirical chapters. Each of them
is devoted to a different level of analysis.
Based on biographical interviews and secondary sources, Chapter 3 places
the KRG oil nationalism within federal disputes. Since the Kurdish de facto
state is in need of external recognition, independent oil deals have served as
a fundamental carrier of legitimation. Resource sovereignty promises indeed
to solve the problem of statelessness: energy diplomacy is deployed by ruling
elites to reclaim the birthright to self-determination. At an ideological level,
the exploitation of hydrocarbons goes deep into the re-imagining of the nation

Introduction 7

itself. The populist discourse underpinning the rhetoric of the “Dubai dream”
is thoroughly examined and read in connection to the emotional attachment to
the mountainous homeland upon which Kurds’ sense of belonging is defined.
In more pragmatic terms, the analysis points out that the PSCs signed with
international oil companies (IOCs) have contributed to further territorialise
the KRG authority, even in disputed areas beyond de jure borders. Finally,
the journey of a barrel of crude shows current opportunities and limitations
of such strategy – from the disadvantageous landlocked position and related
salience of the Khurmala-Fish Khabur pipeline to the role of international
traders and key importing countries.
Chapter 4 explores the symbiotic relationship between a dynastic political
regime and the extractive economy inside the region. The oil rush after the
end of Ba’athism offers an interesting angle to read the rivalry between the two
ruling parties, the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union
of Kurdistan (PUK). Both are direct emanation of Barzani and Talabani families, respectively, which keep thriving thanks to extensive patronage and control over paramilitary forces in their areas of influence. The crony and violent
traits of the KDP–PUK duopoly are discussed in the perspective of a neo-tribal
and neo-patrimonial rule. It is argued that the lust of petrodollars was behind
the establishment of the KRG. Through interviews with key informants, the
manipulation of the revenue stream and the illicit involvement of party leaders
in the oil business are pictured in detail, whilst competition on Kirkuk is taken
as an example of inter- and intra-party fighting.
Chapter 5 brings into light the wide-ranging consequences of petrolisation
on Kurdish society. Based on a discussion on environmental imaginaries and
petro-capitalism, extractivism is seen as a tool of social control. Two case studies illustrating the dispossession of rural communities in remote areas due to
extractive projects are presented. It is argued that ruling elites have strengthened
dependency relationships through the establishment of the oil economy with
the purpose of weakening civil society and bankrolling one-party rule within
each territorial constituency. The transnational capitalist relation between local
enclaves and the global economy is explained as the most distinctive characteristic of the petroleum industry. Grassroots resistance against the state-corporate
nexus draws attention to the emergence of alternative environmental imaginaries rejecting the commodification of nature. This suggests rethinking Kurdistan
(and possibly the Middle East as a whole) as a cultural space crossed by multiple
notions of development and sustainability. Furthermore, the ways the political
community looks at nature are connected to alternative models of governance.
This latter argument is elaborated with more theoretical breadth in the conclusions, which wraps up findings and discusses future research directions.

Note
1 Also referred to as Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), Islamic State in Iraq and the
Levant (ISIL), or with the acronym Da’ish (which stands for “al-Dawla al-Islamiya fi

8

Introduction
Iraq wa al-Sham,” literally Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant), the insurgent militia rose
from the ashes of al-Qaida in Iraq and the convergence with former officials of the Iraqi
Ba’athist regime. ISIS asserted itself as a proto-state over a contiguous area stretching
between Syria and Iraq by taking control of informal economies and securing a stream
of cash flow to financially support the proclamation of the so-called Islamic Caliphate
in June 2014 with the seizure of Mosul. After the loss of the city in July 2017, ISIS lost
momentum and reverted to low-intensity insurgency, which, at the time of writing, is
still active.

References
British Petroleum. (2020). “Statistical Review of World Energy”.
Fuccaro, N. (2013). “Introduction: Histories of Oil and Urban Modernity in the Middle
East”. Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, 33(1), 1–6.
KRSO. (2018). “Demographic Survey, Kurdistan Region of Iraq”.
Said Edward, W. (1993). Culture and Imperialism. Vintage Books.
World Bank. (2018). “Iraq Economic Monitor: From War to Reconstruction and Economic Recovery: With a Special Focus on Energy Subsidy Reform”.

1

The nature of conflict
On oil and violence

An interpretive approach
Can we really see the world in a grain of sand, as William Blake wrote in
the opening line of Auguries of Innocence? Whatever the answer, in View With
a Grain of Sand, Wislawa Szymborska replies that human experience cannot
emancipate from the irreducible variety of perceptions through which the
world is sensed and interpreted.
We call it a grain of sand,
but it calls itself neither grain nor sand.
It does just fine, without a name,
whether general, particular,
permanent, passing,
incorrect, or apt.
Just like the view from a window looking out over a lake does not view itself,
as another stanza of the poem goes, the representation of inanimate objects
around us does not grasp their ontological status. Our knowledge of them is
imperfect, incomplete, and inconsistent. This implies that a lasting consensus
on what passes as “reality” is actually beyond human reach. Szymborska’s insight
puts into question naturalistic theories of knowledge upon which a monocular
vision of science is built and thus introduces some decisive questions on scientific authority that, in my view, have plagued the common conceptualisation of
environmental issues in IR. Overall, most studies on the relationships between
natural resources and violent conflicts are firmly rooted in the positivist canon.
As I see it, this large body of research suffers from some serious shortcomings –
starting with the Malthusian framing of nature as an apolitical entity limiting
human action, while modernity is instead defined by the purposive production
of nature in culturally competent and politically charged ways. The polysemy of
nature recommends embracing a phenomenological approach, which ought
to consider natural resources as social constructs embedded in the power relations surrounding the commodification of material substances. In so doing,
the ostensible de-naturalisation of natural resources is in fact conducive to the
DOI: 10.4324/9781003161103-2

10 The nature of conflict

re-politicisation of the many ways these are framed, valued, and exploited. A
critical reconsideration of the politics of nature allows putting resource conflicts
into a richer perspective, thus avoiding the deterministic assumptions of mainstream theories on environmentally induced or driven conflicts (the wording is
telling). The debate on the “oil curse” is a good example. The implications are
not limited to the bounded space of academia. As the matter of nature lies at
the confluence of knowledge production and policy prescriptions, it also goes
to the heart of the politics of science itself.
This consideration stems from certain dissatisfaction with the solipsistic
boundaries of IR. The need for imports from other fields calls into question
statute and boundaries of the discipline. Nevertheless, I should like to make it
clear that such judgement is not for the sake of dispute nor reflects antagonism
between schools of thoughts at war with each other. It rather comes from an
effort of harmonising the themes that are central to this piece of research, and
tells about the routes I took to solve these theoretical puzzles. My hope here
is to indicate a productive terrain of convergence where the cross-fertilisation
of ideas emerges as added value. Truth be told, this was quite a destabilising
exercise since it runs counter to the increasing specialisation of labour within
academia that we are accustomed to. As any researcher is well aware, scientific
work is evaluated according to the standards set by each epistemic community
(Haas, 1992). The compartmentalisation of knowledge leads to the formation
of hyper-specific professional identities, but this comes at the expense of communication across fields of study. When dealing with multifaceted phenomena
such as climate change that cannot be reduced to a single method of inquiry,
theoretical pluralism is instead required in order not to find ourselves “endlessly
trapped in narrow, discipline-specific fields of inquiry, reinventing the wheel
again and again” (Bourbeau, 2015: 4).
From this perspective, this chapter first lays down a critique of the spatial
ontology underpinning IR and then takes its cue from political ecology to
offer a more nuanced approach to resource-related conflicts. The point of
arrival is the conceptualisation of oil environments as relational settings within
which political identities are called forth and re-negotiated. I take a long road
to support this argument. This paragraph, in particular, sets out the epistemological foundations of the work, which followed an interpretive logic of
inquiry focusing on inter-subjective meanings, or rather on “how meanings
are embodied in the language and actions of social actors” (Schwandt, 1994:
222). Interpretivism fundamentally deviates from the positivist presuppositions that undergird mainstream studies in search of law-like universal generalisations. The interpretive bent is rooted in hermeneutic phenomenology and
reflexive positioning in line with a time-honoured epistemological tradition,
which is however still at the margins of IR.1 In my view, interpretivism provides the tools for grounding a context-sensitive analysis of meaning-making
processes, without falling into either the barren empiricism running through
much positivist research or the postmodern radical dismantling of every claim
to knowledge.

The nature of conflict 11

Having laid out these preliminary considerations, what does it mean to
embrace an interpretive approach in the first place? According to Weeden,
despite the whole variety of voices within the so-called “interpretive turn,”
interpretivists agree on four features at least: i) the conception of knowledge
“as historically situated and entangled in power relationships”; ii) the baseline
idea that the world we live in is socially made; iii) the rejection of rationalchoice and behaviourist theories of social action; and (iv) a semiotic practical
approach centred on symbolic systems (Wedeen, 2009: 80–81). All these lines
converge towards a critical viewpoint that overturns the usual dialectic between
subjectivity and objectivity, at least according to how positivism propounds it.
The first two points in particular are worthy of note here. Social constructionism as famously introduced by Berger and Luckmann’s sociology of knowledge,
which elaborates on Schuzt’s social phenomenology, emphasises “the empirical
variety of knowledge in human societies” and draws attention to “the processes
by which any body of knowledge comes to be socially established as ‘reality’”
(Berger & Luckmann, 1991: 15). According to this formulation, the heart of
the matter concerns the knowability (i.e. epistemology) of social world more
than its reality status (i.e. ontology): to be more precise, it deals with the perception of what exists outside the knowing subject, how that perception is
manufactured in manifold ways, and ultimately what are the appropriate means
to represent those ways. Whereas the Durkheim-inspired classic sociology pretends to study given and observable facts (that is to say, self-evident and independent from human mind) waiting to be explained, social constructionism
claims that the “theoretically constituted entities” – to borrow from Hawkesworth (1988) – around us cannot be accessed prior to any cultural mediation.
This crucial difference breaks down the Cartesian duality between subject
and object, which is central to the notion of knowledge as accurate representation. Positivism rests on the belief that if the object is observed scientifically,
representation equals replication. Then, the whole issue of objectivity boils
down to a matter of methods and how to employ them properly. However, if
we accept instead that cognition cannot be abstracted from the conscious and
lived experience of the reality “out there,” then there is the need, as Richard
Rorty suggests, to eliminate the “contrast between contemplation and action,
between representing the world and coping with it” (Rorty, 2009: 11). Thinking along these lines, any claim of depicting the world “as it really is” is a mystification given that an external vantage point is unreachable to human sight.
In fact, the world comes into view through cultural and social filters that make
it intelligible, and every form of knowledge is necessarily incomplete insofar as
it is bounded in time and space.
This epistemological angle owes much to Heidegger’s phenomenological
erosion of Western philosophy, which postulates the ontological accordance
between observation and representation. Phenomenology maintains, indeed,
that a theory-free observation of real-world objects is not possible since the
observer cannot place themselves out of their own categories of representation.
Taking an external view from an Archimedean point wherein the knowing

12 The nature of conflict

subject can see the whole order of things while being detached from it, “keeping the eye steadily fixed upon the facts of nature and so receiving the images
simply as they are” (Bacon, 1620), as positivism purports to do, would be
therefore no more than “an illusion, a God trick” (Haraway, 1988: 582).2 Put
differently, positivism does not problematise the very conditions of knowledge,
reducing social reality to semantics of variables, mathematical modelling, and
laboratory-like rules of conduct – showing a fascination for certainty that from
the side of social scientists reflects the desire to compete with so-called hard
sciences on equal footing.
Quite the contrary, post-positivist research is by definition anti-foundational,
meaning that no philosophical principle or belief is thought to ground legitimate claims to knowledge. Rorty, in particular, developed the historicist legacy
of Wittgenstein, Heidegger, and Dewey into a paramount critique of foundationalism, stressing that “the foundations of knowledge or morality or language
or society may be simply apologetics, attempts to eternalise a certain contemporary language-game, social practice, or self-image” (Rorty, 2009: 9–10).
Consequently, there are no independent and unbiased criteria to assess whether
a particular representation of reality is objective or subjective, with this same
distinction resting upon a contestable judgement. Even science, Rorty points
out, cannot be considered “the mirror of nature.” Therefore, the ways in which
knowledge claims are accepted as accurate are value-laden in a twofold sense:
they are situated in the specific context in which they arise and also part of the
“general politics of truth” structuring and disciplining society (Foucault, 1980:
131–132).
Seen in this light, what is considered to be a true statement is not only a
social construction that acquires gravity in the social world through a process of objectification but also a manifestation of power. In the Foucauldian
deconstruction of modern political theory, power is impersonal and diffused
in society, instead of being possessed and located in the sovereign authority as
contractualism maintains. The “battle around truth” is then understood as a
power field in which dominant apparatuses organise the social body through
the institutionalisation of multiple strategies of control. What is relevant for
this epistemological excursus is that truth is not a universal and extra-linguistic
account of reality to be discovered but a historically contingent representation
of reality in “which the true and the false are separated and specific effects of
power attached to the true” (Foucault, 1980: 132). Hence, discourses are not to
be understood as the ever-shifting mirror of the bourgeoisie, to put it in Marxist
terms, but as the necessary epistemic basis for grounding shared knowledge – be
it variously typified into norms, institutions, or mechanisms of exclusion.
Interpretivism is born out of the encounter between these various philosophical
underpinnings (social constructionism, phenomenology, anti-foundationalism,
and post-structuralism) that I have briefly touched upon in these pages, without doing enough justice to their complex trajectories. Since the path-breaking
anthropological work of Clifford Geertz (1973), the interpretive turn has
spread across social sciences (for a summary, see Rainbow & Sullivan, 1979; see

The nature of conflict 13

also Denzin, 2008), moving qualitative research towards the purpose of understanding context-dependent meaning “rather than seeking generalized meaning abstracted from particular contexts” (Yanow & Schwartz-Shea, 2012: 23).
In this perspective, getting into the dynamics of social action in the Weberian
sense3 is interpretation all the way down; an “attempt to clarify the foundation
of knowledge in everyday life, to wit, the objectivations of subjective processes
by which the intersubjective common-sense world is constructed” (Berger &
Luckmann, 1991; original emphasis).

Of borders and orders
The state of the art in IR is quite poor concerning environmental issues,
broadly intended. These were brought under the light cone only after the end
of the Cold War, at a time where IR scholars were busy with the unorthodox
threats ensuing from the end of the bipolar confrontation. It might be said that
the natural environment was securitised, as if the spectre of “resource wars”
(Klare, 2001) in the anarchic peripheries of the globe would replace the peril
of a nuclear war. Kaplan (1994) dubbed it “the coming anarchy.” That security
language influenced the way the environment was incorporated in the research
agenda. Attention was paid to the role of environmental stressors such as water
scarcity in contexts of organised violence.4 As will be shown later, that debate
has faded away over time because of some dead-ends. In my view, those have a
great deal to do with the spatial ontology ingrained in the discipline.
It is interesting to note that all the “turns” through which IR has evolved
over time (from the constructivist turn to more practice-oriented approaches,
up to the most recent aesthetic turn) are somewhat the product of theoretical imports from tangential fields in social sciences. The opposite does not
hold true though, meaning that the innovative capacity of IR has been very
limited in comparison. For a discipline “concerned with the delineation of
borders, the inscription of dangers and the mobilisation of defences” (Walker,
1993: 15), this arguably results from the in-built temptation of determining the
horizons of political imagination through the reification of historically specific
spatiotemporal understandings, with the principle of state sovereignty on top.
The quite problematic corollary is that IR theories may be read as part and
parcel of the discursive framing of the modern state and “a constitutive practice
whose effects can be traced in the remotest interstices of everyday life” (ibidem: 6), rather than plausible explanations of world politics. Beier agrees that
IR tends to internalise “the restrictive hegemonic concepts, categories, and
commitments of the dominating society” (2005: 215). With the term “hegemonologue,” he highlighted the universalist and selective pretensions of the
Western cosmology, whose “disciplinary ears” remain attached to the constant
reproduction of the colonial encounter with the rest of the world and are thus
inattentive to difference, if not in derogatory or exclusionary terms.
The critique of a paternalistic knowledge system that replicates the colonial logic of erasure or enclosure of other forms of knowledge is not isolated.

14 The nature of conflict

Inayatullah and Blaney (2004) dedicated a widely-cited book to it, according
to which the original trauma with cultural differences continues to haunt main
tendencies in IR since the modern intellectual origins of the field align it
“with a legacy of colonialism and religious cleansing” (ibidem: vii). Stuck into
a Westphalian narrative, the Western worldview is hence pervaded by notions
of stability, safety, and order that conceive difference as “a dangerous aberration” from the norm. The problem of difference remains:
The bounded political community constructs (and is constructed by) the
other. Beyond its boundaries, the other lurks as a perpetual threat in the
form of other states, antagonistic groups, imported goods, and alien ideas.
The other also appears as difference within, vitiating the presumed but
rarely, if ever, achieved “sameness”. The other within the boundaries of
the political community is “managed” by some combination of hierarchy,
eradication, assimilation or expulsion, and tolerance. The external other is
left to suffer or prosper to its own means (though its poverty or prosperity
may be experienced as a threat); it is interdicted at border crossings, balanced and deterred; it is defeated militarily and colonized if need be.
(ibidem: 6)
Contrary to some expectations, in a globalised and interconnected world
characterised by the circulation of goods, capitals, people, and information,
the divisiveness of political forms has not disappeared into imperial uniformity or been superseded by a cosmopolitan order. Despite global expansion
of modes of power (such as petro-capitalism, which is one of the concepts
hinted in the empirical analysis), differences have been accentuated even more
by the emergence of a polycentric scenario by virtue of the loss of unitary
strategic interdependencies, regional fragmentation, and discrepancy between
military, institutional, economic, and social spaces (Colombo, 2010). Against
this background, realist and liberal prevalent traditions appear ill-equipped to
make sense of alternative political imaginings from the “Westphalian commonsense” (Grovogui, 2002). According to critical theorists, this occurs
because of unreflective background assumptions and a constitutive theory–
practice relationship that idealise a contingent representation of world politics.
On this basis, post-modern and post-structural insights have gradually deconstructed key concepts such as sovereignty, nation-state, security, and the binary
oppositions domestic-international/order-disorder (see Booth, 1991a, 1991b,
1995; Campbell, 1992; Cox, 1981; Linklater, 1998; Krause & Williams, 2002;
Walker, 1993; Jones, 1999). This critical injection has emancipated a broad
range of dissenting voices encompassing postcolonial, subaltern, and feminist
research agendas.
What does it mean to be critical, anyway? As a manifesto, since the seminal work of those gathered around the Institute of Social Research in Frankfurt in the first-half of the 1930s, critical scholars have refuted positivism in
epistemological and methodological terms: knowledge is neither objective nor

The nature of conflict 15

impartial, but embedded in historical development, hence, the call for casting
a critical eye on “what is prevalent” (Horkheimer, 1972) and de-essentialising
the abstractions that represent the dominant political order. In other words,
critical research strives to make visible the invisible through the hermeneutical
reconstruction of meanings-in-context (Ciutǎ, 2009). Marxist in origin, this
line of thinking is also normative in kind as it is aimed at enabling emancipatory changes through the immanent analysis of the contradictions lying at the
heart of society. If “theory is always for someone and for some purpose” (Cox,
1981), critical theory subscribes to a philosophy of liberation, which is not
limited to the description of the world as it is, but seeks to actively improve it
by freeing space for less exploitative relations.
A critical approach debunks the axiom of the state as the exclusive actor,
referent object, and site of politics. State-centrism is regarded indeed as empirically unhelpful, a justification of the status quo, and a source of structural
violence (Peoples & Vaughan-Williams, 2014). More generally, a critical viewpoint takes exception from the Schmittian logics of absolute antithesis that
corresponds to the spatial ontology mentioned before: whilst inside the state is
the realm of law and authority, outside its boundaries is the realm of anarchy
and violence (Walker, 1993). Under the realist paradigm, this fear of allegedly
“empty” and “ungoverned” spaces paves the way for a self-fulfilling prophecy.
As Agnew and Corbridge observe, this spatial delineation “has led to the definition of political identity in exclusively state-territorial terms,” thus obscuring
processes operating at different scales and dismissing the “remarkable flowering
of alternative political identities of a sectoral, ethnic and regional character”
(Agnew & Crobridge, 2002: 86).
Another point worth highlighting is that IR theories are Western-centric
(or, more specifically, Anglo-American-centric) for the most part. This
calls for a problematisation on the sites of knowledge production and the
hegemony – in Gramscian terms – of what from time to time has been designated, hastily but effectively, as the Global North. Among others,5 Acharya
and Buzan (2009) noted that the Western dominance in IR is manifested
through Eurocentric assumptions. After all, the intellectual grandfathers of the
discipline all belong to the Western political philosophy and historiography –
from Thucydides, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Kant, and Clausewitz all the way up
to Foucault and Bourdieu. Despite contributions from non-Western scholars, these roots remain the canon through which the baseline worldview is
articulated. As is the case for the somewhat arbitrary difference between
languages and dialects, the reason for such hegemony to persist is the army
behind it, to put it bluntly. In other words, the universalist representations
of the global order still embody the animus dominandi of Western powers,
who have proved successful in retaining primacy despite “the rise of the
rest” (Zakaria, 2008). Higher education flows from the Global South towards
prestigious universities and think tanks in the North, for instance, is one of
the mechanisms of incorporation that have slowed down the emergence of a
non-Western IR.6

16 The nature of conflict

The “postcolonial moment” was a reaction to Western-centrism (Barkawi &
Laffey, 2006; Acharya & Buzan, 2009). From Fanon and Said onwards, attention
has been given to how ideologies of progress and civilisation were based on the
attribution of opposite features to the non-West (e.g. barbarism and backwardness). As a result, the “other” is simultaneously objectified and disempowered.
In reflexive terms, postcolonialism interrogates the role IR theories play in the
normalisation of such hierarchy of values. A close look at the imaginative geographies of other cultures in the “colonial present” we live in reveals that a colonial praxis has never waned, as the recent chronicles of war and subjugation in
Afghanistan, Palestine, and Iraq violently remind (Gregory, 2004). International
action under the herald of the “global war of terror” after the 9/11, as well as
the discourse on “rogue states,” bears witness to the translation of the powerknowledge nexus into ad hoc spatial metaphors tailored for the US military and
counterterrorism strategies. It is no surprise that the eye-catching metaphors of
“the lonely superpower” (Huntington, 1999), “the end of history” (Fukuyama,
1989), “the unipolar moment” (Krauthammer, 1990), or the “clash of civilizations” (Huntington, 1996), which set the terms of debate on the evolution of
international politics during the 1990s, offered short-sighted predictions at a
time of “temporal accelerations” and “territorial fluidities” (Walker, 1993: 2).
When the Berlin Wall came down, all that was solid apparently melted into thin
air, and the discipline bore the brunt of a static spatial imagination.
The limits of political imagination
Rather, what is needed is a geographical imagination that takes places seriously
as the settings for human life and tries to understand world politics in terms of its
impacts on the material welfare and identities of people in different places.
(John Agnew, quoted in Dalby, 2002: 101)

Geography is anything but separate from politics. Rather, political imagination
occupies space through its representation. It should be remembered that geography was born at the service of statecraft as “a necessary instrument of spatial
analysis in the toolbox of security practices” (Le Billon in Bourbeau, 2015: 63):
locating threats, policing borders, or deploying force illustrate the entanglement of geographic praxis with military apparatuses and devices of surveillance.
Classic geopolitical formulations such as Mackinder’s heartland theory and
Kennan’s containment strategy add strength to the argument. In the words of
Ó Tuathail and Agnew, “geography is never a natural, non-discursive phenomenon which is separate from ideology and outside politics; rather, geography
as a discourse is a form of power/knowledge itself ” (1992: 192). In this light,
geography does not strive for the mimesis of reality but concurs to its partition.
Evidence of this process is the history of colonial expansion, as postcolonial
geographers have pointed out in the footsteps of Said (Sidaway, 2000; Blunt &
McEwan, 2002; Robinson, 2003).

The nature of conflict 17

Whilst colonialism as historical phase ended, colonialism as practice of domination is not consigned to history. This stands out when considering the endurance of “Middle East” as a geopolitical notion. Coined by the British Colonial
Office during the 19th century, the vast area designated as such – encompassing
Mashreq, Anatolia, Iran and being delimited northeast by the Caucasus and
southwest by Egypt – was halfway London and overseas possessions in the
Indian Ocean. Hence, it was a notion of strategic projection that conformed
to the British Empire. Although Western Asia would be a more appropriate label,
the term has continued to be used even after the end of formal colonial dependencies and is now socialised as a category of belonging by the same people living in the area. All regions are geopolitical inventions suited to the interests of
hegemonic powers.7 In the case of the Middle East, it is also clear that geopolitical discourses operate as epistemological enforcers. As a quick overview of IR
textbooks and foreign policy blueprints would confirm, security in the region
is defined from an outsider’s perspective “in terms of the uninterrupted flow
of oil at a ‘reasonable’ price to ‘Western’ markets, the cessation of the Arab –
Israeli conflict, and the prevention of the emergence of a regional hegemon”
(Bilgin, 2008: 99). This formulation has set the ground for the militarisation
of the region and the recurrent intervention of offshore balancers. It was also
enriched with orientalist environmental narratives inasmuch as the Middle East
is portrayed as naturally prone to ecological degradation,8 and this has served
as a pretext for a paternalistic intervention “to improve, restore, normalize, or
repair” a supposedly fragile and neglected environment in need of care (Davis,
2011: 4). It is hard not to see that such imaginary conveys a message of cultural
subordination. Kurds suffered the same fate. Culcasi (2010) shows that the cartographical representations of Kurdistan in US newspapers from 1945 to 2002
are imbued with geopolitical and orientalist notions: Kurds were portrayed as
tribal rebels looking for Soviet support during the Cold War and then backward victims of Ba’athist persecutions during the Gulf War.
The disjuncture between authority and territoriality that characterised stateformation processes in the Middle East during the decolonisation phase is perhaps the most vivid illustration of the “irredeemable plurality of space and the
multiplicity of possible political constructions of space” (Dalby & Ó Tuathail: 2).
As Del Sarto observes, “[considering] that the Westphalian state model never
fully corresponded to reality – not even in Europe, where it originated – its
conceptual strength for analysing past and current developments in the Middle
East remains questionable” (Del Sarto, 2017: 770). The “exceptionalism” of
the region9 is predicated precisely upon the mismatch with the one-fits-all
benchmark of liberal democracy. Anything that falls short of that threshold is
accounted as vulnerable, ungoverned, and conflict-prone. The discourse on
fragile and failed states is a case in point, which shows that the Western concept
of sovereignty entails “an ethos of hierarchy and privilege, on the one hand,
and corresponding mechanisms of subordination and discrimination, on the
other” (Grovogui, 2002: 323). It is in this sense that Ferguson has the wellfounded suspicion that the imagining of Africa – with all its emphasis on lacks,

18 The nature of conflict

failures, problems, and crises that somehow recycles old clichés of savagery –
insists much on what the many African realities are not, thus “in negative relation to normative standards that are external to them” (2006: 7–10).
The way political theory has traditionally looked at borders “as passive territorial markers” (Diener & Hagen, 2010: 9) is a corollary. Whereas imperial
and feudal authority faded into vaguely defined frontier zones, modern borders
instead are exact territorial demarcations associated with the rise of nationstates. Though performing different functions, borders preserve intact the same
military dimension of the frontier by acting as the defensive bulwark against a
hostile, alien, and anarchic outside. Without a border, there cannot be a state:
the exercise of sovereignty (i.e. the legitimate power) and the right to citizenship (i.e. the political subjectivity) within the territory it delimits are unthinkable otherwise for political theory. Although a borderless world is a misnomer
(Newman & Paasi, 1998), static and neat borders exist only on a canvas. In fact,
borders are crossed, blurred, and transcended in everyday reality. IR scholars
tend to lose memory of the artificiality of all borders.10 It often would not be
possible for the modern political imaginary to get caught in the “territorial
trap” of sovereignty (Agnew, 1994). The crux of the matter is to acknowledge
that borders are contentious by definition (Del Sarto, 2017), being “tied up
with the politics of identity” (Newman, 2003: 124). Agnew suggests to historicise the territorial state and decouple political identities from the loci of sovereignty. If identity formation needs a territorial base on which to take roots,
an anti-essentialist theoretical framework is required not to miss non-statist
configurations of power and rule. From transnational non-state actors to global
capital flows, a broad range of phenomena are poorly intelligible through the
lens of mainstream theories. Both the Kurdish question and the oil value chain,
meaning the two poles discussed in this book, demonstrate this argument in
a very clear and practical way. Besides those already cited, the works by Ed
Soya, David Harvey, Doreen Massey, Nigel Thrift, and many other critical
geographers offer grounds for a beneficial reconceptualisation of key themes of
inquiry, most notably the spatial texture of contemporary modes of domination
and practices of resistance. If we accept that the epoch we live in is the epoch
of space (Foucault, 1971), this will sound all the more necessary.
Blessings and curses

“The problem is that the good Lord didn’t see fit to put oil and gas reserves
where there are democratic governments,” Dick Cheney said at an energy conference in 1996. At the time, Cheney was the top executive of Halliburton,
one of the world’s largest service companies in the industry. He later became
the powerful US Vice-President under George W. Bush. During Operation
Iraqi, Halliburton was awarded with a billionaire no-bid contract to restore
and operate the many oil wells set on fire during the military intervention.
The portrait of the American superpower as a “garrison state” (Lasswell, 1941)
whose foreign policy objectives are steered by a bulky industrial-military

The nature of conflict 19

complex is commonplace (see early works by Mills, 1956; Lens, 1970; Melman, 1970). Energy is frequently added to the equation. Cheney’s statement
brings to mind the rationale behind the two wars fought in Iraq beyond the
official justifications that mixed up stocks of weapons of mass destruction, linkages with international terrorism, and the urgency of implanting democracy.
IR theories generally jump to linear explanations framing oil conflicts as geopolitical scrambles for valuable resources. The limitations of this understanding
are discussed in the following pages. The overview is by no means exhaustive
but shows some well-known lines of research and, most importantly, justifies
the choice of an alternative approach.
As mentioned, environmental issues entered the debate on new security threats after the Cold War (Barnett, 2001, 2003; Dalby, 2002; Buzan &
Hansen, 2009). Two contrasting viewpoints emerged: a “neo-Malthusian”
resource-pessimistic model, which connected resource scarcity to the onset
of conflict, and a resource-optimistic “Cornucopian” response, which pointed
out adaptive strategies to cope with short-term scarcities through multilateral
trade and technological innovations (Gleditsch, 2003). Others picked resource
abundance as an independent variable to demonstrate that resource-rich countries are more prone to civil strife. Collier and Hoffler, in particular, argued
that “the extent of primary commodity exports is the strongest single influence on the risk of conflict,” especially because in the context of civil wars,
resource-dependent economies give rebel movements easy access to a stream of
cash (Collier & Hoeffler, 1998, 2004). Accordingly, greed is considered to be a
more compelling conflict factor than social grievances. The greed vs. grievance
dichotomy has received attention by several scholars (De Soysa, 2000, 2002; De
Soysa & Neumayer, 2007; Fearon, 2005; Fearon & Laitin, 2003; Humphreys,
2005; Le Billon, 2001, 2008; Mildner, Lauster, & Wodni, 2011; Ross, 2004).
Nowadays these perspectives are somewhat out of date given that little empirical evidence was found to support direct causal relationships (Gleditsch, 2012;
Selby, 2014). Rather, “the effect of environmental changes on violent conflict
appears to be contingent on a set of intervening economic and political factors that determine adaptation capacity” (Bernauer, Böhmelt, & Koubi, 2012).
This is now well accepted in the literature (Barnett & Adger, 2007; Raleigh &
Urdal, 2007; Gleick, 2014), but the black box of intervening factors has
remained unspecified.
After all, correlations do not constitute explanations by themselves, and even
the most sophisticated inferential model is inevitably reductionist. Hence, saying that “oil predicts civil war risk” (Fearon, 2005: 483) is actually an empty
statement, which does not explain anything nor foresees the future. Selby levelled a thorough criticism at the research agenda (quantitative in methods,
positivist in epistemology) dominating the study of environmental conflicts.
He highlighted that discretionary coding and causal assumptions make findings “more [the] product of choice, judgment and artifice, than of actual causal
relations between nature and society” (2014: 12). In the same vein, Arezki and
Brukner commented that “most of the literature has been either anecdotal

20 The nature of conflict

or is plagued by endogeneity biases related to difficult-to-measure (and often
unobservable) cross-country differences in institutional arrangements, culture,
tastes, or other deep historical factors that are often neglected in cross-country
analysis” (2011: 3). As a result, recent works have gradually shifted from overarching theories towards more contextualised approaches.
Nevertheless, the debate on oil and violence continues to be dominated by
the resource curse thesis, which dates back to the 1980s and has gained formidable influence in policy circles since then. According to its formulation,
countries that depend on oil exports are more likely to suffer from economic
stagnation (Auty, 2001; Leite & Weidmann, 1999; J. D. Sachs & Warner, 2001),
authoritarianism (Ross, 2001; Wantchekon, 2002), and civil war (Collier &
Hoeffler, 1998, 2004; Fearon, 2005; Ulfelder, 2007). Therefore, what might
be seen at first sight as a blessing (oil abundance) turns out to be a curse, which
affects prospects of democratisation and development. Otherwise known as
the paradox of plenty, the theory elaborates on the rentier-state paradigm,
introduced by Mahdavy (1970) and later systematised by Beblawi and Luciani
(1987). A rentier state derives the largest share of GDP from the export of a
single commodity. Contrary to production states subtracting resources from
society through taxation and re-allocating them for the common interest, rentier states are instead autonomous from society: “in oil-exporting countries the
state is paid by the oil rent, which accrues to it directly from the rest of the
world, and supports society through the distribution or allocation of this rent,
through various mechanisms of rent circulation” (Luciani, 2005: 91). Being
revenue distribution the primary function of the state, the fiscal social contract
binding citizens to elected governments pales into insignificance: taxation is no
longer the traditional source of political legitimacy, while generosity replaces
accountability as the essential virtue of the ruler. In the absence of democratic
check and balances, ruling elites are encouraged to earmark welfare subsidies
and bolster up a position of primacy at the expense of political participation.
The rentier state “[asserts] its legitimacy by reference to a constituency that is
larger than its own population – Islamic in Saudi Arabia or the Islamic Republic of Iran; Arab in Iraq and Libya; technocratic in Dubai” (ibidem: 97). As
a consequence, oil dependency hinders democracy (Ross, 2001) by enabling
repressive autocracies to remain in power. Among other things, elites would
have no interest in reforming the economy as long as they can extract surplus
from oil production given that investments in other sectors are less remunerative and less controllable, and thus politically risky.
With reference to oil-producing countries in the Middle East and North
Africa, the argument goes on: the longevity of autocracies, economic underperformance, and instability are all wired to oil, simply put. After all, five Arab
petro-states across the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Peninsula (Saudi Arabia,
Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, and Yemen) hold together more than one-third of total
oil proven reserves globally, and as a matter of fact the stream of oil has bankrolled draconian policies and corrupted patronage. From a broader perspective,
however, many oil-producing countries were not doomed to go through the

The nature of conflict 21

perverse effects of the curse. This is true for both mature democracies (such
as the US, Canada, Norway, and UK) and countries in transition (Mexico and
Indonesia). The many exceptions to the rule indicate that variation is too large
to generalise a curse effect, Middle East included. If one looks at the UNDP
Human Development Index, for instance, it can be noticed that all the Gulf
monarchies have actually improved more than resource-poor neighbours in
terms of literacy rates, life expectancy, and other indicators (Rutledge, 2014).
Luciani himself admitted that recent evolutions in the Persian Gulf run counter
to the thesis: “several rentier states engaged in the road towards wider political
participation, while the non-rentier states have further barricaded themselves
behind their security apparatuses” (2005: 94). Likewise, Ross (2001) commented that the original theory was too general to be analytically valid, suffering from a “bad case of conceptual overstretch” that fundamentally derives from
the absence of variation on the dependent variable and the lack of specification
in falsifiable terms of the causal chains. This has suggested a reconsideration of
rentierism and the attendant curse thesis (Springborg, 2013).
Should we blame oil for the lack of democracy? There is actually no reason
to believe that corruption in Iraq, for instance, goes beyond the political agency
of the elites themselves, as much as “oil did not produce the regime of Saddam
Hussein nor the predatory state of Iraq, nor the tragic conflicts currently being
witnessed between its constituent racial and religious communities” (Rutledge,
2014: 17). Otherwise, that would mean to accord to a material substance the
immaterial (magical) quality to do evil (Weszkalnys, 2013). Why then, despite
glaring evidence of the contrary, does the oil curse still retain such an influence in the contemporary discourse? Cyril Obi contends that “the curse is
a political and economic construct, a product of a particular constellation of
extractive transnational social forces, histories and hegemonic power relations
built upon the commoditization of oil for the global market” (2010: 489). The
Nigerian case, with which Obi is most familiar with, shows indeed that IOCs
have fanned the flames of local contentious dynamics (for instance, by making
payments to armed groups and bribing government officials). In this sense,
the curse is false consciousness about the actual factors that are conducive to a
rent-seeking environment. The “smoke and mirrors” of such technocratic narrative prevents from taking those into account. Michael Watts gets to the heart
of the matter:
Much of the resource curse analysis runs the risk of imputing enormous
powers to oil (without grasping its specificity), conflating petroleum’s purported Olympian powers with pre-existing political dynamics, and . . .
misidentifying a predation-proneness for what is in fact the dynamics of
state and corporate enclave politics. What is striking in so much of what
passes as “resource politics” is the total invisibility of both transnational oil
companies (which typically work in joint ventures with the state) and the
specific forms of rule associated with petro-capitalism.
(Watts, 2003: 5091)

22 The nature of conflict

Obi adds that the labelling of African wars after natural resources (such as diamond, or timber, or cocoa), coupled with the security discourse on weak states,
is an expedient to feed an idea of connatural instability. The environmental
determinism, thus reproduced as self-evident truth in the policy prescriptions
of global financial institutions, guarantees the principle of a competitive and
open oil market. It is not by accident that the curse theory made its appearance when the nationalisation of energy assets by newly independent countries
was feared by Western powers. Rutledge (2014) reminds that the call for reopening the resource frontiers was laid out in the policies of the US National
Petroleum Council during the years of the Reagan presidency. In this light,
spreading the concern for an inescapable sideslip into underdevelopment and
authoritarianism was meant to oppose state-owned exploitation in developing
countries and push the latter to accept marketisation of subsoil endowments.
According to this interpretation, the very declaration of a looming curse served
the purpose of liberalising the energy market and encouraging oil-rich countries to relinquish a “proprietorial” role. Since openness and reliability of fossil
fuel sources are pillars of the liberal geopolitical order, the argument cannot be
discredited on the spot. In any case, the critique shines the spotlight on some
peculiar features of global oil production that the curse theory instead fails to
capture: multiple core-periphery dependencies, the infrastructure of material
and financial flows, and the head-to-head between liberal norms and resource
nationalism. All these elements are invisible to raw data, and during fieldwork
emerged as the effective context of resource politics. All the more reason to
approach the nexus between environment and conflict from radically different
assumptions.

The matter of nature
Any theory of knowledge revolves around making sense of nature. The modern
conceptions of science all assume the existence of an external and independent
non-human world that is knowable to human intellect. Scientific knowledge
is gained through observable, replicable, and impersonal methods representing
reality as it is. However, the epistemological line that separates nature from
culture (and by extension the environment from society, and non-humans from
humans) is actually blurred and contingent on practices of signification. Michael
Watts observes that “the two words [nature and culture] are often assumed to be
opposites – the material and the ideal, the biological and the semiotic, a realm
of law and a world of contingency – but on closer examination their polarities
are tangled, difficult and intractable” (2005: 142). The polysemy of both concepts has kept geographers, sociologists, anthropologists, and philosophers of
science busy in open debates on placing nature within culture, and vice versa.
As geographers in particular have pointed out, “nature” can be associated with
multiple (and even contradictory) meanings (Fitzsimmons, 1989; Soper, 1995;
Cronon, 1996; Eder, 1996; Phillips & Mighall, 2000). By nature we may refer
to i) “intrinsic nature” – the essential quality or defining property of something;

The nature of conflict 23

ii) “external nature” – the non-human physical environment separated from
human society; iii) “universal nature” – the entire living world, human beings,
and non-human entities included; and iv) “super-ordinate nature” – the primal, immanent force or organising principle “animating living phenomena and
operating in or on inanimate phenomena” (cf. Castree, 2014: 9–10).
Based on the widely cited Raymond William’s classification (1980), this
semantics can be found in the giusnaturalistic tradition ingrained in Western
political theory. In the Leviathan, for instance, Hobbes uses the adjective “natural” in all the denotations mentioned earlier to describe the innate passions
of men, the state of anarchy and misery preceding the social covenant, and the
fundamental laws behind all human and non-human phenomena. Whether
subjugated to human mastery or setting absolute limits to the political community, nature is understood as physical environment and thus portrayed in
terms of ontological separation with society. According to this prevalent view,
to speak of nature, as Kate Soper puts it,
is to speak of those material structures and processes that are independent
of human activity (in the sense that they are not a humanly created product), and whose forces and causal powers are the necessary condition of
every human practice, and determine the possible forms it can take.
(1995: 132–133)
From this perspective, culture is defined by difference – as “nature’s other”
(Watts, 2005): where one ends, the other begins.
Against this position, critical geographers have questioned the very existence of a cognitive (and spatial) distinction between human and non-human
domains. Among them, Margaret Fitzsimmons argues that the common sense
of nature is actually grounded in the historical and geographical transition from
feudal relationships to capitalism, which marked “the division of labour of
those who work with nature from those (scientists) who work on Nature”
(1989: 108). As a consequence of urbanisation and industrialisation processes,
“nature [became] one pole of all the great Enlightenment antinomies” (ibidem:
108). Through the deconstruction of the nature-culture divide, Fitzsimmons
stresses that situated social practices sustained a certain geographical imagination, which in turn led to the abstraction of nature as external and prehuman. In her view, the creation of urban spaces and the differentiation of
labour within the industry carved an epistemological space through which the
human/non-human separation was filtered anew. In the same vein, though
from a more pronounced Marxist framework, David Harvey (1985) maintains
that nature is nothing more than a “concrete abstraction.”
If one embraces an anti-foundational line of thinking, both perception
and experience of the natural world are discursively mediated. Put differently, “nature cannot pre-exist its construction” (Haraway, 1992: 296). From
this premise, interpretive sociological approaches have explored the discursive construction of nature through semiotic practices (Eder, 1996; Hannigan,

24 The nature of conflict

2014). The thesis of the social construction of nature includes a wide array
of positions, encompassing both middle ground and radical construction talks
(Demeritt, 2002), but all of them share the programmatic denaturalisation of
“ideologies of nature” (Smith, 1984). This does not mean to deny the ontological status of materiality. It rather underlines that understandings of nature
are stabilised as object of knowledge by means of discursive practices (Braun &
Wainwright, 2001). According to Macnaghten and Urry (1998), these embedded social practices are discursively ordered, embodied, spaced, and timed,
involving models of human activity, agency, and trust. The implications are
twofold. Firstly, representations of nature cannot be outside culture given that
the cognitive process of making reality intelligible rests upon some cultural
background providing inter-subjectively shared meanings. Secondly, the idea of
socially constituted discourses of nature challenges the modern conception of
science, which is predicated on an assumption of logical consistency between
knowledge and existence. As Demeritt points out, if “nature cannot provide
an independent foundation against which to test our knowledge claims . . . the
upshot is that scientifically valid knowledge must inevitably be partial, in the
sense both of incomplete and biased” (2001: 26).
For this reason, Braun and Wainwright warn that attention should be paid
on “what cognitive failures are necessary” to make the nature-society demarcation a widely accepted point of departure (2001: 50). In so doing, the discursive practices involved in the stabilisation of meaning would be noticeable, thus
uncovering the power-laden underpinnings of environmental knowledge. To
make an example, the concept of “wilderness” shows that the idea of nature
may well carry images of power. The representation of a pristine and gendered
nature to be tamed and mastered was long instrumental to legitimise Western
domination over the rest of the world, whereby the definition of backward,
irrational, uncivilised native populations created the rationale of the “white
man’s burden” (cf. Peet, 1985; Cronon, 1996; Howitt, 2001). This colonial
heritage is not a relic of the past: the vision of wild, tropical, untouched areas at
the margin of human progress still pervades discourses of international cooperation and humanitarian aid, thus reinforcing a core-periphery power structure.
Space does not allow for a review of all the different streams and currents in
the vast amount of literature on the topic. To make a long story short, the weakness of constructivist accounts is “the cancellation of the natural by the social”
to borrow from Judith Butler (1996: 5). In other words, an equal and opposite primacy is established: from the domination of nature over society to the
incorporation of materiality into the cultural and the textual. In recent years,
non-dualistic theories have emerged to find a way out of the impasse between
these irreconcilable poles. In the spirit of hybridity, this strand of research has
addressed the reciprocities between human and non-human domains by collapsing all modernist great dichotomies (nature/culture, subject/object, and
agency/structure). Along these lines, wondering whether nature acts on society or is produced by society is a wrong assumption. Bruno Latour’s (1993)
Actor-Network Theory (ANT) is perhaps the proposal that has had better luck

The nature of conflict 25

in terms of diffusion. No less important, though, are the works by Donna Haraway (1991) and Erik Swyngedouw (1999) on socio-natural entanglements.
Bakker and Bridge comment that these approaches programmatically share the
redistribution of agency “away from human agents” (2006: 19), thus broadening
the spectrum to non-human subjects. From another point of view, studies on
material culture have attempted to re-materialise the “things” through which
social relations take place. Appadurai’s perspective (1988) on the circulation of
commodities is a benchmark work, which signalled renewed attention to materiality. The material turn arises from dissatisfaction with textual approaches and
the decreasing returns of “the dominant anti-realist strain of continental philosophy,” in relation to which the primacy of ontology on phenomenology is
invoked (Bryant, Srnicek, & Harman, 2011). Badiou, Zizek, and again Latour
are referred to as key inspirers. A thorough discussion of this debate is out of
the scope of this book. As a general remark, it might be said that the material
turn moves towards a resurgence of natural realism by other means.
This preliminary excursus can be summarised in two main points. Firstly,
what counts as nature is a historically and socially contingent product of
knowledges (in the plural). Secondly, since it is impossible to disentangle the
natural and the social, a fluid epistemological line dividing two realms of reality is not an adequate visual metaphor as it brings us back to a dualistic logic.
Deleuze’s rhizome suggests instead a non-binary “image of thought” to resist
the urge of ordering disorder into symmetrical structures, which lies at the
heart of Western metaphysics from Plato and Aristotle onwards. Following in
these footsteps, nature and culture encounter and intersect through a malleable
membrane whose rhizomatic ramifications are a-centred, non-hierarchical, and
expansive. Such a horizontal model opposes the verticality of the “tree logic,”
which develops linearly from roots to branches, whilst “the rhizome proceeds
multiplicitously,” with no origin and no direction (Dronsfield, 2012), and in so
doing reflects a relational mode of thinking.
The translation of nature into resource

The root of the problem with mainstream theories on environmental conflicts is precisely the untenable ontological disconnection between materiality
and human society. IR made inroads in the study of environmental issues by
adhering to natural realism, which defines the environment as an external reality to be appropriated. This understanding was certainly the most suitable for
a discipline whose overriding concern is war and, by extension, geopolitical
competition over strategic commodities. On the contrary, geographers, economists, and anthropologists working on natural resources have come up with
more nuanced ways of thinking socio-natural assemblages. Erich Zimmerman
(1933) was among the first ones to convey the idea that “resource are not: they
become.” As the history of coal (or any other mineral ore) suggests, a resource
is classed as such not because of the physical properties of the substance; rather
it “depends on the way it is related to other things, to knowledge, to the

26 The nature of conflict

opportunity to realize value by exchange, and to other materials that can fulfil
the same function” (Bridge, 2009: 1220).
Lying in-between the human and the non-human, natural resources are
irreducible to purely physical or cultural lenses. According to Richardson and
Weszkalnys, “resources are inherently distributed things whose essence or character is to be located neither exclusively in their biophysical properties nor in
webs of socio-cultural meaning” (2014: 8). This is key to understanding that
ontological oppositions are misleading. The resourcefulness of petroleum, for
instance, is not determined by natural properties alone. In fact, to think about
oil as resource presupposes “a state of knowledge and practice – that is social,
technological, and historical” (Watts, 2005: 158). Natural resources are then
properly intended as “cultural appraisals about utility and value” of non-human
materials (Bridge, 2009: 1219) that are purposively transformed to serve a social
function. As Le Billon points out, diamonds are a good example: otherwise useless or with limited industrial applications, like all precious gemstones, the exorbitant exchange value is economically and discursively constructed “through
the manipulation of markets by a cartel and the manipulation of symbols such as
purity, love, and eternity through marketing” (Le Billon, 2001: 565).
The recognition that value is not encapsulated in objects but assigned to
goods was common ground for modern philosophers, from Adam Smith to
Karl Marx and Georg Simmel. However, Zimmerman’s functional insight
paved the way to approaches to natural resources with a more pronounced
constructivist orientation. Sociological research explored the discursive construction of nature through semiotic and claims-making practices (Eder, 1996;
Demeritt, 2001; Hannigan, 2014). Marxist scholarship, on the other hand,
turned attention to the production of nature within capitalistic societies in the
folds of commodification processes (Smith, 1984; Harvey, 2002; O’Connor,
1998), highlighting that the commodity status is not intrinsic to material
things. In summary, two considerations are worth pointing out: i) the attribution of value is a necessary and prior condition for the determination of any
resource and ii) value is extrinsic to raw physical properties and, moreover,
extends beyond functional utility, encompassing also moral, spiritual, and aesthetic qualities. As seen, non-dualistic frameworks opened a new route to
avoid the trap of hyper-constructionism Butler warned of, but giving agency
to material things remains controversial. After all, the agency/structure dialectic complicates matters, being in itself another latent source of disagreement
in social sciences.
To mention an interesting contribution to such an ongoing debate, Zubrzycki
studies nationalism through material culture by looking at how the sensorial,
everyday experience of mundane objects shapes identity formation. She clarifies that this approach sees materiality neither as “embodiment of values and
ideational systems” (following Durkheim) nor as “a physical snapshot of social
relationship” (Zubrzycki, 2017: 5). Objects ought to be understood not as
reflective of “national visions deployed by elites and consumed by the masses,
but as inscriptive, ultimately productive of those very visions” (ibidem: 9).

The nature of conflict 27

Zubrzycki claims that the inner properties of things create imaginaries independent of human signification. Whilst I endorse the call for a more complete
sociology of the mechanisms of identity formation, I have reservations about
this last point given that individual perceptions cannot be separated from the
cultural frame in which they are embedded. To use an aesthetic analogy, beauty
is not an absolute concept but a fluid category that varies across time and space.
However, the criticism that the humanisation of nature is blind to material
properties should be taken into account.
In fact, recent research has stressed that physical characteristics do matter. Le
Billon (2001) explains that geographical location (proximate or distant from the
political centre) and spatial concentration (point or diffuse) of valuable natural
resources determine the type of conflict. Copper mines or phosphate deposits, for instance, are quite different resource environments. Anyone familiar
with the political economy of oil would agree that crude is not easily lootable
by rebel groups or insurgents, unless these prove capable of securing control
over entire segments of the value chain. The ISIS war economy – which was
backed by a state-like bureaucracy, smuggling trade routes, and shadow agreements with international traders – gives a good illustration. Mitchell (2011)
argues that the coal-based economy was a key factor of democratisation in
Europe and North American because of the related socio-economic transformations (such as changes in land ownership, the development of transportation networks, the reorganisation of industry, booming urbanisation, and the
restructuring of labour relations) which were conducive to greater demands
for political rights. The argument is a bit deterministic but, contrary to the
oil curse model, derives a resource effect from the production network and
not the monetary rent, thus highlighting that the processes of extraction and
trade have a bearing on socio-political dynamics. In this sense, Mitchell suggests that the different value chains of coal and oil end up shaping different
geographies of power.
The petroleum cycle is a good example of the process of co-constitution of
material and discursive practices. Drawing crude from the bowels of the earth
is just one link in the long commodity chain leading to petroleum products.
Already at the point of extraction, upstream activities occur within a composite setting of concession contracts, geological surveys, advanced technologies,
transportation infrastructures, security services, military deployments, skilled
labour, capital-intensive investments, and commercial agreements. In brief, a
multi-centred and multi-scalar relational space whose material practices, nonetheless, presuppose certain discursive articulations: at the very least, regulatory
frameworks, technical expertise and knowledge, risks assessments, geopolitical
strategies, energy and development policies, financial instruments (the list is
not exhaustive). Further up on a ladder of abstraction, also situated economic
rationalities, social imaginaries, and imaginative geographies filling up contemporary petro-cultures. As said, the determination of any resource through the
purposive transformation of nature encapsulates a broader spectrum of meanings than those derived from natural properties alone.

28 The nature of conflict

Therefore, finding a middle ground between constructivist and materialist
positions is challenging. Even hybrid approaches hardly evade the question of
whether nature acts on society or, conversely, is produced by society. Richardson and Weszkalnys’ anthropological outlook on the distributed character
of resource materiality stands out as a mature theoretical basis for analysis. In
their view, resource politics cannot be understood without “the combined
examination of the matters, knowledges, infrastructures, and experiences that
come together in the appreciation, extraction, processing, and consumption of
natural resources” (2014: 8). For this reason, the notion of resource environments is preferable not to subscribe to essentialist arguments and, instead, place
attention on the complex socio-natural arrangements through which material substances come into being as resources. As Zimmerman would put it,
resources are a category of becoming and not of being.
Out of the mainstream

Based on the previous discussion, does it really make sense to talk of “resource
conflicts”? The quick answer is no. Resource-related (Turner, 2004) or
resource-linked (Le Billon, 2001) conflicts seem to be more precise expressions. As signalled in the previous paragraph, the empirical investigation of
contentious dynamic within resource environments ought to be attentive to
the discursive and the material, the cultural, and the natural. Accordingly, the
core chapters of this book string together several levels of analysis: the articulation of dominant and antagonistic resource imaginaries, the opening up of
an energy frontier by the transnational forces of capitalist expansion, and the
overlap of the extractive economy with the survival strategies of political actors.
From a theoretical point of view, a political ecology approach allows the giving
of a longer answer to the opening question.
Political ecology (Blaikie & Brookfield, 1987; Nesmith & Radcliffe, 1993;
Sachs, 1993; Peet & Watts, 1996; Rocheleau, Thomas-Slayter, & Wangari,
1996; Bryant & Bailey, 1997; Bryant, 1998; Leach, Mearns, & Scoones, 1999)
came into view during the 1980s and the 1990s as a body of research moving a
critique to apolitical views about ecology. Eccentric to disciplinary boundaries,
Robbins defines it as “a field that seeks to unravel the political forces at work in
environmental access, management, and transformation” (Robbins, 2011: 3).
Critical geographers from the Marxist tradition gave initial contribution by calling into question the technocratic constructs about nature that underpin environmental policies, especially those built upon the neo-Malthusian assumption
about the carrying capacity of the environment. That argument was straightforward: if population growth exceeds the ecological threshold, there will be
shortages, starvation, and strife. Against this apparently self-evident statement,
Marxist scholars such as David Harvey (1979) opposed that the nature-society
separation is an ideological cover to conceal the global inequalities of capitalism, a smokescreen to divert attention from the uneven distribution of environmental goods to population control. In Marxist theory, labour mediates the

The nature of conflict 29

metabolic interaction between nature and society: what we experience is not
a material reality setting limits to society, but a “second nature” produced by
human activities (Smith, 1984).
Postcolonial, post-structural, and feminist scholars later joined the fray and
dismantled power-laden explanations on desertification (Thomas & Middleton, 1994), forestry management (Hecht & Cockburn, 1989; Peluso, 1992),
famine (Watts, 1983), natural hazards (Hewitt & Burton, 1971; Wisner et al.,
1994), soil erosion (Zimmerer, 1993a, 1993b), conservation policies (Moore,
1993), and peasant-herder conflicts (Bassett, 1988) – just to mention a few classical studies of a fairly abundant literature. The common thread that connects
them can be summarised with a question laid down by Martinez Alier: “who
has the power to simplify complexity, ruling some languages of valuation out of
order?” (2003: 217). The view of plural epistemologies and valuations implies
contestation between and across groups. It is precisely in this sense that Peluso
and Watts (2001) see the environment as “an arena of contested entitlements”
within which a substratum of material assets is entangled with discourses about
power and development.
Political ecology can be defined as a way of thinking struggles over access,
ownership, control, and use of natural resources that is attentive to how power
relations mediate interactions between society and nature. The premise is that
the nature–society interplay needs to be understood within the political processes it is part of. From this viewpoint, it is apparent that the analysis of global
warming, the melting of glaciers, mass deforestations, species extinctions, or
pollution cannot be detached from the anthropic processes of appropriation
and commodification of nature at their source. Despite disparate heterodox
influences, political ecology owes its coherence to three commitments: i) theoretically, to critical theory and post-positivist understanding of nature; ii) methodologically, to the in-depth and direct observation of a context “through
intensive, open-ended, qualitative methods”; and iii) normatively, to social justice and structural political change (Perreault, Bridge, & McCarthy, 2015: 1).
It is therefore a field of inquiry, a research programme, and a practice at once.
Political ecologists share “the understanding that there are better, less coercive,
less exploitative, and more sustainable ways of doing” (Robbins, 2011: 20) and
explicitly take the side of those groups or populations suffering the price of
socio-environmental changes given that these are disguised as collateral externalities of modernisation.
Although rooted in patterns of production and market forces, environmental
conflicts are also seen as reverberations of the knowledge-power nexus (Escobar, 1996, 2006; Peet & Watts, 1996). The post-structural turn in political
ecology was cognizant that material and non-material realms are interwoven. A
purely Marxist analysis would be somewhat blind to the phenomenological side
of the matter. There lies the risk of stretching the analysis too much, beyond
the competencies a single researcher would plausibly achieve in a lifetime, or
getting lost in high-level abstractions that would be at odds with the empirical
contextualisation political ecology strives for. As evidenced by biotechnology

30 The nature of conflict

and the hotly debate about patent seeds and land grabs by multinational food
companies, “many society-nature relations extend ‘all the way down,’ even to
the level of genetic modification” (Braun & Wainwright, 2001: 1). Therefore,
it is not an easy task to bridle the ever-expanding complexity of the human/
non-human interface, at least in the sense of balancing theoretical breadth with
empirical detail. Single case studies are one remedy for it.
Back to violence, political ecology moves away from the flawed hypotheses of
resource scarcity or abundance to look into the thick texture surrounding contestation over natural entitlements. Peluso and Watts (2001) gave one of the most
convincing reconsiderations of the environment-violence nexus. The starting
point is a critique of Kaplan and Homer Dixon’s narrow understandings of environmental security, which see the resort to organised violence as a mechanical
response to (presumed) environmental triggers and disequilibria. Their approach,
instead, combines anthropological sensitiveness to historical and cultural factors
with Marxist attentiveness to the political economy of resource exploitation. As
mentioned before, the environment is described as “an arena of contested entitlements, a theatre in which conflicts or claims over property, assets, labour, and
the politics of recognition play themselves out” (ibidem: 25), and within which
violence can happen. Environmental processes, hence, should be read through
three complementary angles: i) the patterns and regimes of accumulation; ii) the
forms of access to and control over resources; and iii) the actors that emerge from
the social relations of production. In this light, violence is appraised “as a sitespecific phenomenon rooted in local histories and social relations yet connected
to larger processes of material transformation and power relations” (ibidem: 29).
Attention is given to the specific ways in which environmental struggles occur
within context. Questions of rights and social justice are brought back centre
stage. In addition, Peluso and Watts broaden the view on what counts as violence
by including institutional coercion and symbolic violence.
Along the same lines, and by embracing the historicisation of nature-society
relations, my view is that resource environments are socially constituted spaces
in which environmental imaginaries of resource usage and material patterns of
wealth accumulation intersect with the politics of identity. Applied to oil environments in particular, this proposition has two corollaries. Firstly, it suggests
rethinking energy as a set of social relations that are historically and geographically situated (Hoffmann, 2018). This reveals that the “material, calorific, geological or topographic dimensions of energy” alone fail to grasp what makes
energy “a field of social change and contestation” in contemporary societies
(ibidem: 39–40). The re-politicisation of energy relations eludes the deterministic arguments amassing in mainstream literature, especially with regard to the
Middle East where curse-like theories go hand in hand with cultural stereotypes. Secondly, it draws attention to political economy. Selby (2005) lists five
key features. As “the least labour-expensive, most efficient, and hence cheapest
energy form,” oil is the vital fuel for capitalist expansion and is set to continue serving the global needs for energy in the medium term. Albeit cheaper
than other sources, the underground physical location makes it a relatively

The nature of conflict 31

inaccessible, unevenly distributed, capital- and technological- intensive resource.
As a consequence, oil is a “primarily internationally rather than domestically
traded commodity.” The economy of scale, as well as price volatility, creates
incentives for the vertical integration of the industry and oligopolistic tendencies. Lastly, the extraordinary profits generated by oil production make it a
source of power consolidation for political and economic elites. The cumulative effect of these factors is that the political dynamics within oil environments
are both rooted in local histories and embedded in a global web of interdependencies between producing areas and end markets.

Identity politics in oil environments
The idea behind this book is that value creation processes implicated in the
commodification of nature are also at play in the negotiation and contestation of collective identities within the political community. In the last part
of the chapter, I wish to clarify in what ways resource environments relate
with identity formation. How, if at all, do these apparently distant domains of
human activity relate to each other? There may be legitimate reasons for being
sceptical. Even when accepting in some abstract sense that natural resources are
cultural appraisals of the physical world, in much more prosaic terms, we fundamentally experience them as things – inanimate, material objects providing
sustenance. Why would things be relevant to our sense of belonging to whatever social grouping? Why would political identity, in particular, be influenced
by interaction with commodities of everyday use?
The wording of the second question is tendentious in that it already reveals
the point to be made. Simply put, commodities do matter because “people
make an identity as they make a living” (Robbins, 2011: 224). Identity gets
constituted through and is socialised within a material setting whose characteristics and modes of production have a bearing on one’s subjectivity. Livelihoods,
in the widest sense, along with their far from obvious resource ecologies, mediate the relational space we inhabit. Even if I feel I am Kurd because of linguistic, cultural, and territorial markers that root myself in a place referred to as
Kurdistan, regardless of any other consideration, the socio-economic function
oil has gained for the reproduction of my community adds new attributes to
that shared sense of belonging. Resource nationalism, for instance, is one of the
many doorways through which the relationship between materiality and political subjectivity can be explored. Just like the utility of gasoline for transportation or the gratification for a diamond engagement ring is based upon socially
constructed values and norms (mobility and marriage) that have nothing to do
with the intrinsic properties of both substances, the materiality of resources is
inseparable from their symbolism. This also implies that people within a group
do not necessarily share the same imaginary. Following the examples, I may
refrain from using cars to pollute less or not give marriage any importance.
That being said, the treatment of identity in political science, though ubiquitous, is problematic. Even sophisticated theoretical elaborations are often of

32 The nature of conflict

little help for empirical analysis. Brubaker and Cooper (2000) warned that
proliferation of the concept came at the expense of the analytical purchase. The
use and abuse of identity is “riddled with ambiguity, riven with contradictory
meanings, and encumbered by reifying connotations.” By making a case for
more attentiveness to particularity, they notice:
Qualifying the noun [identity] with strings of adjectives – specifying that
identity is multiple, fluid, constantly re-negotiated, and so on – does not
solve the Orwellian problem of entrapment in a word. It yields little more
than a suggestive oxymoron – a multiple singularity, a fluid crystallization –
but still begs the question of why one should use the same term to designate all this and more.
(ibidem: 34)
Truth be told, the present research is hardly immune to the same remark. Yet,
a few comments are in order.
Aronoff and Kubik (2013) propose a distinction between materialistinstitutional and symbolic-cultural ways of thinking about politics. The former
refers to the Weberian institutional-legal definition of power, which is central
in the conventional paradigm of the modern state. The flagship translation of
such conceptualisation in political theory is March and Olsen’s definition of
politics as competition over resources: “the organizing principle of a political system is the allocation of scarce resources in the face of conflict of interests” (1989: 47–48). The problem with this proposition, Aronoff and Kubik
comment, is that “the struggle over collective identity, including often deadly
contests over the meaning of symbols signifying this identity” is entirely missing (2013: 24). Going through the funnel of realism, we lose sight of political agency. Therefore they recommend abandoning the assumption of fixed
(somewhat pre-political) identities and embracing the opposite understanding,
which is best illustrated by a striking metaphor from which he draws on: “if
identity is decentred, politics is about the attempt to create a centre” (Dirks,
Eley, & Ortner, 1994: 32). This spatial representation captures the essence of
identity politics beautifully, in my view. It conveys the idea of gathering a collective around some core elements, which define the extent of a group. The
centre is not only the axis of rotation of the political community; it also presupposes a circumference whose outer boundaries set the line between sameness
and difference. The assertion of identity entails indeed the distinction of a self
from one or many others.
A question remains pending: why identity is posited as decentred? It is so
because identity formation is an unstable and open-ended process. The fact
that identity and difference are specular sides of the same coin is not disputed
in social sciences: belonging to a group, a class, or any other socially category
means asserting a condition of difference from all other possibilities. As Connolly puts it with clarity, “identity requires difference in order to be, and it converts difference into otherness in order to secure its own self-certainty” (2002:

The nature of conflict 33

xiv). By reversing the order of conventional definitions, Connolly argues that
we first belong to difference (what I am not) in order to declare our identity
(what I am). Hence, identity is performed discursively as an utterance that is
expressive of alterity (Guillaume, 2002). This implies that identity formation is
relational (Somers, 1994), in that it connects plural constituencies and criteria
of identification (e.g. gender, sexual identity, ethnicity, class, age, and so forth).
At the same time, identity formation is also dialogical given that the figuration
of Self is constructed upon the Other. Framed in these terms, political actors
behave in a certain manner and pursue certain interests according to their own
identity, not the other way round as realism maintains.
There is more. Identity is not an immutable or universal essence reproducing
itself over time; rather, the relational and dialogical characteristics indicate its
contingency. As regards nation-states, for instance, identity “should be understood as ‘tenuously constituted in time . . . through a stylized repetition of
acts,’ and achieved, ‘not [through] a founding act, but rather a regulated process of repetition’” (Campbell, 1992: 9). Transcending the fixity of essentialist
accounts urges locating self-narratives in their spatial and temporal configurations (Somers, 1994). McDonald (2012) emphasises the mutual constitution of
security and identity through negotiation and contestation across multiple axes
within a community, and not solely in antagonistic terms. In the same vein,
Bleiker (2005) argues that the security dilemmas on each side of the barbedwire fence separating the Korean peninsula along the 38th parallel reproduce
the defining values and boundaries of both political communities. He crucially
adds that the conventional ethics of difference can be countered by an ethics
of dialogue for which the other’s identity may be seen not as incompatible or
threatening. These examples come from security studies, but the topic is all
too broad for an exhaustive discussion in these pages, which cannot be very
insightful or innovative in this respect. It was important, nonetheless, to specify
what a decentred ontology of identity is and why I subscribe to it.
Another thing to be specified is that handling identity as an analytical category does not mean to reify its empirical content, but rather objectify it provisionally to spell out how identity is practiced in context. For instance, national
identity is not imbued with absolute and timeless attributes. Albeit with “true”
effects for real people in real places, national identity is a historically contingent
construct that is not necessary to human societies to exist. Truth-effects –“a
doing, an activity and a normalised thing in society” (Brown, 2005: 63; quoted
in Dunn, 2008: 81) – are inherently fragile since they vary widely across
time and space, as well as among people and groups within the same community. Therefore, what an interpretivist researcher does is reconstruct how
natives describe themselves, and provides second- or third-order interpretations of those same descriptions. This is crucial to abstain from methodological nationalism, “the naturalization of the nation-state by the social sciences”
(Wimmer & Glick Schiller, 2002; see also Smith, 1983), which normatively
commands the congruence of national identity, political community, and territory. This tendency arises from conflation between the state as a form of

34 The nature of conflict

political organisation and nationalism as ideology, which merged into modern
nation-states almost becoming indistinguishable.
First and foremost, it should be noted that the State, “for all the omnipotence of its apparatuses, is far from being able to occupy the whole field of
actual power relations” (Foucault, 1980: 122). Violations of sovereignty, “the
crucial modern political articulation of all spatiotemporal relations” (Walker,
1993: 6), are actually more illustrative of international politics than the norm
itself (Krasner, 1999). The critique of sovereignty does not amount to saying
that the State is in decline. Yet, it should encourage to “[bear] witness to the
irredeemable plurality of space and the multiplicity of possible political constructions of space” (Tuathail & Dalby, 1998: 3).
As the Kurdish question shows best, sub-state and trans-state topographies of
power are effective identity carriers. Kurdistan resembles indeed the image of
a “multisite nation” (Laguerre, 2016) by virtue of connections between a large
and politicised diaspora, a transnational network of activism, and a divided
homeland eliciting the view of a common ethnos albeit in the absence of
political cohesion. In a contemporary world of “increasingly globalized webs
of influence, dependence, and assistance” (Kubik, 2009: 44), the Greater Kurdistan stands out as a virtual and mythical space, which is articulated through
disjointed and even opposed national visions. In this sense, Kurdish transnational identity can be read in the terms of a “multi-locale, dispersed identity”
(Marcus, 1998: 63). Methodological nationalism, instead, places individuals
and national communities within nation-states by default, thus institutionalising a spatial bias and also creating confusion between the state as actor and the
state as territorial space or arena (Adamson, 2016).
Secondly, national identities get constituted through a variety of discursive
practices, “such as pledging allegiance to the flag, singing the national anthem,
drawing a map, or using the word we to talk about a country’s foreign policy”
(Wedeen, 2009: 89). This repertoire is performed inside a broader semiotic space
that is also crossed by other symbolic struggles. As ideology, nationalism translates it into political resolve and endows a shared national identity “with an aura
of naturalness” (Kubik, 2009: 37). This intersubjective process of meaning making is not immune from inconsistencies, ambiguities, and contestation. Resource
politics is studied here as further arena within which this process is played out.
The next paragraph illustrates resource nationalism more in detail. The choice
is appropriate for the case study, as will be shown in Chapter 3. Nevertheless,
it should be stated that ethno-national identities are neither the only nor the
primary identity constructs for resource politics. Although the state frequently
has a fundamental role in the appropriation and transformation of nature, and
accordingly access and control over natural resources has been studied in relation to state-formation since Wittfogel’s hydraulic hypothesis, non-state forms
of resource governance are equally prominent. This is to say that the emphasis
on resource nationalism does not mean a comeback of state-centrism by other
means. On the contrary, the empirical analysis shows that local, national, and
global scales are interdependent in extractive industries.

The nature of conflict 35
Resource nationalism

Defined as the “tendency for (nation-)states to assert economic and political
control over natural resources found within its sovereign territory” (Childs,
2016: 1), resource nationalism frequently comes into play in resource-rich
countries as a discourse backing state-led extractive development policies
against foreign intervention. It is a mode of governance that recasts nationhood
upon the extractive industry and asserts claims of national ownership over natural resources. Economic returns are not the only drivers behind the establishment of property regimes under state control. Resource sovereignty “imagines
an inward territorial focus and a particular sovereign actor with the capacity to
control resources in isolation from external relations” (Emel, Huber, & Makene,
2011: 71). Historically, such understanding has been attached to the nationalisation policies undertaken by newly independent states in the late 1960s and
throughout the 1970s. With regard to the petroleum industry, for instance, the
foundation of OPEC was a watershed event in that sense. Resource nationalist
frames gave elites in oil-producing countries greater legitimacy (Rosales, 2017).
Hence, the definition includes all those “efforts by resource-rich nations to shift
political and economic control of their energy and mining sectors from foreign
and private interests to domestic and state-controlled companies” (Bremmer &
Johnston, 2009: 149), typically through the renegotiation of taxes and royalties paid by foreign companies and the nationalisation of extractive industries,
as well as by redirecting benefits locally (with procurement contracts, energy
subsidies, or programmes of poverty alleviation for instance).
In other words, resource nationalism has been the “response by extractive
peripheries to the persistence of colonial control or the domination of foreign (monopoly) capital over their rich natural resource bases” (Kaup & Gellert,
2017: 277). Despite nationalisation policies effectively changing the rules of the
game, a series of exogenous factors (e.g. price volatility, high capital expenditure, inter-connectedness of global markets, and production chains) prevented
the demise of private corporations. The opposition public vs. private is actually
misleading. In fact, joint venture between state-owned companies and private
companies is common. Resource nationalist policies quite often coexist with
the involvement of private investments: while resource nationalism is a powerful tool to exercise self-determination and reclaim ownership on resources
extracted within the state jurisdiction, it does not exclude partnerships with foreign actors to run extractive projects. It has been pointed out indeed that after
A period of more inward looking “national” development based around
sovereignty and self-determination, the majority of independent postcolonial states commenced a widespread liberalization of their economies that,
rather than seeking to keep foreign capital outside, actively constructed a
set of legal, fiscal and political incentives to attract foreign direct investment toward the development of internal resources.
(Emel, Huber, & Makene, 2011: 71)

36 The nature of conflict

Hence, resource-rich countries have often continued to act as landlords while
creating favourable business conditions for external investors.
From a theoretical point of view, the concept stresses the relevance of resource
imaginaries for the articulation of nationhood practices – i.e. the “acts to create nation-space and nation-time, the projection of imaginary community, the
homogenization of nation-space and pedagogization of history” (Tuathail &
Dalby, 1998: 3) – and geopolitical visions “concerning the relation between
one’s own and other places, involving feelings of (in)security or (dis)advantage
(and/or) invoking ideas about a collective mission or foreign policy strategy”
(Dijkink, 2002: 11). Resource nationalism offers an angle to analyse the relationship between resource governance and nationhood. A review of the literature found that extractivism participates in the ideological metamorphosis
of national communities on the heels of development and modernisation programmes. Resource-based imaginaries tend to shape development policy to a
great extent, “infused as they are by cultural ways of understanding the world
geographically, environmentally and geopolitically” (Childs & Hearn, 2017: 4).
Moreover, the nation is naturalised and imbued with a teleological connotation
(“oil nation”). Natural endowments are indeed considered a national patrimony to be used for the benefit of the nation (Jaffe, 2011).
Notably, resource nationalist policies gather, mediate, and transform a multiplicity of imaginaries and images (Childs, 2016). The assertion of national
rights of ownership and exploitation, the enforcement of territorial control
over subsurface resources, and the reconfiguration of economic relations have
an impact on the political community as a whole. As Perrault and Valdivia summarise in one sentence: “the re-making of the nation occurs through a redefinition of the relationship between state, population, territory and resource”
(2010: 691). Since the 1960s Latin America, in particular, has been a laboratory
for development strategies geared towards the national exploitation of mineral
ores and fossil fuels. It is not by chance that most geographers and ecologists
working on resource nationalism have an expertise in that region, although
single-case studies have increasingly touched African and Asian countries as
well. On the contrary, the concept has not been used much with reference to
oil-producing countries in the Middle East and North Africa, quite surprisingly given the geopolitical representations attached to the broader region.
Coronil (1997) and Watts’ (2004) ethnographies on the relationship between
oil exploitation and nation-building in Nigeria and Venezuela are milestones
in the literature. Perreault and Valdivia (2010) illustrate that leftist governments
in Ecuador and Bolivia placed hydrocarbon development at the centre of their
plans. As a result, a petro-state ideology reframed nationhood and citizenship.
Childs and Hearn (2017) similarly examine the resource-based development
imaginaries in Ghana and, again, Ecuador (“la Patria nueva”). Regarding the
latter, Rosales (2017) points out that the dominant notion of development
followed the rise of military elites during the 1970s. The mobilisation of the
same discursive frames is addressed by Kohl and Farthing (2012) in the case of
Bolivia. Moving to Asia, Jackson (2015) analyses the re-definition of Mongolia

The nature of conflict 37

as a mineral country (“Mine-golia”), whereas Lahiri-Dutt (2016) of India as a
“coal nation.”
Territory and the natural resources within are understood as essential properties of the territorial state, which extends its jurisdiction on them. In other
words, they are central objects of the state apparatus (Whitehead, Jones, &
Jones, 2007). Yet, at the analytical level, attention must be made not to reify
such national isomorphism. The public–private partnerships in the extractive
industries are an example. The same can be said about the nationalisation of
water territories. Despite impetus in UN policy circles on integrated planning and management across different jurisdictions, nationalism runs deep into
predominant formulations of water governance. This reflects the central role
modern states have had in developing hydraulic infrastructures. Historically, the
emergence of nation-states and central administrations led to the partition of
water bodies into national segments (Allouche, 2005). In so doing, waterscapes
are constructed as integral parts of the homeland: not only a strategic resource,
kept inside sovereign borders, but also a figurative element belonging to the
national community. Through this process of material and symbolic territorialisation, which breaks the hydrological continuity of transboundary basins, water
was made into a national resource, thus becoming a non-negotiable primary good.
Water is seen as something to “be appropriated, annexed, secured” (Lankford
et al., 2013: ix) by state actors in competition for dwindling resources. In short,
rights to water are subsumed under governmentality practices connected to the
historical process of power centralisation into national administrations. However, the state-centric perspective is hardly historicised.
The conflation between water territories and national imaginaries has practical consequences. For one thing, the rights of local communities are marginalised (Boelens, Getches, & Guevara-Gil, 2010: 17–19). State-centric policies,
which misconceive water resources as a feature of sovereignty, put rights-based
inclusive approaches to water governance on the sidelines (Tinti, 2020). Concrete illustration is the relentless damming in upstream Turkey and Iran at the
expense of downstream Iraqi communities. It is therefore not surprising that
international diplomacy has fallen short of securing peaceful solutions to looming water deficits and the potential conflicts that may arise within transboundary river systems. Following the same example, the Tigris-Euphrates basin is
not governed by any multilateral agreement between riparian countries, thus
leaving water issues at the mercy of unilateral actions.
This book applies the conceptual lens of resource nationalism to the KRG
by focusing on oil-driven policies and discourses to mobilise a shared national
sentiment. It is argued that oil geography has influenced the evolution of Kurdish national identity in Iraq. As a sub-state regional government in pursuit of
greater autonomy within Iraqi federalism, the KRG is a test case connecting
resource nationalism to the question of statelessness. It also gives a snapshot
of the multiple relations within extractive communities. As already underlined by Perreault and Valdivia (2010), struggles over hydrocarbon governance
involve transnational oil and gas firms, local governments, social movements,

38 The nature of conflict

and regional elites, which all intervene in the re-configuration of the nation.
The crucible of resource politics shows that conflict “imbricate not only the
spatiality of resources and populations, but also the particular histories and
geographies of resource governance, and the broader political economies that
connect resource producing zones with centres of resource processing and consumption” (ibidem: 690).

Methodological notes
A few comments on my engagement with the subject of study are in order.
Methodology does not merely tie the theoretical to the empirical, but also
reflects one’s understanding of how, and for what purposes, knowledge can be
produced. By reading previous pages, it is somewhat implicit that the problematisation of oil environments and political identities as social constructs favours
interpretation over explanation, constitution over causation, and partial knowledge over truth claims. My inquiry was interpretative and focused on intersubjective meanings that emerged from the relational context I walked in, or
rather on “how meanings are embodied in the language and actions of social
actors” within said setting (Schwandt, 1994: 222). Far from being a synonym
of qualitative methodology, interpretivism deviates from the positivist search
of law-like universal generalisations; instead, it looks at situated ways of knowing and requires deep contextualisation in order to understand the meaningmaking processes at play. The interpretive approach is rooted in hermeneutic
phenomenology and reflexive positioning in line with a time-honoured tradition. Translated into a research cycle, an interpretive study is theory-informed
and not theory-driven: data collection and analysis are given priority to the
ex-ante formulation of theoretical models to be tested.
Although this book cannot be described as ethnographic through and
through, due to the relatively limited amount of time spent in the field, I proceeded ethnographically since its inception. When carving out the boundaries
of the research design at the beginning and even while writing these pages, I
have always kept in mind Caroline Nordstrom’s definition: “ethnography must
be able to bring a people and a place to life in the eyes and hearts of those
who have not been there” (2004: 14). As both a research practice and a genre
of writing, ethnography is an attempt at entering the “webs of significance” in
which the individual is suspended and providing a “thick description” of such
social discourse, to borrow from Geertz (1973). Disciplined, intensive immersion in the field of research and sensibility “to the meanings attributed by those
observed to their political reality” are its core principles (Schatz, 2009: xi). Not
a disinterested and aloof observer, the ethnographer is empathetically immersed
in the context with the purpose of seeing things from the insider’s point of
view. This is what is called emic perspective11 in the anthropological jargon. I
embraced such goal as my own and treated ethnography as a privileged way to
understand how political identities are remodelled upon oil: a research strategy
to reconcile overarching narratives and situated practices, and a method to

The nature of conflict 39

gather and interpret data. From a political perspective, ethnography promises
to shed light on the “invisibilities of power” (Nordstrom, 2004: 15),12 which is
to say small facts and stories that nonetheless speak to larger issues.
Although there is a dearth of ethnographic works in IR13 (Salter & Mutlu,
2013: 53), I considered ethnography to be a hermeneutic antidote to the application of preconceived theories and hypotheses or unified methods of inquiry,
rather than a threat to the validation of findings (and the scientific status of
the discipline with it). The interpretation of meanings-in-context casts aside
if-then hypotheses, causal relationships, and a language of variables. In other
words, it does not proceed through the “cascading path approach” of positivism (Aradau et al., 2014: 2). Rather than testing a theoretical statement based
on a priori concept formation and using supposedly agnostic methods, the
epistemological commitment to situated knowledge(s) insists on reconstructing
agency in its conditions of possibility. Even though social facts do not speak
for themselves and we always frame the empirical through socially mediated
understandings (what Kant called categories of thought), theory ought not
to assert itself over the direct experience of social reality. To borrow from
Blumer, a founding father of symbolic interactionism, what is needed is a call
for a direct examination of the empirical world, which is to say the world of
everyday experience (1986: 34). Framing research from the bottom, from the
native’s or insider’s perspective, means taking off the desire for an objective and
complete representation of social reality as if it were fixed in unmalleable patterns, and embracing one centred on intersubjective interpretations of unstable
social constructs.
That being said, doing research may prove to be unpredictable and strenuous
beyond expectations. In my experience, limited funding and time, long delays
in visa processing, unavailability of sources, protracted warfare in the country,
and the escalation of tensions after the independence referendum with the consequent embargo on international flights were actual hurdles, which forced me
to make adjustments in itinere. Not to mention the feeling of “stranger-ness”
(Yanow & Schwartz-Shea, 2012: 29) that any researcher experiences once in
the field.
The material presented in the core chapters of the book is the result of two
short stays in the KRI (April to June 2017, May to June 2018) and extensive
engagement with the Kurdish diaspora in Europe. The American University of
Iraq – Sulaimani (AUIS) and the Italian NGO Un Ponte Per (UPP) were my
entry points in the region. Both partners turned out to be essential gatekeepers on the ground. As an AUIS research fellow and a UPP volunteer, I had the
chance to get a broad perspective on the local context. Accordingly, fieldwork
was an alternation of settings: militarised party headquarters, crowded administrative offices, government buildings, shiny hotel lobbies, cultural cafés, or
oil-soaked farmland – to name just a few.
In practical terms, I triangulated several sources of evidence: in-depth and
semi-structured interviews, participant observation, and texts.14 Interviewees
were selected according to purposive sampling and in some cases with the

40 The nature of conflict

assistance of key informants. They included party members, KRG representatives and bureaucrats, academics, foreign consultants, civil society organisation
practitioners, and social and environmental activists. The type of interview
varied as well: more structured with KRG officials and biographical and openended with activists. Apart from interviews, informal talks, side conversations,
and everyday interactions with a greater number of people made a decisive
contribution to the analysis.
Conducting research on sensitive issues in a very politicised environment
within a war-torn country, the safety of my informants was a major concern. I
set out a strict procedure to safeguard confidentiality to make sure not to disclose any information that might harm or stigmatise them. All the interviews
were transcribed with anonymous identifiers, later encrypted, and finally stored
on a cloud server, with separate coding sheets so that no one besides me could
identify the interviewee. In a few cases, transcripts were returned upon request:
member checking was a requisite of transparency but also a tool of internal
control for validating data. Although I kept track of all interviews, fieldnotes,
and analytic memos to provide an audit trail, accountability to research participants came first. This is the reason why I use pseudonyms when referring
to my closest informants in this book and I eventually decided not to include
a list of interviewees.
I often shared preliminary interpretations with my closest informants to
cross-check facts and views. Putting myself in a listening position was a reflexive
restraint on a first-person perspective and also quite an enriching experience.
After all, if not co-researchers, they participated in co-constructing interpretive knowledge within the artificial space of my inquiry. What from time to
time caught their attention or conversely was taken for granted was particularly
instructive to reading primary data in retrospective along with fleshing out a
more trustable narrative.
The concern of not exposing them to potentially dangerous situations
became real during a fleeting visit to Kirkuk, where two assistants had managed
to organise a few meetings with provincial authorities. Kirkuk was a different
setting from those I was accustomed to. The politicians I spoke with were
irritated by my questions. They were evasive and impatient, hiding themselves
behind cosmetic declarations and shutting down the conversation every time
I rebutted with some contradictory evidence. A military commander declined
to meet at the very last moment after several phone calls. I was cautious, but
I also felt excitement. However, at some point, my assistants asked me to stop
asking questions. “If you live here, you don’t talk about these kinds of things,”
one of them warned with a worried look, “if you do, you may not live long.” I
knew he had received intimidations and I realised that I had overstepped a line.
Only a few weeks before unknown gunmen had killed the deputy director of the North Gas Company (NGC) at a checkpoint. A news leak was the
likely reason for the assassination, according to some. Kirkukis are confronted
with a highly fraught security situation due to inter-communal grievances
and disputes over the vast oil riches of the province. Attacks against energy

The nature of conflict 41

infrastructures and Iraqi forces patrolling oilfields continued even after most
areas were cleared from ISIS due to the clash of local militias with interests in
the local oil economy. However, party officials wanted me to report that everything in Kirkuk was clean and safe. After my assistants cautioned me about not
pushing further, I cancelled all other appointments without hesitation. When
we drove back to Sulaymaniyah at sunset, one of them was visibly relieved and
told me with a smile he had kissed his child ten times before leaving in the
morning. I felt terribly guilty. From that moment on, not putting anyone at
risk became even more of a priority.
Despite visa delays, the timing of my stays in Iraq happened to be propitious.
The first period took place while the offensive against ISIS in nearby Mosul
had entered the last phase. In those weeks, the KRG President Masoud Barzani
began beckoning independence for his people. When I came back almost one
year later, in the run-up to the Iraqi parliamentary elections, that dream was
in tatters and the geography of power had changed because of the escalation
of federal disputes after the referendum. The loss of disputed territories had
been a blow to the credibility of Kurdish elites. Anti-establishment resentment
bubbled to the surface, while the KDP–PUK enmity reached a new peak. In
many ways, the referendum was a watershed for Kurdish politics, and oil was
very much involved in the political dynamics. I had therefore the chance of
making a relevant comparison.

Notes
1 Although prevailing methodologies in IR are firmly rooted in the positivist canon, with
qualitative ones under the aegis of KKV’s influential hallmark Designing social inquiry:
Scientific inference in qualitative research (King, Keohane, & Verba, 1994), critically oriented
books on research methods have blossomed in recent years (see, for instance, Ackerly,
Stern, & True, 2006; Yanow & Schwartz-Shea, 2006, 2012; Salter & Mutlu, 2013;
Aradau et al., 2014).
2 Denying the existence of “facts of nature” does not amount to endorsing an anti-realist
ontology. Phenomenology is rather an epistemological viewpoint on the making and
circulation of meanings through which reality becomes knowable. As a consequence,
phenomenologists argue with Nietzsche that “[there] are no facts in themselves. It is
always necessary to begin by introducing a meaning in order that there can be a fact”
(quoted in Jenkins, 1997: 121).
3 For the sake of clarity, I stick to the definition of action as behaviour imbued with meaning: “running in the streets aimlessly is mere behavior, running after a thief is an action
endowed with meaning” (Adler & Pouliot, 2011: 5).
4 For two early critiques, see Deudney (1990, 1991) and Dalby (1996).
5 See, for instance, Waever (1998) and Tickner and Waever (2009).
6 The is a kind of a paradox in the fact that the most prestigious university programs in
African Studies are taught in London, Oxford, or Leiden.
7 To take another example, Ferguson (2006) questions whether we can speak of Africa as
a unitary place in any meaningful sense: “looking at the range of empirical differences
internal to the continent – different natural environments, historical experiences, religious traditions, forms of government, languages, livelihoods, and so on – the unity of
a thing called “Africa,” its status as a single “place,” however the continental descriptor
may be qualified geographically or racially (“Sub-Saharan,” “black,” “tropical,” or what

42 The nature of conflict

8

9

10

11
12

13

14

have you) seems dubious.” Nonetheless, the global discourse on Africa and Africanness is
still there. It is so, quite simply, because it offers a radical counterpoint to Western societies. To use another formidable sentence by Ferguson, Africa “has served as a metaphor
of absence – a ‘dark continent’ against which the lightness and whiteness of ‘Western
civilization’ can be pictured” (ibidem: 2).
“Representations of the Middle East,” Diana Davis writes in the opening of her edited
volume Imperialism, Orientalism, and the Environment in the Middle East (2011), “nearly
inevitably include desolate scenes of empty and parched deserts, punctuated, perhaps,
with a lonely string of camels, a verdant but isolated oasis, or a beach with large dunes of
golden sand, sometimes with a pyramid, an oil derrick, or a minaret in the background.”
The debate on the endurance of authoritarianism in the Arab world – the “region’s
political hallmark” (Bellin, 2012: 127) – is a clear indication of a presumed anomaly.
Anticipated in Huntington’s comment (1999) on the resistance of Middle East and
North Africa to the third wave of democratization unfolding during the 1970s, according to many area specialists the exception still stands. Cronyism, corruption, colonial
legacies, oil rents, weak civil societies, coercive apparatuses, tribal norms, and religious
factors are some of the often-interrelated explanatory factors to which the debate has
resorted, especially after the so-called Arab Spring. I agree with Achcar (2016) that
the theories of Arab exceptionalism resonating in Western media and scholarly works
embody culturalist understandings, which take the pulse of regional politics based on its
distance from the liberal model. The juxtaposition “spring” to the unrest crossing several
Arab countries is of significance. By contrast, Achcar reminds that the upheaval started
in 2011 “[was] not – or not only or even primarily – a democratic transition,” but “a
thorough social revolution that seeks to overturn a whole socioeconomic order after a
protracted state of developmental blockage” (ibidem: 5–6).
“All borders, whether they appear oddly contrived and artificial, . . . or appear to be
based on objective criteria, such as rivers or lines of latitude, are have always been constructions of human beings. As such, any border’s delineation is subjective, contrived,
negotiated, and contested” (Diener & Hagen, 2010: 3).
Opposed to an etic perspective, which applies the observer’s external categories (which
Geertz calls experience-distant concepts) to a social group.
Carolyn Nordstrom authored a beautiful ethnography across warzones and beyond
frontlines uncovering the interplay between armed conflicts and illicit economies, or
to use her striking words “the intersections of power, profit, survival, and humanity –
in the shot of a gun.” She offers a remarkable characterization of what ethnography is:
“Ethnography is a discipline sophisticated in its simplicity: it travels with the anthropologist to the front lines and across lights and shadows to collect these stories; to illuminate
strange bedfellows, and, if one were to put it bluntly, to care” (2004: 3).
There are notable exceptions. See, for instance, Scott (1977), Aronoff (1989), Gusterson (1998), Wedeen (1999), Barnett (2002), Nordstrom (2004), Khalili (2007), Pachirat
(2011), Neumann (2012), and Autesserre (2014). Some of these works fall outside the
traditional research questions defining the IR field but are mentioned here as evidence
for excellent ethnographic studies at the intersection of political science more generally
and anthropology.
The corpus of texts included: speeches and statements delivered by KRG President and
Ministries at national and international summits; press releases and reports published by
KRG Ministries (namely, the Ministry of Natural Resources, MNR, and the Ministry
of Planning); laws and legislative documents; and oil and gas contracts.

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2

The Kurdistan Region of Iraq
Borders, identity, oil

Kurds in Iraq. A historical overview
Look, from the Arabs to the Georgians,
The Kurds have become like towers.
The Turks and Persians are surrounded by them.
The Kurds are on all four corners.
Both sides have made the Kurdish people
Targets for the arrows of fate.
They are said to be keys to the borders
Each tribe forming a formidable bulwark.
Whenever the Ottoman Sea [Ottomans] and Tajik Sea [Persians]
Flow out and agitate,
The Kurds get soaked in blood
Separating them [the Turks and Persians] like an isthmus.
(Ahmad-i Khani, Mem-u-Zin, 1692;
as translated in Hassanpour, 1992: 53)
The Kurdish question

The idea of Kurdistan – “the land of the Kurds” – is as evocative as elusive.
From northwest to southeast, the Kurdish homeland runs for approximately
200,000 square miles along the steep flanks and fertile valleys of the Taurus
and Zagros mountainous arch (Izady, 2015): it starts from the heart of Central
Anatolia and the headwaters of Tigris and Euphrates to the east, laps on the
Aras River and the foothills of the Lesser Caucasus in the Armenian highlands
to the north, lowers gradually to the Mesopotamian Plain down to the province of Kirkuk to the south, and extends beyond the city of Kermanshah to
the east. Across this vast geographic area, a diverse mixture of semi-nomadic
tribes, mainly shepherds driving livestock seasonally from one mountain pasture to another or peasants cultivating the lowlands whose roots are lost deep
in the Medes ancestry, at some point in history began to be recognised as
Kurds. These pastoralist communities preferred to call themselves by their
tribal or clan name and did not use the label “Kurd” in a political sense until
the 20th century (Özoğlu, 2012: 27). The word Kurdistan first appeared in the
DOI: 10.4324/9781003161103-3

The Kurdistan Region of Iraq 53

12th century to designate the administrative province inside the Seljuk Empire
on the eastern ridge of the Zagros Mountains near Hamadan in today’s Iran
(McDowall, 2003: 6; Özoğlu, 2012: 26). Similarly, the territory of Diyarbakir
was named Kurdistan by the Ottomans due to its sizeable Kurdish population
(van Bruinessen, 1992: 11).
The imaginative geography of Kurdistan hinges on a circular analogy
between ethnicity and territory, which are thought to coincide: just as the
homeland is defined upon ethnic presence, Kurds achieve ethnic distinctiveness
because of territorial rootedness. Whether drawn on a map or practiced into
habit, the lines of ethnicity or more broadly identity remain blurred since their
referents (ethnos and territory) are projects perpetually in the making and not
absolute entities. This consideration may be applied to any political community. However, it is even more revealing in the case at hand given that Kurdish
political identity has been traumatically marked by displacement – first through
incorporation into the successor states of the Ottoman and Persian empires and
then in the form of cultural and political subjugation. Known to be the largest
stateless nation,1 undeniably Kurds “remained marginalised, suppressed, and
oppressed in every state in which they found themselves” (Stansfield & Shareef,
2017: xviii).
A “Kurdish question” (Elphinston, 1946) came to rise in the aftermath of
World War I (WWI), when the Allies dissected the Ottoman Empire (and
Kurdish inhabited areas with it) through a series of consecutive settlements.
During post-war conferences, Kurds had been acknowledged as unitary people worthy of national recognition, but the extent of that right was object of
debate in the negotiations following the signing of the Mudros armistice in
1918, which sanctioned the Ottoman surrender. Although the Treaty of Sèvres
in 1920 had instructed a commission to draft “a scheme of local autonomy for
the predominantly Kurdish areas,”2 Wilson’s principle of self-determination
soon got lost in the reorganisation of former Ottoman territories.3 Britain,
which brokered the present-day regional architecture through the acquisition of a colonial mandate on Mesopotamia and Palestine as envisaged in the
Sykes-Picot formula, was never convinced of supporting Kurdish claims in full.
British policy was inconstant: whilst at the 1921 Cairo Conference the then
Colonial Secretary Winston Churchill maintained that “purely Kurdish areas
should not be included in the Arab state of Mesopotamia” (Yildiz, 2007: 11),
both the Turkish aspirations over Mosul and the perceived unreliability of
Kurdish clans produced a change of heart.
With the crumbling of the Ottoman Empire and the British occupation
of the three Mesopotamian vilayet (provinces) of Basra, Baghdad, and Mosul,
Kurdish tribes were initially encouraged to plead national self-determination
in the northernmost area around Mosul, even though at the time “the primary
sense of identity [laid] with their clan or their religious order” (Tripp, 2002: 34)
and their political outlook was rather local. The Vilayet of Mosul corresponded
approximately to the southern arc of Kurdistan, also known as Bashur.4 However, the High Commissioner of Iraq, Sir Percy Cox, later warned the Colonial

54 The Kurdistan Region of Iraq

Office against Mahmud Barzanji’s clannish leadership. In parallel, an international commission contested Turkish claims on the province. The subsequent
resolution adopted by the League of Nations in 1925 agreed upon annexation
of Vilayet of Mosul to the nascent Kingdom of Iraq, already handed to Faisal
bin Hussain bin Ali al-Hashemi (crowned as Faisal I) in 1921. The response
was not long in coming. Mahmud Barzanji, a Kurdish Sheikh who had been
appointed by the British High Commission as the governor of Sulaymaniyah
in 1918, led repeated uprisings. At the same time, the outcome of the Turkish
war of independence contradicted what had been stipulated with the Treaty of
Sèvres. The replacing peace treaty, signed in July 1923 in Lausanne by Turkish nationalists, drew the contemporary Republic of Turkey without taking
Kurds into account. The settlement frustrated hopes (if there ever were any) of
gaining an independent Kurdish state in a remodelled Middle East: the Turkish opposition to any cession of sovereignty over south-eastern Anatolia was
echoed by British reluctance to endorse the consolidation of Kurdish rule in
Mesopotamia.
Hence, Kurds’ path to autonomy became “one of conflict, betrayal and
dashed promises” (Yildiz, 2007: 14). Kurdistan was no longer an inaccessible
buffer zone on the fringes of mighty empires in competition (O’Shea, 2004;
Ünver, 2016) as Ahmad-i Khani’s poem reminds. Kurds found their ancestral
homeland partitioned into four pieces and were forcefully integrated into the
boundaries of emerging nation-states geared to be ethnically homogeneous
and whose governments began considering Kurdish-held tribal territories as
rebellious peripheries to be denied of any autonomy. As a consequence, the
liberation struggle took separate paths. Kurds were confronted with various
constraints and opportunities within each host state. For this reason, although
transnational aspects have been and still are relevant, the evolution of Kurdish nationalism should be read through the lens of local histories. Accordingly, without implying the naturalisation of state boundaries, the present work
focuses on the Iraqi side of Kurdistan only. The journey that has brought Iraqi
Kurds from early Sheikh Mahmud Barzanji’s insurrections to the recognition
of an autonomous region resembling a de facto state within contemporary Iraq
is illustrated in what follows.5
The rise of the national liberation movement

A lot of time has passed since the British mandate on Mesopotamia, but the
consequences of the rejection of Kurdish claims are still there, namely, the segmentation of the country along ethnic lines that was ingrained in Iraqi politics
from the very beginning. When the Kingdom acceded to full independence in
1932, Sheikh Mahmud Barzanji had been fighting the Hashemite rulers and
their British protectors for more than a decade before being forced into exile that
same year. Unrest broke out also in the Turkish and Iranian sides of Kurdistan,
but retaliations of central governments from both countries were tougher than
the revolts. However, it must be bore in mind that the aghas (the title for Kurdish

The Kurdistan Region of Iraq 55

landlords and tribal chieftains) were neither all against the Anglo-Iraqi administration nor united under the banner of a nationalist cause. In fact, a national sentiment was yet to rise. Furthermore, just as Britain had successfully played on the
feudal lineage of Kurdish society to obtain the collaboration of the upper class,
the Iraqi government fanned the flames of tribal divisions to weaken popular
mobilisation. It was not rare to find aghas forging temporary and tactical alliances
with Baghdad to prevail over local rivals; according to van Bruinessen (1994),
Kurdish collaborationists (known derogatorily as Jahsh, “mule”) were the same
number of liberation fighters (Peshmerga, “those who face death”). Even Barzanji’s self-proclamation as “King of Kurdistan” was resisted and defied by many.
During the 1930s, Mullah Mustafa Barzani replaced him as the most prominent and charismatic leader of the nationalist movement. From his eponymous
town (Barzan, located on the banks of the Greater Zab south of the TurkeyIraq border, where the Barzanis were revered for fighting prowess and as religious authorities of the Naqshbandi order), he managed to mobilise a broad
tribal base and lead an intermittent guerrilla for over half a century, which
made him a legendary nationalist figure. In 1946, Barzani was offered the presidency of the newly founded KDP and participated to the short-lived experiment of the Republic of Mahabad in Iran, which fell to the Shah forces after
barely a year. Barzani and about 500 fighters were then forced on an epic march
across the mountains until they crossed the Aras River and found shelter in the
Soviet Union. However, for his many internal opponents, Mustafa Barzani was
a power-hungry warlord seeking to subdue Kurdish tribes to his will. Tribal
infighting was not secondary to the revolt against Baghdad.
Anti-Barzani positions soon emerged inside the KDP, in particular from one
of the factions, known as the Politburo, headed by Ibrahim Ahmed and his
son-in-law Jalal Talabani. Antagonism broke out in armed conflicts from mid1960s onwards. It was not all about power. Kurdish society was anything but
cohesive, and its internal conflict reflected the socio-cultural rift between different constituencies: Mullah Mustafa Barzani embodied the traditional, landowning, and conservative elites of Kurmanji-speaking rural tribes in the northwest;
the Politburo gathered the intellectual, Marxist, and urban-based wing of
Sorani-speaking areas in the south-east who nevertheless had left the door open
for Barzani to come in as the most authoritative spokesperson of the liberation
struggle. Despite the nationalistic aura, Barzani was never able to secure the
allegiance of non-tribal Kurdish peasants: fearing to lose grip on his resource
base, he took up arms against the land reforms of central governments, with the
result that “Kurdish nationalism in Iraq . . . never developed into the peasantproletarian, leftist mass Kurdish movement epitomized by the PKK in Turkey”
(Romano, 2006: 189). It is worth noting that these same features – the personification of nationalist mobilisation, party factionalism, tribal infighting, and the
mass-elite cleavage – have survived as markers of Kurdish politics until today.
Abd al-Karim Qasim’s military coup and the overthrow of the monarchy in
July 1958 commenced a new phase: the Interim Constitution of the Republic
of Iraq recognised Kurdish national rights for the first time, the KDP was no

56 The Kurdistan Region of Iraq

longer a clandestine political organisation, and Barzani returned after a decade
in exile. Such peace gestures, however, were not intended to be enduring
and Kurds-Arabs relations soon worsened through mutual recrimination. Once
again in September 1961, shots were fired. A pattern emerged, whereby Baghdad would withdraw from initial concessions to take up arms against Kurds
until either political change in central government or military considerations
would coax belligerents to resume negotiations (Owtram, 2018). Throughout
the 1960s, the Iraqi–Kurdish war killed tens of thousands of people. Meanwhile, Barzani kept on removing dissidents to his hegemony both inside and
outside the KDP. On the other front, the rise in Baghdad of the Ba’ath Party,
which had toppled and executed Qasim in February 1963, laid the ideological
foundations of a more pronounced persecution against Kurds. Nonetheless, in
March 1970, Ba’athists initially made a settlement offer accepting in principle
most KDP demands, from the recognition of Kurdish as official language to
proportional participation in state affairs and unification of Kurdish areas into
a self-governing region, in exchange for the integration of Peshmerga into
the Iraqi army (Marr, 2012). Already in the 1940s, the KDP had abandoned
secessionist intentions moving to the less ambitious goal of self-administration.
What came to be known as the March Manifesto was “the best deal the Kurds
of Iraq had been offered” (McDowall, 2003: 327). However, Saddam Hussein,
then General Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr’s deputy, negotiated the agreement out
of necessity at a time when Iraqi forces were recovering from costly military
campaigns and the Ba’ath Party had still to consolidate its position.
In point of fact, Kurdish national rights were seen in Baghdad as an unacceptable blow to Arab unity. A military solution was only delayed. It is no
wonder, hence, that the Manifesto was never implemented. Disagreement over
the demarcation of the autonomous area due to the inclusion of Kirkuk and
Khanaqin was the harbinger of further distance, which became apparent by
the several assassination attempts on Barzani, the deportation of 45,000 Faili
Kurds6 in Iran, and the mutual arms race (Marr, 2012). As Romano sumps up,
“both sides were preparing for war” (2006: 193), which eventually erupted in
1974 as Barzani rejected the Autonomy Law. By that time the wind had turned
though: the nationalisation of petroleum industry and the heavy weaponry supplied through the 1972 Iraqi-Soviet Treaty of Friendship provided Ba’athists
with the means of crushing the much lighter Kurdish resistance. Peshmerga
were aided by Iran, with the CIA and Mossad also dispensing weapons, but the
military imbalance drove the Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi to reach out to
Saddam Hussein in secret. At the margins of the OPEC Conference in Algiers
in March 1975, they announced the settlement of border disputes between the
two countries. The unexpected pact also implied cessation of Iranian support
to Mustafa Barzani, who was left with no other option but to accept a ceasefire
that was tantamount to defeat.
In so doing, Saddam Hussein had cleared the way for harsh policies of ethnic assimilation. With Kurdish forces in disarray, the regime forged ahead with
the purpose of “Arabizing” Kurdish inhabited territories. The bitter time of

The Kurdistan Region of Iraq 57

ethnic cleansing began. The following 15 years would be seared into memory
by the escalation of Ba’athist oppression: the systematic destruction of villages within a forbidden zone along the northern and eastern borders and the
resettlement of deportees anticipated far harsher measures, which Ali Hassan
al-Majid (the Secretary of the Northern Bureau of the Ba’ath Party disgracefully remembered as Chemical Ali) led to the extreme of genocidal campaigns.
The codenamed al-Anfal (“Spoils”) onslaughts started in February 1988 with
the siege of the Jalafi valley and the massacre of Halabja, where the Iraqi air
force dropped chemical bombs on civilians resulting in thousands of deaths
(Hiltermann, 2007). It was neither the first, nor the last time Ba’athists used
chemical weapons against Kurds. Around 700–1,000 villages were razed to
the ground and between 50,000 and 100,000 people were killed during the
al-Anfal operations, though some estimates go up to 180,000–200,000 casualties.7 Within two decades (1970–1990), this scorched earth policy tore down
about 4,000 villages, thus bringing down “an economy, a culture, a way of
life, a moral order” altogether (van Bruinessen, 2000). Amid displacements and
slaughters, the Peshmerga resumed guerrilla from the mountains. Inside the
national movement, after the death of Mustafa Barzani in 1979, his son Masoud
took the lead of the KDP, while Talabani and his closest associates (including
Nawshirwan Mustafa and Fuad Masum) had founded the PUK following the
Algiers agreement. The scission was a watershed in Kurdish politics.
From insurgency to state-building

The Gulf War changed the course of events. Whereas Ba’athists’ authoritarian
excesses had largely gone unnoticed to Western powers, the invasion of Kuwait
and its large oilfields could not be forgiven. The US-led military intervention
drove out the Iraqi army in a few weeks. Right after the defeat, a popular uprising broke out in the Kurdish north and was matched by a parallel uproar in the
Shiite south. Kurdish parties remained on the sidelines; protests were staged
by “the numerous urban Kurds who had long stood aloof from overt politics
or who had even collaborated with the Baath regime” (van Bruinessen, 1992:
44). Saddam Hussein suppressed the revolt with an iron fist but this time in
full view of the international community. When almost two million Kurds fled
to the Turkish and Iranian borders hunted by Iraqi helicopters, the Operation
Provide Comfort belatedly enforced a no-fly zone north of the 36th parallel
under the resolution n. 688 of the UN Security Council. In October 1991,
Saddam Hussein pulled back security forces and administrative officers from
the governorates of Erbil, Sulaymaniyah, and Duhok, which were subsequently
sealed off from the rest of the country.
Despite protection against a military reaction from Baghdad, Kurds were not
in peace: the KDP–PUK enmity plunged soon into a bloodbath, which locked
up in civil war an already devastated and impoverished region. The Barzani and
Talabani houses were unwilling to share power. Triggered by a skirmish related
to a land dispute in Qal’at Diza, the “Brothers War” (as it is remembered) went

58 The Kurdistan Region of Iraq

on for almost four years and left a heavy trace on Kurdish society. Notwithstanding this, the internationally established safe haven created conditions for Kurds
to take effective steps towards self-rule. During 1992, parliamentary and presidential elections were held ahead of the formation of a regional administration,
the KRG, which consisted of the sum of KDP and PUK separate administrations in the respective areas of influence. The KRG was a landmark achievement: the Kurdish insurgency turned into a civilian government and “Kurds
practically ceased to be a minority in Iraq” (Voller, 2014: 68). These developments were condemned promptly by Baghdad (and neighbouring countries) as
an illegal drive towards secession, but commitment to democratic values and
opposition to the Ba’athist regime gave Kurds a credit line at the international
level: while Iraqis were still under the yoke of tyranny, Kurds instead were taking
the first steps towards democratisation. Hence, the KRG became an interlocutor
of Western powers and, even more importantly, a recipient of substantial foreign aid delivered through the UN Oil-for-Food Programme, which sustained
post-war reconstruction and accentuated economic differentiation with Iraq
(Natali, 2010).
By the time Saddam Hussein was ousted in 2003, Kurds had enjoyed self-rule
for more than a decade and acquired some fundamental attributes of statehood:
a military force exerting control over territory, separate authority from the parent state, a stable leadership embodied in the Barzani and Talabani clans, institutional structures providing services to local population, diplomatic missions and
consulates in Erbil, representative offices abroad, and social cohesion based upon
identification with the nationalist cause. Added to these were the softer aspects
of nation-building (Kolsto & Blakkisrud, 2005, 2008): a national flag, a national
anthem, a capital (Erbil, Hewlêr in Kurdish) that is home to executive and legislative bodies, an education system with curricula taught in Kurdish, a media
system with local newspapers and TV stations, and a stock market.8 Therefore,
it is generally accepted in the literature that the KRG is a good example of a
de facto state lacking in international recognition (Kolsto, 2006; Caspersen &
Stansfield, 2011; Caspersen, 2013; Voller, 2014; Gürbey, Hofmann, & Ibrahim
Seyder, 2017; Riegl & Doboš, 2017). The Kurdish case is quite unique in that
international support was a decisive factor for state formation (Kingston & Spears,
2004). The external military intervention unleashed great opportunities for Kurdish self-determination, though within a hybrid institutional framework that legally
recognises the KRI as an autonomous and constituent part of a federal country.
KDP and PUK militias enthusiastically backed the Anglo-American invasion and broke the Green Line within which Saddam Hussein had confined
Kurdish aspirations. Following the fall of the regime, Kurds found themselves
in the unprecedented position of being able to play a role in the stabilisation of
the country. The federalist design enshrined in the 2005 Constitution aimed to
bring together regional decentralisation and national integrity within a federal
framework, most notably through fiscal dependency and proportionate representation of all Iraqi components in central institutions. However, what was
designed to be the main guarantee of pluralism – a quota system based on ethnic

The Kurdistan Region of Iraq 59

and religious criteria – went the opposite way: the “one Iraq policy” laid down
in Washington DC ended up heightening sectarianism and communal violence.
As a result, the tentative implementation of federal dispositions raised mistrust
and strengthened hardliners soon. Meanwhile, Kurdish parties manoeuvred a
two-way agenda, which combined a principled commitment to federalism with
the more pragmatic pursuit of autonomy. On the one hand, Kurds rose to the
rank of power brokers drafting the new Constitution and divvying up government posts with Shi’a parties: Jalal Talabani was appointed as President of Iraq in
2005, a position retained until 2014 when his party comrade Fuad Massum succeeded to him; Barham Salih (PUK) was nominated as Deputy Prime Minister
and Hoshyar Zebari (KDP) Minister of Foreign Affairs. On the other hand, the
formation of a Kurdish coalition in Baghdad was key for the KRG to further
consolidate state-building9 inside the region. A specification is needed though:
“the primary aim of the coalition was to secure access to power and the related
profits,” not the construction of viable state structures (Jüde, 2017: 849). This
orientation has long shaped not only the tug of war with central government but
also internal power dynamics, with the KDP–PUK oligarchy swinging between
revenue sharing and fierce competition, according to the circumstances.
Kurdish self-determination accelerated fast over the last ten years to culminate in the independence referendum in September 2017. By holding it, the
KRG claimed to exercise an inalienable right and questioned the fragile basis
of what was perceived as stillborn federalism. However, the call for an independent Kurdistan backfired dramatically. Both the standing acquired upon crude
supplies to the global markets and the blood spilled against ISIS on behalf of
Western allies had led Kurdish elites to overestimate their room for manoeuvre.
Despite international objections, as well as crossfire of neighbouring Turkey
and Iran who feared a chain reaction in their Kurdish-inhabited provinces, the
KRG staged the referendum. Unsurprisingly, it was a “yes” vote: 93% of voters
agreed with the goal of making KRI and Kurdistani areas outside the region
an independent country. The addition was not wishful thinking given that the
consultation took place also in disputed districts under Peshmerga control. The
tear was too deep to fix. After clearing the last ISIS stronghold in Hawija, on
16 October 2017, the Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi ordered a military attack, as a result of which Kurdish forces handed over all disputed areas,
including the symbolic city of Kirkuk. As will be explained in the following
chapters, oil was both trigger and context of the escalation.

Out of the map
Sitting around an old table
they drew lines across the map
dividing the place
I would call my country
(Choman Hardi,
Lausanne, 1923)

60 The Kurdistan Region of Iraq

For Kurds, the basic political fact is that Kurdistan is nowhere to be found
in any world atlas. The absence amounts to historical injustice and enduring
marginalisation. However, it arouses more a sense of possibility than a limitation: cutting Kurds out of the political map expresses an unfulfilled potential
yet to be realised. As Herman Melville suggests in Moby Dick, a novel with
a strong geographical hue, “true places” are not down on any map. After all,
Kurdish nationalists have crossed swords with Iraqi authorities on the cartographic representation of Kurdistan to negotiate the extent of autonomy since
the beginning of the liberation struggle. For this reason, the historical overview
mentioned earlier is supplemented with a brief digression on the politics of
space underpinning the Kurdish question.
Maps exert a territorial function by making rule over space visible and legitimate. The act of representing translates land into territory and power into
authority. Any legal order relies on a cartographic representation of some sort.
Therefore, maps are never descriptive in the sense of replicating, scientifically,
a static spatial reality. Rather, maps assert particular “geographical imaginations” (Gregory, 1994) through the naturalisation into seemingly rigid and
unchangeable spatialities of a political world that, on the contrary, is fast-paced,
mutable, and riven by contestation. This implies that what cannot be found
on the map either does not exist or is treated as a violation of the status quo: a
myth in the former case, an illegitimate defiance in the latter. From this perspective, cartography is an exercise of dominance historicising a certain order
while eradicating all other possibilities. It is worth noting that cartography as
practice came into being in the context of military and commercial ventures,
just like the establishment of geography as academic discipline in the second
half of the 19th century was integral to the colonial expansion of European
empires. However, this practice of discrete objectification of space goes often
unquestioned. Borders are socialised as faithful to reality, which is to say that
the orderly distribution of equivalent political entities on the earth’s surface
is perceived as “natural” and devoid of partisan interests. Quite the contrary,
the subliminal influence of mapmaking on the reproduction of geographical
knowledge sustains power-laden narratives.
Postmodern thinking, in particular, has focused on the discursive formations
embedded in and enacted through maps (Harley, 1989; Edney, 1993, 2009;
Black, 2000). The struggle over geography, Edward Said wrote, “is not only
about soldiers and cannons but also about ideas, about forms, about images and
imaginings” (Said, 1993: 7). Said meant that the production of geographical
knowledge has long been the ideological foundation of imperialism inasmuch
as it contributed to separating the metropolitan core from subaltern peripheries
to be conquered, controlled, and “civilized” by the force of arms. Imaginings
of distant places and primitive cultures supported the construction of “other”
subjects, thus setting up their hegemonic incorporation. Said’s reflection on
power and representation has not lost explanatory breadth over time and casts
instead of a long shadow on how discursive practices are infused in any spatial
ordering. Along these lines, recent work in the sub-field of critical geopolitics

The Kurdistan Region of Iraq 61

stressed that geographical representations are tacitly involved in the reproduction of a colonial present (Gregory, 2004) and power hierarchies more generally (Toal, 1998; Agnew, 2004).
Despite Kurdistan appearing to be a fascinating example of the unsolved
struggle over, surprisingly there is a dearth of spatial studies on Kurds (Gambetti &
Jongerden, 2011; Kaya, 2020). Whilst the post-Ottoman state system bears the
marks of deception and dispossession to every Kurd, the map of the Greater
Kurdistan (Kurdistan Mezin) straddling over present-day boundaries and reuniting the lost homeland into a single entity is “the most visible weapon in the
Kurdish nationalist arsenal” and “the most visible form of discourse about Kurdistan” (O’Shea, 2004: 7). Yet, a pan-Kurdish state was never even close to being
attained and not even claimed as such (van Bruinessen, 1992). The Mahabad
Republic established in Iran was the only and ephemeral attempt. In the past,
autonomous Kurdish principalities or emirates were allowed to thrive under
the Ottoman indirect rule from the 16th century on and mould a security belt
along the open frontier with Persia, but were annexed after the fall of the Safavid dynasty in late 18th century (Izady, 2015). Although the Ottoman’s “unite
and rule” policy had encouraged Kurdish clans to exercise significant authority
over their territories, no principality was never strong enough to emancipate
fully from imperial control (Özoğlu, 2012). Moreover, tribes were often at loggerheads with each other over local supremacy. The Safavid dynasty in Persia
was less malleable in comparison; resultantly, many Kurdish principalities made
their oaths of allegiance to the Ottomans. The provision of garrisons in return
for land sets the basis of centre–periphery relations, but Persians remained wary
of Kurdish autonomy and opposed the formation of large tribal confederations.
Kurdish tribes exploited to some degree their strategic location, lying across
overland trading routes: support of one side or another was fickle and easily
swayable. Nonetheless, Kurdish-inhabited borderlands ended up being choked
in the power struggle between Sunni Ottomans and Shiite Safavids.
Poor imperial control and marauding armies crossing the region were
amongst the reasons why the “tribal nomadic mode of life [continued] longer than in surrounding areas” (O’Shea, 2004: 81). It is not accidental that
the Greater Kurdistan has no political centre. Furthermore, in contrast with the
image of a prosperous nation deprived of its rightful position at the heart of the
Middle East, Kurdistan has never been a homogenous region – economically,
religiously, and even linguistically (van Bruinessen, 1992: 2). Quite tellingly,
there is no agreement on its geographical extension even amongst Kurds themselves. Notwithstanding this vagueness, the cartographic representation of
the Greater Kurdistan gives substance to an explicit political project. In other
words, the “mental map” (Gould & White, 2012) drawing the Kurdish homeland carries with it “a real geopolitical and national existence” (Culcasi, 2010:
107). Given these premises, a few comments are in order. Firstly, the overlap of
mythical and practical interpretations of Kurdistan (McDowall, 2003: 3) reveals
that the shared idea of what the Greater Kurdistan looks like is declined in different shapes, adapted to suit the host state.

62 The Kurdistan Region of Iraq

Despite the partial disconnection of Kurdish nationalist movements, a panKurdish identity binds all four portions to transnational solidarity. Such sense
of brotherhood becomes tangible indeed in times of trauma, as demonstrated
by reactions to the ISIS siege of Kobanî when the KRG sent military reinforcements to protect the town regardless of antipathy with the TEV-DEM
coalition governing the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria (Gourlay,
2018). Secondly, depicting an ideal Kurdish heartland on an alternative canvas
of the Middle East exerts a normative function: stylised on a map, contiguity
becomes continuity, and continuity creates the impression of cultural homogeneity (Farinelli, 2009). In so doing, mapmaking has the same effects of logical
inference since it upholds the claim for an independent state based upon a “historical myth of continuous inhabitancy” that, in fact, cannot not be found in
the past (O’Shea, 2004: 57). This is the clearest illustration of what was argued
at the beginning: maps do not make intelligible the outer edges of a frozen
world, but rather fill space up with arbitrary representations, which remain
fluid and contestable.
To sum the argument up, by asserting a counter representation of Middle
Eastern political geography with the Kurdish nation at its centre Kurds have
reacted against geopolitical marginalisation and built up international legitimacy in order to gather external support. It might be argued that Kurds have
fallen victim to the historical evolution of the notion of territory. When the
indefinite frontiers in-between empires (the Ottoman to the west; the Safavid
and Qajar to the east; the Russian to the north) solidified into sovereign borders, the high-lying Zagros and Taurus Mountains that are home to Kurdish
tribes served as physical barriers to delimit national homogenisation within
emergent nation-states. Territory ceased to be the recipient of authority and
became the source of jurisdiction. According to Farinelli, Kurdistan is exception to the geographic pattern of the modern state that subordinates mountains
and depressions to the domination of plains (ibidem: 90–93). The Treaty of
Lausanne symbolically sealed up a radical transformation of the condition of
peripherality: from periphery of transnational empires to periphery of nationstates, Kurdish mountains were swallowed by surrounding flatlands. With the
stroke of a pen, “Southern Kurdistan becomes Northern Iraq” (ivi). Even nowadays labelling the region with different geographical connotations is used to
uphold territorial claims.10 McDowall shares the same understanding:
Except to its own inhabitants Kurdistan must be considered a peripheral
region, lying along the geopolitical fault line between three power centres
of the Middle East. Until the beginning of the twentieth century no one
cared very much about the boundaries of Kurdistan, or the numbers of
people who lived there. . . . All that changed in the twentieth century. One
reason has already been given: the anxiety of the new states to impose their
identity on all peoples within their territory. Another reason is strategic:
the mountains certainly provide Iran and Iraq with a defensible strategic
frontier; to move the boundary either west or east of Kurdistan would

The Kurdistan Region of Iraq 63

not make strategic sense to either state. Turkey’s attitude to its frontiers
in Kurdistan is special. It has an emotional and ideological view that its
frontiers (except with Iraq) cannot be changed without threatening the
foundations of the republic.
(McDowall, 2003: 7)
This transition explains much of the genesis of Kurdish nationalism. What is
notable, though, is that the oil and gas potential has provided Iraqi Kurds with
the means to counter the cartographical elimination and become a true place
on the global map of energy transactions.

In pursuit of nationhood
Despite the many Kurdistan-s and the separate self-determination strategies
within each country, the digression on the cartographic discourse shows that
Kurdish nationalists have nurtured the idea of a culturally cohesive and politically united people through territorial continuity. This ethnicist view exaggerates both extent and consistency of Kurdish-inhabited areas to the disadvantage
of other ethnic groups (Kaya, 2020): Kurdistan is presented as an ethnic territory through a process of symbolic manipulation equating the history of the
geographical region to the history of the Kurdish nation. This is crucial to
understand Kurdish nationalism. As noted by van Bruinessen (1994), Kurdish
leaders had clear in mind that the dream of a unitary and independent Kurdistan would serve the purpose of stitching up internal divisions and raising
a powerful ideological flag, but nationalist movements in practice “refrained
from openly embracing pan-Kurdish ideals” and restricted the scope of selfdetermination to the boundaries of the host states. In this light, cross-border
cooperation with “sister organisations” in Turkey and Iran during the 1970s
“was to support the struggle of the Iraqi Kurds, not to organise pan-Kurdish
activities” (ibidem).
Notwithstanding this, the Greater Kurdistan has genuinely remained the
ideal long-term image to which any Kurd would aspire.
As seen, correspondence between a people definable in ethnic terms and a
territory is a logical stretch for the sake of creating a specific subjectivity – the
Kurds – vis-à-vis other collective groups. Among the various criteria upon
which this dialectic relies, territorial rootedness is a compelling marker of differentiation, while the multi-religious and multilingual heterogeneity of Kurdish
tribes diluted the significance of other markers. As a consequence, nationalist
myth making insisted much on the identification with the mountainous homeland in order to substantiate legitimate aspirations for self-determination.11
Whether or not the homeland is possessed alters none of the symbolic potency:
as Anthony Smith points out, territory is relevant to ethnicity “because of an
alleged and felt symbiosis between a certain piece of earth and ‘its’ community,”
so much so that “a land of dreams is far more significant than any actual terrain”
(1986: 28). The passage seems to be tailored to the Kurds. Ba’athists’ effort

64 The Kurdistan Region of Iraq

to de-territorialise Kurdish settlements is further evidence. Furthermore, displacement and resettlement operations were not an Iraqi prerogative: in comparable ways, de-Kurdification policies were enforced in Turkey, Iran, and Syria
“to dismantle the tribal structure and crush Kurdish resistance” (Gambetti &
Jongerden, 2011: 377).
It is somewhat surprising that Kurdish nationalism has not been explored
extensively in relation to territorial identity, with the exception of O’Shea’s
book (2004) and few other studies. The literature available has typically
devoted attention to the ethnic origins of Kurds – upon which elements their
identity is premised, what are the boundaries of ethnic inclusion, and whether
a Kurdish nation exists or ever existed. It is no wonder that scholarly work has
often been used for ideological purposes.12 For a group denied of ethnic distinctiveness that “did not begin writing their own history until the sixteenth
century” (Özoğlu, 2012: 41), ethnographic and historical inquiries have had a
fundamental role to reclaim political agency and legitimise liberation struggles
across the region. It is a twist of fate that one of the first anthropological studies on Kurdish tribes is owed to Sir Mark Sykes (1908), the English diplomat
who would have later shaped with François Picot the geopolitical equilibrium
that eventually shattered Kurdistan into pieces. As further demonstration of the
tremendous influence of geography, Ünver comments that since Sykes’ account
“identifying and predicting Kurdish politics through the use of geographic designations has become somewhat of a regular practice” (2016: 66).
The concepts of nation, nationalism, and ethnicity would need separate discussion. The reader may find much better companions in the works that are
cited throughout the book. My approach was empirical rather than theoretical,
meaning that the analysis presented here contemplates those dense concepts in
their contextual manifestations. Having said that, however, theoretical rigor
is needed in any case. As a prime example, it is fundamental not to conflate
ethnic consciousness with national identity. If ethnicity is “a matter of myths,
memories, values and symbols” (Smith, 1986), the appeal to the nation13 evokes
a richer universe of meaning than a narrative of the origins or belonging to a
culturally-defined group: it declares the collective aspiration to achieve political rights to rule itself. In other words, if self-represented in national terms, an
ethnic community strives to get recognised as polity. Ethno-nationalism, both
an ideology and a movement, bridges the “leap of imagination” in between
(Strohmeier, 2003: 3).
In this sense, a world of nations should not be taken for granted. By making this recommendation, Brubaker warned against substantialist views that
“presuppose the existence of the entity that is to be defined” (1996: 14). This
approach is problematic because it mixes up categories of practice and categories of analysis: the practice of nationalism and its epiphenomenon (the nation)
are reified at the theoretical level, as a result of which a political fiction ends
up being misconstrued as a real entity outside time and space. Brubaker suggests thinking of the nation “not as substance but as institutionalized form;
not as collectivity but as practical category; not as entity but as contingent

The Kurdistan Region of Iraq 65

event” (ibidem: 16). This is key for a number of reasons. In the first place, it
frames nationhood as a political construction. This is all the more relevant in
the case of Kurdish nationalism given that its advocates hold quite the opposite
belief: the nationalist cause is thought of stemming from the ancient Kurdish
nation. The narrative of a great awakening gathering force from a glorious past
is obviously understandable, but it is inaccurate in that it creates explicit tension between the objective modernity and the subjective antiquity of nations
(Anderson, 2006: 5). As Brubaker puts it plainly, nationalism is “governed by
the properties of political fields [and] not by the properties of collectivities”
(1996: 17). In the second place, Brubaker adds an equally important corollary: nations happen, they do not develop. This runs counter to the argument
that nations mechanically dawn upon ethnic belonging. Conversely, Brubaker
proposes an “eventful perspective” in order to grasp the processual dynamics
leading a national vision to crystallise in a specific historical context.
Brubaker’s perspective is a friendly reminder against some shortcomings
one might run into when approaching the complexity of identity formation,
namely, fixing a people to a place through ethnic and territorial anchors. To
some extent, that is inevitable. However, it is worth reiterating that collective
signifiers such as Kurds and Kurdistan are not self-evident objects of study
but categories of belonging through which a community describes themselves.
The point is not inconsequential in that it cautions from naturalising categories
of practice. It also suggests decoupling Kurdish ethnic self-representation from
the far more recent national projects built upon that basis. As the genealogy of
Kurdish national identity (kurdayeti14) shows, the construction of nationhood
was not a linear process, nor can it be reduced to the political blossom of ethnic
consciousness (referred to as Kurdishness). The birth of Kurdish nationalism is
much more akin to a sudden rupture with the past than a gradual transition
from ethnic to national consciousness. Nonetheless, Kurdishness itself is not a
fixed and exact entity. On the contrary, from a historical viewpoint, it should
be intended as the “ground for a hegemonic struggle between internal groups”
in competition (Tekdemir, 2019: 878).
Tribalism and the emersion of Kurdish nationalism

Van Bruinessen (1994) points out that during the interwar period, Kurds went
through two processes of incorporation “involving the same peasant, lowerclass urban and marginal tribal populations”: one into emerging nation-states
and the other into the Kurdish ethnie, which nevertheless lacked sufficient
“integrating structures” to be considered a nation at the time. With reference
to Smith’s concept of ethnie,15 he argues that at the beginning of the 20th century, Kurds resembled the ideal type of an aristocratic-lateral ethnie given that
the upper stratum began incorporating the subaltern peasantry into a common
ethnic category, though this interpretation is disputed by other scholars who
have preferred the opposite notion of demotic-vertical ethnie (cf. Maxwell &
Smith, 2015). Either way, it is crucial to note that Kurdish ethnocentrism had

66 The Kurdistan Region of Iraq

no nationalist connotations. Put differently, the idea of a common destiny was
not there yet.
The kaleidoscopic composition of the Kurdish ethnos, with its mixture of
dialects and religious confessions, is one reason for the relatively slow emersion
of a nationalist mobilisation, so much so that according to McDowall we cannot talk of proper ethnic consciousness before WWI. Besides cultural variety,
the tribal structure is a factor that deserves even greater attention. Under the
Ottomans, local chieftains were typically coopted into the bureaucracy and
had quite a feudal vision of political and military affairs (Özoğlu, 2012). The
oaths of allegiance to aghas and sheikhs upon which Kurdish society hinged
up on were largely inconsistent with a national narrative (Gunter, 2009: xxx).
In-group solidarity was based upon kinship – rooted in a myth of common
ancestry, which usually traced back to the early Islamic period – and territoriality. Kurds with no tribal connections were for the most part peasants subject
to landlordism. McDowall (2003) describes tribal chieftainship as incompatible
with the expansion of state administration, which would interfere with the
arbitration of disputes and the allocation of resources within the clan – in a
nutshell, the levers of power over tribesmen. Interestingly McDowall adds that
the “conflict between the role of the tribe and that of the state [makes] one
sceptical about tribal chiefs whose utterances are apparently aimed at a Kurdish
state, as opposed to an independent tribal entity” (ibidem: 15).
Simply put, the rule of tribal chiefs did not extend beyond the reach of
kinship relations and territorial roots. Aghas were not seen nor considered
themselves, as representatives of the Kurdish people. Whilst a sense of ethnic
consciousness emerged in the aftermath of the post-WWI punitive settlement,
that spark translated into ethno-nationalism at a much later stage. Although
notables and intellectuals had sowed nationalist sentiments already at the beginning of the century (Özoğlu, 2012), Sheyholislami (2011) clarifies that a mass
movement came to prominence not earlier than 1960s in Iraq and the mid1980s in Turkey. Although urbanisation and migration have eroded the feudal
lineage over time, tribal affiliations have remarkably persisted over time and still
retain a considerable influence. Izady provides a list of all major tribal organisations for each of the four axes of Kurdistan, specifying that in most cases, “these
tribes have been in existence – with the same names – for several thousand
years” (2015: 74). According to McDowall, the endurance of tribal descent is
the legacy of state discrimination against Kurdish minorities.
Anyway, the tribal texture of Kurdish society helps us understand why these
“primordial loyalties do not suddenly cease to function” when the notions of
nation and class came to light (van Bruinessen, 1992: 6). A clarification on
terminology is necessary though. In common usage, tribalism is shorthand for
pre-modern societies. I use it here in a different way. Tribalism should not be
understood as a stage prior to state formation, but as a form of social organisation that may also be found in modern-day societies. As an illustration of
this, the proliferation of nationalistic themes from small elite circles to mass
involvement was driven by obedience to tribal authorities that capitalised on

The Kurdistan Region of Iraq 67

the national cause to maintain their status (van Bruinessen, 1992). The coexistence of tribal and national loyalties has permeated Kurdish politics since
then. It is enough to consider KDP and PUK constituencies, which McDowall
equates to “contemporary neo-tribal confederations” (McDowall, 2003: 16).
Back to assimilation into new polities, the late emersion of kurdayetî was
triggered by the traumatic encounter with the political and administrative
centralisation of newly founded states,16 when the ethnic pluralism that was
distinctive of the Ottoman and Persian empires gave way to the reconstitution of citizenry upon exclusive nationalities defined in ethno-cultural terms.
Kurdishness was subordinated to the Turkish, Arabic, and Persian cultures upon
which the nation-building projects were established (Sheyholislami, 2011). As
the suzerainty model faded away, centre–periphery relations were modified
to accommodate the rise of nation-states, whose logic could not be reconciled anymore with state–tribe relations as was at the time of Kurdish principalities. The consolidation of national armies and central bureaucracies made
military outsourcing and tributary decentralisation unnecessary. The forceful
homogenisation of multicultural areas was anything but conciliatory. Rather,
it was based on the violent integration of ethnic minorities in order to prevent
any rival claim to rise. Any community identified as a minority was forced to
merge into a national body that reflected the ethnic majority. Therefore, the
modernisation of traditional institutions was invested with authoritarian traits
insofar as local autonomies were targeted as anti-historical and dangerous relics
of the past (Vali, 2014: 5).
Against this background, nationalist movements in the host countries arose
in opposition to the denial of Kurdishness. This is a point well worth bearing in
mind because it indicates the reactive character of Kurdish nationalism, which
Abbas Vali describes as the result of “socio-economic and cultural dislocations”
(2014: 1). This common pattern proved to be unable to overcome the fragmentation of Kurdistan. Vali (1998) attributes the failure of putting together a
pan-Kurdish vision to the chronic weakness of civil societies, as a consequence
of which kurdayetî turned to “abortive regional autonomist movements” that
relied on tribal clientelism and foreign patronage. As a matter of fact, a unitary
pan-Kurdish nationalism spanning across four sovereign states was unlikely to
happen. Moreover, the varying intensity of incorporation policies set Kurds
on discontinuous paths. The outcome, however, was the emergence of local
autonomist movements without a political culture beneath – as Vali sums up
effectively, nationalists without nationalism.
Vali’s interpretation follows in the footsteps of Ernest Gellner, who conceptualised nations as modern phenomena tied to the transition from agrarian to industrialised societies in Western Europe. According to this line of
thinking, nationalism is an ideology forging the nation upon a principle of
congruity. In this regard, ethnicity serves as benchmark to legitimise the right
of a people to self-determination within corresponding political boundaries.
If we accept this, “by implication ethnic relations in their pre-political mould
were no more than a means of individual identification, essentially devoid of

68 The Kurdistan Region of Iraq

historical significance” (Vali, 2014: xiv). For Kurdish nationalists, instead, the
nation amounts to a “real biological ancestry” (Smith, 1986) existing from time
immemorial and thus abstracted from historical forces.
Contrary to primordialist understandings, as is often the case nationalist
memories are fictional and even contradictories in some measure, being the
result of a selective historical reconstruction that serves the purpose of creating
the Kurds as a political subject. After all, “the conflicting territorial claims of
Kurds, Armenians and Assyrians make it clear that the conflict of interests is
indeed more complex than that simply of politically dominant ethnic group
or imperial power against the voiceless Kurdish minority” (O’Shea, 2004: 9).
From this perspective, it should be noted that the Kurdish national narrative
flattens an ethnic demography that, in fact, is as much wavy and rough as the
mountainous landscape of the homeland. The act of demarcating the Greater
Kurdistan along national lines therefore produced the parallel exclusion of
other, more “powerless” groups (ivi).
Within Kurdish Studies, the debate between modernist and primordialist
views has been heated.17 It goes without saying that the idea of a pre-modern
nation backs the image of foreign occupation more effectively. However, advocates on both sides share a basic assumption: whether a modern creation or a
timeless entity, Kurdish ethnos is thought to be “isomorphic with the nation it
eventually becomes” (Maxwell & Smith, 2015: 778).18 As problematic as this
statement may be, it should be highlighted that the correspondence of these
fluid catalysts of identification (ethnos and nation) with their empirical referents
cannot be stable. This leaves the debate open, albeit essentialist perspectives –
“a long-dead horse that writers on ethnicity and nationalism continue to flog”
(Brubaker, 1996: 15) – are generally dismissed nowadays (Eller & Coughlan,
1993) and I find myself in line with such critique.
Otherness in a divided country
The perpetual suppression of Kurdish identity is the condition of the Kurds’ “otherness” in these societies, their positions as strangers in their own homes. That the
Kurds remain unrepresentable is the fundamental cause of their obsession with their
identity.
(Vali, 1998)

Otherness defines the Kurdish cause in the same way as the absence from the
map locates Kurdistan in the collective imaginary. Kurdayetî was shaped by the
heavy-handed suppression of Kurdishness in the host states. Kurdish nationalists
themselves have reproduced this condition of difference. As identity formation is a relational process, the collective self-representation as separate nation
came from the degradation to an ethnic minority that was not entitled to act
or speak at such. At a time when national self-determination began to be considered internationally as the quintessential principle of political legitimation

The Kurdistan Region of Iraq 69

and the nationalisation wave hit the British-French mandate systems, Kurdish
elites imported the same ideological repertoire of their stronger counterparts.
A diluted sense of ethnic belonging was gradually socialised along national lines
to stand against the official national identities of the host countries. Expressed
differently, the spread of Kurdish nationalism was an equal and opposite reaction to the propaganda and policies of central governments in Baghdad, Ankara,
and Teheran.
It was not just about Kurds. In Iraq, the same happened to Shiite and Sunni
Arabs, whose local histories and social strata were equally at odds with the idea
of politically cohesive communities and, consequently, were urged to remodel
their self-image to capture the state apparatus (Tripp, 2002). Unlike Turkey
and Iran, Iraqi institutions did not rest upon imperial foundations: loyalty to
and identification with the state was not widespread, but concerned only the
upper segment of urban elites and local notables (Marr, 2010). As illustrated by
Batatu, Iraq “consisted to no little extent of distinct, self-absorbed, feebly interconnected societies” (1978: 6). In a monumental work on the evolution of the
country from the birth of the Kingdom until the Ba’ath Party, Batatu explains
that social stratification was not limited to conventional divisions based on
ethnicity, religion, prestige, or wealth, but found expression in different social
imprints within the same class.19 This was due to expansion of private property
and commercial ties with the world market on the one hand, and the salience of
“older social forms attaching value to noble lineage, or knowledge of religion,
or possession of sanctity or fighting prowess in tribal raids” on the other hand.
Whilst state formation occurred at the intersection of these somewhat contradictory tendencies, localism was still the dominant form of political aggregation. The urban–rural divide, the tenuous bonds between cities, sectarian
differentiation inside cities, and the variety of currencies were evidence of
many subnational realities.20 Inevitably, these realities carried distinct visions
of national integration (Lukitz, 2005: 73). In the “formative years” following
the British occupation (Kirmanj, 2010), Iraqi statesmen (for the most parts
Sunni landowners who had administered the Mesopotamian vilayets on behalf
of the Ottomans) picked Arab nationalism in the Nasserist version invoking a
larger pan-Arab polity (qawmiyya) as the most promising ideological carrier to
consolidate the state-building process. Nationalism came to be the ideological
hallmark of urban bourgeoisie and new classes ascending to power. However,
pan-Arabism was unattractive for non-Arab segments. Also, Shiites contested
the secular orientation. As further demonstration of the Iraqi divisiveness,
most denizens in Kirkuk voted against Faisal and the prospect of centralisation
he embodied in the countrywide referendum the British held to provide the
newly enthroned Hashemite family with a popular imprimatur (Bet-Shlimon,
2012: 917; Natali, 2008).
The gradual integration into global markets was shifting the loci of the
economy and expropriating landowning classes of their traditional social status
(cf. van Bruinessen, 1992; Tripp, 2002; Vali, 2014; Marr, 2012). In parallel
to these socio-economic changes, a new hierarchy of values came into view.

70 The Kurdistan Region of Iraq

Throughout the country, loyalty to the state was given in view of benefits and
resources the apparatus promised to distribute, regardless of an overarching
ideology. When the Free Officers led by General Qasim overthrew the proBritish monarchic regime in 1958, resentment against Western domination
suggested the Army, who had acted as the bulwark of sovereignty, to propound
a more patriotic nationalistic discourse (wataniyya) that insisted on Iraqi peculiarity (Lukitz, 2005). Both variations (qawmiyya and wataniyya) coexisted, but
the latter eventually took hold under the Ba’athist autocracy. Saddam Hussein,
in particular, forged an Iraqi-centric doctrine to amalgamate Shi’a and Kurdish components into a unified political community by appealing to a common Mesopotamian legacy (Baram, 1983, 1994), but the incipient sectarian
segmentation of the state revealed the rather ambiguous nature of the operation. As Sunni Arab elites had managed to keep the reins of key institutions
such as the military, the judiciary, and the bureaucracy, Ba’athist officials had a
pragmatic vision of what was at stake. Iraqi nationalism was never meant to be
plural under the skin. The Arabisation of Iraqi identity was the ultimate goal.
The new political space forced Kurds to reconsider organisational structures
and political actions. Although Kurds had never been assembled in state-like
institutions, statelessness became the symbol of their inability to gain political subjectivity. The Kurdish national movement gradually took form through
confrontation with the central government in what might be read as a dialectic between a nationalising nationalism, which institutionalised the state upon
a core nationality, and a national minority, whose self-understanding headed
towards the demand for state recognition and collective rights (Brubaker, 1996).
Arab and Kurdish national identities were mirror images feeding off each other
within a divided polity. Seeds of discord were sowed in the 1958 Interim Constitution that outlined a fragile and unbalanced coexistence on which successive formulations have been based upon (van Bruinessen, 1992: 27), such as the
1966 al-Bazzaz’s declaration that recognised the bi-national nature of the state
(Yildiz, 2007: 17). The modern history of Iraq is characterised by the unsuccessful integration of these alternative identities, which have fuelled far more
pronounced sectarian divisions, especially after the end of the monarchy.
After all, Iraq was a recent invention. Kirmanji emphasises that the original Ottoman provinces were administered separately “and each province
had little in common with the other two” (2013: 2). The British colonial
administration pieced together communal groups that had never been united
nor saw themselves as parts of a whole. The monarchic, first, and republican, then, institutions failed to create a common basis to transcend those
divisions possibly because of the dominance of Sunni Arabs, who had been
power brokers in Baghdad since the Umayyad Caliphate and kept that role
in spite of being about one-fifth of the Iraqi population. At the beginning
of the republican period, divergent national visions were in competition: on
the one hand Arab nationalism, defined in ethnic (qawmiyya) or territorial
(wataniyya) terms, with the former calling for a broad pan-Arab unity and
the latter one filling up into the narrower (but more inclusive towards ethnic

The Kurdistan Region of Iraq 71

minorities) boundaries of the state; on the other hand, Kurdish nationalism
(kurdayetî), which recovered a distinct heritage from that of Arab and Islamic
cultures. The latter, however, was a reaction to the marginalisation occurring
as a result of assimilation policies. Owtram (2018) uses Hallyday’s concept
of post-colonial sequestration to describe the plight of Kurds, who found
themselves on the wrong side of history and ended up being imprisoned in
a state that they had not contributed to. This sense of malaise is indeed very
much present in the collective imaginary. The tribal texture adds nuance to
the nationalist framing, which served as prism through which Kurdish parties
would articulate parochial interests.

Crude power
If nearly a decade of US military occupation had already paved the way to
Kurdish autonomy, when Iraq was once again on the brink of collapsing under
the blows of the Islamist insurgency raging across large swathes of the country
in 2014, Kurds were prepared to seize opportunities and rewards coming their
way. The enfeeblement of central authority in Baghdad afforded Kurds with
the chance of challenging the status quo to their advantage. In this sense, taking control of hydrocarbon reserves and developing the oil industry was the
brightest opportunity. This is hardly surprising when considering that Iraqis
sit upon the world’s fifth largest proven reserves of crude, with estimated 145
billion barrels (British Petroleum, 2020). Throughout the modern history of
the country, the oil economy has moulded decision-making to a significant
degree. Furthermore, petroleum largely defined the environment in which foreign relations have taken place, let alone the involvement of external actors in
the country’s affairs. What is less intuitive is that, albeit a tangible tool of power,
oil has exerted an equally tremendous influence on the mechanisms of identity
formation. These last pages trace the transformation of Iraq into a petro-state
and discusses the influence oil has had on Kurdish liberation struggle.
The oil Kingdom

From a structuralist perspective, the industrialisation of Iraq was the biggest of
changes.21 Oil played an overwhelming role in that. Not only “the outpouring
of oil money . . . made the government to a great extent economically autonomous from society, and thus increased its possibilities for absolutism,” but it also
led to a steady increase in public employment to the extent that in late 1970s
one-fifth to one-fourth of Iraqi population was dependent on the emoluments
paid with the oil income (Batatu, 1978: 1116–1123). The oil economy is one of
the three major factors shaping modern Iraq according to Tripp (2002), the other
two being patrimonalism and violence, which were both tied to the petroleum
industry in one way or another since petrodollars guaranteed the stability of the
political regime through the funding of patronage networks and enabling coercive power. It might be argued that crude glued the Iraqi components together.

72 The Kurdistan Region of Iraq

Faisal Bin Hussain Bin Ali Al Hashemi was rewarded by Britain with the
areas lying along the shores of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers (from which
the etymology of the word al-Iraq comes from22) for the role he and his father
Hussein, the Sharif of Mecca, had played in leading the Arab Revolt against the
Ottomans during WWI. The resulting Kingdom of Iraq was a pro-Western client state ruled by a royal family coming from the Hijaz and thus with low popular acceptance, especially amongst Kurds and Shiites who made up most of the
population. This operation suited the strategic needs of the British Empire. In
the first place, Britain wanted to secure an additional passage to the Suez Canal
for shipment routes from colonial possessions in India. The fall of the Ottoman
Empire was opportune for establishing indirect rule over a safe corridor from
the Mediterranean Sea to the Persian Gulf, running through the territories of
Palestine, Transjordan, and all the way down to Mesopotamia.
In the second place, the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (APOC, later AngloIranian and finally British Petroleum) begun drilling in neighbouring Persia in
1907 and extending oil explorations eastwards seemed prospective (Sluglett,
2007). Winston Churchill, who at the time was First Lord of the Admiralty,
realised the advantages oil combustion as compared to coal propulsion in order
to keep naval superiority at a global level, from higher acceleration to easier
refuelling, and his proposal for modernising the fleet was approved in Westminster two weeks ahead of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand
(Muttitt, 2012). During WWI, the Royal Navy was all equipped with combustion engines. However, Britain was still dependent on the US, a potential
competitor, for oil imports (Anderson & Stansfield, 2011: 21). This prompted
the government to become the 51% shareholder of APOC, which opened the
first oil refinery in Abadan, south-west Persia, in 1913.
The British strategy for controlling oilfields in the Middle East23 and protecting the imperial communication routes was far-sighted but implied the overall
political re-composition of the region. In the spirit of the bilateral agreement
signed in 1920 at the San Remo conference to delimit British and French oil
interests in the Levant, the mandate system carved up colonial borders in such
a way “to accommodate engineered paths of oil” (Havrelock, 2017: 411): the
pair of pipelines departing from Kirkuk and bifurcating at Haditha into divergent routes to reach the ports of Tripoli in Lebanon and Haifa in Palestine24 on
the Mediterranean exemplify that the subterranean map of oil concessions was
implicit in the Sykes-Picot scheme. Predictably, the ruling elites enthroned in
the new countries under European tutelage agreed upon foreign ownership of
mineral resources without objection.
In Iraq, the Hashemite family handed over sovereignty on the entire commodification chain from exploration to pricing in exchange for a meagre fixed
royalty paid for each metric ton of output. As early as 1920, seven years before
oil was first struck nearby the “eternal fire” at Baba Gurgur,25 the Iraqi Petroleum Company (IPC, formerly Turkish Petroleum Company) was accorded
with exclusive rights of exploration over most of the country. On the contrary, regardless of its demands for an ownership share, the role of the Iraqi

The Kurdistan Region of Iraq 73

government would be limited to receiving royalty payments. Except for a minor
participation in infrastructural projects, a joint partnership was never brought
to the table. Despite its name, IPC was owned in equal shares by foreign operators only: APOC, Royal Dutch Shell, Compagnie Française des Pétroles (the
forerunner of Total), and a US-based consortium consisting of Standard Oil of
New Jersey and Mobil (Tripp, 2002: 58). British holdings in the venture demonstrated that national interests were well represented (Sluglett, 2007). After
all, the establishment of the concessionary regime economies went hand in
hand with the militarisation of the mandated territories, so much that “IPC air
bases formed the nucleus of the Iraqi, Jordanian, and Israeli air forces” (Havrelock, 2017: 412). In 1928, IPC shareholders formalised a “self-denying clause”
for which future oil discoveries inside the red line demarcating the Ottoman
inheritance could not be done independently (Yergin, 2011). The so-called
Red Line Agreement created a London-based powerful cartel that would
monopolise oil production in the Middle East until the 1970s. By 1938, IPC
and local affiliates in Basra and Mosul won a series of 75-year-long contracts
covering the Iraqi soil in full. The profit-sharing agreement with the government was revised in 1952 to introduce a 50–50 formula, which made royalties
dependent on the actual level of production and not fixed ex ante as before,
thus yielding Baghdad a much higher revenue (Alnasrawi, 1994). However,
Baghdad had no say in determining output and prices on the trading market.
McDowall contends that oil was not a factor until the discovery of the Baba
Gurgur field in October 1927: in view of unsatisfactory geological surveys, in
1923, Britain offered half of APOC’s holdings in the Mosul Petroleum Company (which was associated to IPC) to the Standard Oil of New Jersey in return
for US support against Turkish claims on Mosul (McDowall, 2003: 143–146).
In turn, Turkey offered exclusive exploitation rights as a last resort to override
the arbitration by the League of Nations, which had subscribed to the British
position. Sluglett (2007) maintains instead that the “vigorous public denials”
of British statesmen, upon which McDowall backs his argumentation, were
meant to hide in plain sight that the oil affair was inseparable from negotiations on the northern frontier. Had it not been for oil, Anderson and Stansfield
(2011) agree, British would have probably been open to a Kurdish state. In any
case, there is no doubt that the huge deposits unearthed in Kirkuk changed the
whole perspective on Iraq and would dreadfully complicate any future discussion on Kurdish autonomy.
Oil leaks and sectarian fissures

As the oil sector was getting traction driven by booming global demand, Iraqi
elites sought the long-term goal of building a national and integrated petroleum
industry. Signs of defiance began appearing during the 1950s after the nationalisation of Iranian oil, although the removal of Prime Minister Mossadegh at
the hands of the US and British secret services was a warning against potential
consequences. The foundation of OPEC in 1960 was a stronger shake against

74 The Kurdistan Region of Iraq

the concessionary system. A year later, through the enactment of the Public
Law n. 80, the Iraqi government assumed regulation of all the areas that had not
been exploited yet under IPC concessions (Alnasrawi, 1994). The creation of
the Iraq National Oil Company (INOC) in 1964 was the second step towards
national ownership, which was fully achieved in 1972. The Iraqi government
portrayed the nationalisation as a way to earn sovereignty back: the face-off
with foreign oil majors was not only about revenues; it was about “control of
the country by means of control of its primary sources” (Saul, 2007: 749).
However, the decision to make oil the mainstay of the economy “bound
rather dangerously Iraq’s prospects of economic development to only one sector, the performance of which is ultimately beyond the control of the government” (Alnasrawi, 1994: 13). Although nationalists had successfully broken
foreign domination on oil assets, a rentier attribute was ingrained in the economic structure: Iraq became reliant on oil rents in order to sustain livelihoods
and development at the expense of other productive sectors (Marr, 2012). Cognizance of dependency on international markets made it necessary at least to
gain public control on foreign owned country’s natural resources. Negotiations
with IPC began under Qasim’s tenure and precipitated with the announcement
of Law. n. 80, which set the Iraqi government against the company. Following
the establishment of INOC, Baghdad signed a service contract with the French
state-owned Entreprise de recherches et d’activités pétrolières and a letter of
intent with the Soviet Union to develop the southern field of Rumaila, which
the Basra Petroleum Company (an IPC subsidiary) had managed until then. In
response, IPC refused to recognise the expropriation of territory and cut production by 44% in Kirkuk, whose oil was still being extracted by the company.
The Ba’ath Party completed the nationalisation process, thus bringing the
dispute to an end. Propelled by the concomitant price surge in the wake of the
1973 Yom Kippur War and the embargo of Arab OPEC members, nationalisation meant unprecedented economic growth for the country. Dependency on
crude exports became apparent in the 1974 National Development Plan, the
last five-year investment plan adopted by Ba’athists. Two-thirds of the budget
was allocated to the industry and 86% of such appropriation was invested in the
petroleum sector, thus granting INOC enough funds to purse a more effective
national oil policy (Alnasrawi, 1994: 66). Oil revenue to GDP increased from
16% in 1970 to 50% in 1974. The flood of petrodollars, however, had a distortive effect on state institutions and the social contract between government and
citizens, in a twofold sense. Firstly, “oil displaced productive sectors as the chief
source of the national income” and turned Iraq into a consumer society whose
population “became increasingly accustomed to state-supplied benefits” (Marr,
2012: 158). Under the rationale of socialist planning and driven by crude
export earnings, the public sector rose to 80% of domestic production in 1977
(ibidem: 160). Secondly, in line with the rentier paradigm, oil wealth made
political elites autonomous from society. This, in turn, hardened the autocratic
mentality of the regime, which was in a position to deter any threat to its survival with even more resolve and growing amounts of violence. Ba’athist Iraq

The Kurdistan Region of Iraq 75

is the quintessential case of a repressive welfare state (Leezenberg, 2006). When
Saddam Hussein seized power in 1979, the management of natural resources
was centralised further, and oil was often behind the aggressive foreign policy
of the regime: it was the backdrop of the invasion of Khuzestan, which began
a costly war with Iran in 1980; it lied at the root of tensions with Kuwait as
slant-drilling26 in Rumaila and production over OPEC quotas offered the casus
belli for the Iraqi aggression in 1990.
The Kurdish question got soaked in oil as well. Deprivation of natural riches
by foreign occupants (first the British, then the Arabs) is a theme of the nationalist discourse. Quite interestingly, the first exploration well ever drilled in
the entire Middle East was in Chia Surkh inside present day’s KRI (Mackertich & Samarrai, 2015). Whilst revenue accruing from central and southern
fields bankrolled brutal repression campaigns in the north, central governments
in Baghdad left the industrial sector underdeveloped in the Kurdish region
to maintain a core–periphery relationship (Aziz, 2011). Beginning with the
revolt against the rule of Abd Al-Karim Qasim, Kurds engaged in demonstrative attacks against the Iraqi oil infrastructures. In August 1962, Peshmerga
blew up the Kirkuk-Baniyas pipeline (Wenner, 1963: 72). Again in 1969,
this time to welcome the newly formed Ba’athist government, Kurds shelled
IPC installations in Kirkuk (McDowall, 2003: 326). Energy facilities, more so
those located in contentious areas, were a high premium target for the guerrilla to exert pressure on Baghdad, though taking care not to antagonise Western interests. Throughout his leadership, Mullah Mustafa ceaselessly required
the inclusion of Kirkuk, Khanaqin, and northwest Mosul oilfields into the
Kurdish autonomous region, plus a share of revenue from those fields (ibidem: 313–314). Discussions with Ba’athist delegations ran aground on those
demands, which were not negotiable for both sides.27 The nationalisation of
the petroleum industry exacerbated such sticking point even more: oil windfall
allowed Baghdad to build up a daunting war machine that closed the door to
any compromise. Outnumbered and outgunned, Peshmerga fell back to the
mountains and Kirkuk was no longer in their artillery range. From the Kurdish
perspective, black gold was a symbol and instrument of coercion. The regime
change that occurred in 2003 would completely reverse this image.
The KRG on the energy market

On 1 June 2009, Masoud Barzani and Jalal Tabalani opened a ceremonial golden
valve to figuratively launch crude exports through the Iraqi pipeline. United in
celebration, the two Kurdish leaders inspired a sense of historic achievement,
which was echoed by the inaugural speech of Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani:
In another country, today’s event would be only a typical economic and
technical achievement. But for the people of the Kurdistan Region, it
marks a dramatic departure from our recent past.
(MNR, 2019)

76 The Kurdistan Region of Iraq

On that occasion, allowing oil from the KRI to reach international markets
was announced as the way forward for the restoration of a prosperous country for all Iraqis. Revenue sharing would have prevented power centralisation
and a resurgence of genocidal violence as it had been in the years of Saddam
Hussein. However, hope for a fresh start was only wishful thinking. As it was
clear to everyone attending the event, crude exports and revenue management
would have pitted the KRG against the central government. Although the
2005 Constitution makes general provision for decentralised decision-making,
the distribution of federal competences is ambivalent on the matter of oil and
gas resources (Zedalis, 2009, 2012). This is not surprising given that the new
constitution stemmed from the need to overcome substantial mistrust and reconcile opposite positions. As the largest deposits of hydrocarbons are located
in northern and southern areas, which are ethnically politicised as Kurdish and
Shiite respectively, underlying was the fear that decentralisation would have
opened up Pandora’s box, thus plunging a fragile country into national disintegration.28 As a result, the uncertain or inconsistent outcome incorporated in
the Constitution is “a conception of resource sovereignty that is both national
and regional” (Havrelock, 2017). Whilst article 111 provides that ownership of
oil and gas resources belongs to “all the people of Iraq in all the regions and
governorates,” the subsequent one is at best vague on the role of federal and
regional levels:
The federal government, with the producing governorates and regional
governments, shall undertake the management of oil and gas extracted from
present fields, provided that it distributes its revenues in a fair manner in
proportion to the population distribution in all parts of the country, specifying an allotment for a specified period for the damaged regions which
were unjustly deprived of them by the former regime, and the regions that
were damaged afterwards in a way that ensures balanced development in
different areas of the country, and this shall be regulated by a law.29
The specification of “present fields” seems to restrict federal management
over the oilfields that were already in operation at the time of the promulgation whilst giving regional governments a free hand for new discoveries. This
framing was influenced by Kurdish MPs in view of exploiting the untapped
resources inside the autonomous region (Voller, 2013). This interpretation is
reinforced by article 115, which gives priority to the regional level in case
of dispute over shared powers. Similarly, article 121 recognises the right of
regional governments to amend national legislation with regard to matters that
are outside exclusive federal authority: oil and gas issues are not listed among
the powers reserved to the federal level, although the central government is
responsible for “formulating foreign sovereign economic and trade policy” and
“regulating commercial policy across regional and governorate boundaries in
Iraq.”30 However, these clauses are silent on a number of crucial points (e.g.
revenue distribution, oil contracting, investment policies, and compensation

The Kurdistan Region of Iraq 77

of damaged and deprived regions), which were left to bargaining (Al Moumin, 2012). In the absence of a revenue-sharing law, which is indicated in
article 112, in reality the issue has been regulated through bilateral negotiations between Baghdad and Erbil since June 2009. Not quite in the spirit of a
“gentlemen’s agreement” wished for by Jalal Talabani, though. In this climate,
all oil-for-budget agreements have proved short-lived indeed.
To compound controversy further, the lack of a comprehensive settlement
on contested land is related to oil in no small part. Labelled as “disputed territories”31 in the 2005 Constitution, the borderland areas south of the KRI in
the four governorates of Nineveh, Kirkuk, Salah ad-Din, and Diyala are rich
in hydrocarbons. The super-giant32 oilfield in Kirkuk, in particular, counts as
over three-quarters of the total output capacity of northern Iraq, with ultimate
recoverable oil estimated in 9 billion barrels, which makes it the second largest
after the Rumaila field near Basra. Although production is likely to decline in
the near future after over 80 years of exploitation, it still retains high strategic
importance. These “in-between” spaces (Meier, 2020) were “Arabized” under
the Ba’ath Party: in successive waves, Arab settlers from central and southern Iraq replaced persecuted Kurds and Turkmens who were forced to flee in
numbers. Local politics remains filtered through demographics to this day. In
post-2003 Iraq, ethnic contention resurfaced as many Kurds returned to the
province and the KRG sought to expand the de facto jurisdiction over disputed
land by offering welfare and paying salaries to officials in Kurdish-populated
areas (Kane, 2011: 9). Albeit aimed at restoring the situation to as it was before
the Arabisation policy and compensating those who were forcefully relocated
elsewhere, this re-Kurdification process raised resentment, coupled with political feuding even within the same ethnic community (the KDP–PUK rivalry
is a case in point as will be shown later). Kane explains that “the net result is
a tangled web of administrative and security arrangements that sit atop poorly
defined administrative boundaries amid a toxic legacy of mistrust” (ivi). Amid
uncertainty about population figures, with the last credible census dated 1957,
the determination of the administrative status is still pending due to the nonimplementation of local referenda envisaged by article 140 of the Constitution.
The re-privatisation of the petroleum industry urged by the Anglo-American
occupation gave Kurds the chance to gain a share in a market whose access had
been closed by previous regimes in Baghdad. From 2005 onwards, the development of a separate oil and gas industry inside the region has been impressive.
The KRG triggered an exploration race and became one of the most active
onshore frontiers on the global stage (Mackertich & Samarrai, 2015; Auzer,
2017), despite a disadvantageous infrastructural isolation and economic backwardness. Prior to 2003, less than 30 exploration wells had been drilled nearby
Iraqi oilfields, and no seismic data covering the rest of the region were available
(Mackertich & Samarrai, 2015). Production from Khurmala and Taq Taq fields
was limited and discontinuous, while other formations (such as Demir Dagh,
Khor Mor, and Chamchamal) were still underdeveloped. During the 1990s,
under the shield of the internationally enforced no-fly zone, small quantities

78 The Kurdistan Region of Iraq

of crude from Taq Taq supplied local consumption. The newly established
KRG sought to create a national oil company called KurdOil, but it lacked
financial means and technical knowledge to set it into motion (Voller, 2013).
It was a declaration of intent, but at the time the region was closed to international operators. With the crumbling of the regime a decade later, all barriers to foreign enterprise were removed. This marked the start-up of the oil
and gas sector in the Kurdish enclave. The creation of the Ministry of Natural
Resources (MNR) in 2006 and the promulgation of the Oil and Gas Law in
2007 were key passages to attract upstream independents. Despite legal disputes
with Baghdad, the KRG pushed forward to sign production-sharing contracts
(PSC) with small and mid-tier foreign companies. The entry of ExxonMobil
in November 2011 dragged in other oil majors, thus leading the KRG to consolidate its standing on the energy markets. By the end of 2012, all exploration
blocks were licensed, and by 2014, about 160 new wells had been drilled with
an exceptionally high commercial success rate (55–60%), although it has been
in decline (Mills, 2016).
The KRG MNR estimates that the region contains up to 45 billion barrels
of oil. That amount is equivalent to one-third of Iraq’s total reserves, but it is
much more likely to be an overestimation. More conservative and plausible
figures published by energy operators range in between 6 and 15 billion barrels
(Mackertich & Samarrai, 2015; Mills, 2016) depending on how the oil in place
is calculated, the amount of recoverable oil, and the reassessments of carbonate reservoirs. If included, the oilfields in the Kirkuk province would increase
the production potential by 40%. If it were an independent country, the KRG
would be the seventh largest oil holder in the Middle East surpassing Oman,
Egypt, Yemen, and Syria (Mills, 2016). Moreover, the KRG persuaded foreign
investors to bet on a largely unexplored market in rapid expansion by virtue
of safer security conditions and more favourable commercial terms than those
offered throughout the rest of Iraq, which has been mired in protracted instability. Suffice it to say that when the ISIS offensive paralysed the Iraqi energy
infrastructures oil operations inside the KRI continued undisturbed.
ISIS irruption on the scene commenced a new phase, as the KRG broke
out from dependency on federal infrastructures to export crude independently.
The rushing into unilateral exports drove a wedge in an already damaged relationship. Quarrels reached the apex at the beginning of 2014, when the central
government decided to withhold the 17% share of the budget to which the
autonomous region is entitled. An agreement in October 2016 led to restoration of exports from the North Oil Company-run fields in Kirkuk through
Ceyhan, up to 150.000 barrels per day (bpd) and a 50/50 revenue sharing. The
US Envoy Brett McGurk facilitated the temporary appeasement. The Iraqi
PM al-Abadi had no other option but to accept since crude could not be
exported without passing through the KRG-held pipeline. However, financial flow came to a new halt in the aftermath of the ISF takeover of disputed
territories in 2017. At that point, Baghdad no longer needed to please Erbil.
After a long standoff, a new arrangement was tentatively struck in November

The Kurdistan Region of Iraq 79

2018, but both sides have kept working the constitutional loopholes to their
own advantage.

Notes
1 In absence of official statistics, Kurds are believed to number between 36 and 45 million
according to the Kurdish Institute of Paris. Taking this source as a benchmark, Kurds are
unevenly distributed in Turkey (15–20 million), Iran (10–12 million), Iraq (8–8.5 million), Syria (3–3.6 million), and the diaspora in Western Europe (1.2–1.5 million). The
CIA World Factbook rounds the total down to 30–35 million.
2 Treaty of Sèvres, Art. 62.
3 The 12th of the 14 Points made by the US President Woodrow Wilson provided that
“[the] Turkish portion of the present Ottoman Empire should be assured a secure sovereignty, but the other nationalities which are now under Ottoman rule should be assured
an undoubted security of life and an absolutely unmolested opportunity of autonomous
development.”
4 The Greater Kurdistan is comprised of four sub-regions, each fitting into the boundaries of a “host state”: Bakur, in southern Turkey; Rojava, in northern Syria; Bashur, in
northern Iraq; and Rojhelat, in eastern Iran.
5 Unless otherwise specified, I mainly draw on two milestones that will sound familiar to
anyone versed in Kurdish Studies: Van Bruinessen’s Agha, Shaikh and State (1992) and
McDowall’s A Modern History of the Kurds (1996).
6 Faili Kurds are an ethnic group historically located along the Iraqi–Iranian borderlands
on the Zagros Mountains who speak a sub-dialect of Luri. Unlike most Kurds, Faili
Kurds are predominantly Shia Muslims, for which they were persecuted by the Ba’athist
regime even more strongly.
7 One of the best evidence-based sources on the al-Anfal genocide is the Human Rights
Watch’s report Genocide in Iraq: The Anfal Campaign Against the Kurds (1993). For a more
recent one, see Leezenberg (2012).
8 These criteria are in line with the definition of de facto state (Pegg, 1998), which is to be
preferred to that of quasi-state (Jackson, 1987, 1993) that was also used to describe the
KRG (Natali, 2010). As Pegg explains the distinction: “the de facto state is illegitimate
no matter how effective it is, . . . the quasi-state’s juridical equality is not contingent
on any performance criteria.” The proliferation and overlap of alternative prefixes (such
as unrecognised, pseudo, or informal) to describe state-like entities that do not fully
comply with the requirements of customary international law, as codified in the 1933
Montevideo Convention, reflect confusion between empirical and juridical statehood
(for a review of the literature, see Pegg, 2017).
9 In this work, I use Kolsto and Blakkisrud’s (2005, 2008) definitions of state-building
– “the establishment of the administrative, economic, and military groundwork of functional states” – and nation-building – “the construction of a shared identity and a sense
of unity in a state’s population, through education, propaganda, ideology, and state symbols.” In this terminology, the two processes are understood as interrelated but distinct.
10 The draft of the 2018 federal budget law sent to the Iraqi parliament for approval, which
inter alia proposed a reduction of the KRG share from 17% to 12.67%, labelled the KRI
as “Northern Iraqi Provinces” to the fury of Kurdish MPs.
11 Acknowledging the importance of myth making is not to say that Kurds and Kurdistan
are historically baseless nor more artificial entities than the surrounding nation-states.
Being sameness and difference social constructs transmitted over generations, ethnicity
and nations are fictional and contingent in any case, though carrying an actual meaning for those who define themselves by reference to such categories (Smith, 1986: 4).
Therefore, it is not a matter of true or false communities, but of how these are imagined,
to use Benedict Anderson’s language (2006: 6). In line with a constructivist approach,

80 The Kurdistan Region of Iraq

12

13
14

15
16
17

18

this research rejects any ontological foundation for the concepts above. Rather, attention
is paid to how such concepts are socially framed and employed purposefully to fabricate
political realities.
Given the sensitive status of Kurdish issues, it is not unusual for scholarly works to be
blamed for supporting partisan interests and be discredited as political. Without entering
into this discussion, suffice to say that the difference “between ‘seeing through the eyes
of the other’ and buying into the world view of the other” (Kaplan, 2015: 4) should be
well clear to any reader approaching a scientific contribution.
Anderson’s definition of nations as imagined political communities is now customary
and somewhat overused. According to his view, nations are cultural artefacts that are
imagined, limited, and sovereign.
Kurdayetî properly describes pan-Kurdish patriotism, or “the idea of and struggle for
relieving the Kurds from national oppression by uniting all parts of Kurdistan under the
rule of an independent Kurdish state” (Hassanpour quoted in O’Shea, 2004: 131). Contrary to Arab nationalisms, it is characterised as secular, despite the historical importance
of religious affiliations in Kurdish society.
In his reflection on nations and ethno-cultural communities, Smith briefly defines ethnie
as “named human populations with shared ancestry myths, histories and cultures, having
an association with a specific territory and a sense of solidarity” (1986: 32).
One of the many paradoxes surrounding the Kurdish question is that one amongst the
most influential theorists of Turkish nationalism, Ziya Gökalp, was of Kurdish origin and
came from Diyarbakir, the would-be capital of Bakur (North Kurdistan).
Most of the authors cited in this paragraph converge on modernist readings of Kurdish
nationalism, though with different accents. For a brief review of the debate, see Sheyholislami (2011). Izady, instead, is among those scholars upholding an essentialist view:
the Kurdish nation is based upon a “long common historical experience, their common worldview, common national character, integrated economy, common national
territory, and collective future aspirations” (2015: 183). His position places emphasis on
discourses and techniques used by sovereign powers to erase Kurds: “They have glossed
over the Kurdish past, denying the originality of this ancient culture, and preventing
original research on any topic of national importance to ethnic Kurds. They have created and foisted false identities onto the Kurds – such as the labels ‘Mountain Turk’ in
Turkey, and ‘Umayyad Arab’ in Syria and Iraq for the Yezidi Kurds. They have simply
denied the Kurds separate ethnic existence in Iran, Soviet Azerbaijan, and Turkmenistan.
In doing this these modern nation-states have done plenty to confuse even the Kurds
themselves.” (ibidem: xiii). The stereotype of primitive bandits from the Zagros Mountains plundering the plains predates the formation of nation-states and was indeed recurrent in both Western and Muslim accounts (O’Leary, 2018). However, O’Shea rejects
Izady’s work as “one of the most outstanding [and] astonishing attempts to create a complete Kurdish history by using a combination of remembered, recovered, invented and
borrowed history” (2004: 59). The fundamental flaw lies in the professed coincidence
between a geographic area and a chosen people. Izady follows a syllogism for which the
communities inhabiting Kurdistan that “are not unequivocally connected with another
identifiable nation” are Kurdish. Pushing the argument to extremes, Kurdish ancestors
are lost in the mists of time. O’Shea rightly reproaches the influence of a mythological
theme disguised as the “accepted version of events.”
Maxwell and Smith produced an excellent meta-analysis of Kurdish historiography pointing out the predominant influence of Anthony Smith’s model of singular transformation
from non-yet-national ethnie to national community, so much so that the terminology
offered by other renowned theorists of nationalism (e.g. Benedict Anderson’s imagined
community or Eric Hobsbawn’s proto-nationalism) is cited interchangeably. For Kurdish
experts and sympathizers, they argue, the concept of ethnie “fulfils a deeply felt longing for national antiquity,” which better sustains a narrative of national awakening, thus

The Kurdistan Region of Iraq 81

19
20

21

22

23

24
25
26
27

28
29
30
31

resolving tension between a modern nation and its primordial roots (2015: 784). Despite
that, there is no consensus on the historical point of departure of Kurdish nationalism.
On the divisiveness of Iraqi population and the process of national integration, see also
Lukitz (2005).
“The journey from Baghdad to Basra took a week, and traveling was in itself an adventure. Partly as a consequence of this, the cities differed in their economic orientation.
The ties of Mosul were with Syria and Turkey, and those of Baghdad and the Shi’a holy
cities with Persia and the western and south-western deserts. Basra looked mainly to the
sea and to India” (Batatu, 1978: 16).
“Old local economies, based on the handicraft or boat-building industries and the traditional means of transport (camels and sailing ships), declined or broke asunder; a tribal
tillage, essentially self-sufficient and subordinate to pastoralism, gave way to a settled,
market-related, tribal agriculture; the communal tribal land and extensive tracts of state
domain passed into the hands of ex-warring shaikhs and aghas without ground of right or
any payment whatever; tribes, guilds, and mystic orders lost cohesion or disintegrated;
vast masses of people moved from the country and provincial towns to the big cities to
enrol in the new army, bureaucracy, or police force, or to find employment in the new
businesses that supplied the needs of these institutions, or to swell the ranks of unskilled
labourers and noticeably depress their earnings; old ties, loyalties, and concepts were
undermined, eroded, or swept away” (Batatu, 1978: 1113).
Just like Kurdistan, also Iraq came into being as geographical denomination even though
prevalent territorial identities in use at the time were rather attached to locality and at
odds with national boundaries. For instance, Mosul inhabitants looked more towards
Aleppo and Istanbul than Baghdad by means of tribal relations and economic influence
in today’s north eastern Syria (Marr, 2010). However, such local identities were less
politically effective than those built upon kinship and religion.
The strategic importance of setting a foothold in the Middle East to control a large oil
supply at the source comes out clearly from memos of British officials and advisers. As
a way of example, the High Commissioner for Iraq Sir Henry Dobbs wrote in October
1927, few days after the Baba Gurgur oil gusher: “The discoveries of immense quantities of oil . . . make it now impossible to abandon control of Iraq without damaging
important British and foreign interests” (Muttitt, 2012).
The Kirkuk-Haifa pipeline was operational from 1935 to 1948, when the Iraqi government stopped pumping oil through it in retaliation to the first Arab-Israeli war. A new
conduit connecting Kirkuk to Banias in Syria replaced the line.
The “eternal fire” at Baba Gurgur is a natural gas seep that has been constantly burning for
over 4,000 years and was worshipped as a religious site by local inhabitants. More prosaically, the surfacing indicates the southern dome of the super-giant oilfield of Kirkuk.
Also known as directional drilling, it is an extractive technique for drilling non-vertical
wells.
Besides the economic loss, Ba’athists also feared that a Kurdish administration in the oilproducing province of Kirkuk would have been a Trojan horse at the mercy of Western
powers to regain control on lost assets. Given strained relations with Iran and the fact
that Kurds were militarily supported by the Shah, the Iraqi veto was made stronger
through a closer partnership with the Soviet Union, which was formalized in 1972 (van
Bruinessen, 1992).
This does not apply to the KRG only. Governorates in Nineveh and Basra made similar
claims for an independent energy policy, which were rejected promptly in Baghdad.
Constitution of the Republic of Iraq, Article 112, first paragraph.
Ivi, Article 110.
Article 140 of the Constitution placed upon the Iraqi transitional government the
responsibility of concluding the process of normalization “in Kirkuk and other disputed
territories” as already stipulated in Article 58 of the 2004 Transitional Administrative

82 The Kurdistan Region of Iraq
Law, which stated the need “to take measures to remedy the injustice caused by the
previous regime’s practices in altering the demographic character of certain regions,
including Kirkuk, by deporting and expelling individuals from their places of residence,
forcing migration in and out of the region, settling individuals alien to the region,
depriving the inhabitants of work, and correcting nationality.” In this regard, article 140
prescribed that citizens within the areas concerned should decide on the administrative
status through local (district- or provincial-wise) referenda “by a date not to exceed the
31st of December 2007.” However, such areas are not defined geographically in the
document, and the nebulous wording is evidence for bitterness over territorial controversies, which remain unsolved. In absence of an official definition, “disputed areas tend
to describe an undifferentiated 300-mile-long swath of territory from the Iranian to the
Syrian border with oil-rich Kirkuk as its centre” (Kane, 2011: 5). The expiration of the
constitutional deadline was interpreted as a sign of bad faith by the KRG, which contends that the entire governorate of Kirkuk and 13 districts in Nineveh, Salah ad-Din,
and Diyala should be annexed to the region, though claims are not unequivocally supported by local inhabitants given significant non-Kurdish minorities. The list of disputed
districts includes those of Sinjar, Mosul, Tal Afar, Akre, Shaikhan, al-Hamdaniya, Tuz
Khurmatu, Makhmur, Kifri, and Khanaqin.
32 Oilfields are designated as “super-giant” if the amount of proven or recoverable reserves
exceeds five or ten equivalent billion barrels, and as “giant” if it is more than 500 million
barrels. In most cases, however, data on underground deposits are scant and estimates
may be imprecise.

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3

The gate to statehood
Kurdish nationalism and the oil dream

Exiled in their own land
I was seated in a windowless office inside the MNR in Erbil. My interviewee,
a high-profile bureaucrat with a long career behind him, kindly offered me a
glass of steaming hot chai with some sugar cubes on the side. That very gesture
opened most of my interviews, as if it would be unthinkable to have a conversation without a glass of tea. On a busy day, I would drink countless cups
depending on how many meetings I had scheduled. In Kurdistan, sharing tea is
beyond courtesy. It is an act of care and openness. I sometimes had the palpable
feeling that that traditional ritual contributed to ease suspicion or at least create a more relaxed atmosphere. This meeting was no exception. It was my first
time inside the MNR, and for the first time I was not allowed to use a recorder,
but the interview flowed pleasantly.
“We are entitled to stay there,” the official cut it short. I had asked him about
the uncertain future of Kirkuk, the city of black gold. Our meeting took place
in Spring 2017, months before the ill-fated independence referendum and the
consequent showdown over the disputed territories. Then, he took the long
road and began schooling me on the Arabisation policies undertaken during
the tyranny of Saddam Hussein, at a time when subsidies and land allotments
had been given to Arab settlers from other parts of Iraq in order to replace
Kurdish residents. To make his argumentation more convincing, he took a
piece of paper and drew a map on the fly. A thicker line followed the ridge
of the Hamrin Mountains, well below the borders of the autonomous region.
“This is the natural separation between Kurds and Arabs,” he said with quiet
determination, as if it was an indisputable truth. He then went on listing some
seemingly objective qualities as evidence to the fact that the line delimited
ethnically different ecosystems – such as that the lush and wooded mountains
of Kurdistan gradually disappear into the desert plains of central Iraq. Whether
such a comparison is accurate or not is irrelevant. What struck me most was
the instrumental use of topography to naturalise ethnic divisions in territorial
terms and thus convey the idea of a perfect match between physical and cultural barriers. I had a similar experience in a later interview with a representative of the Kirkuk Provincial Council. On that occasion, the meeting occurred
DOI: 10.4324/9781003161103-4

The gate to statehood 87

in a more comfortable environment – a café inside a gigantic and rather empty
mall in Sulaymaniyah. Again, my interlocutor raised a similar point about the
administrative status of Kirkuk and, just like the MNR official, backed his
explanation by sketching an improvised map:1
Oilfields are exactly in-between Kurdish and Arab areas, with the Kurdish ones having much more oil. Most Arabs living in the province came
no longer than 60–70 years ago. They were not here before. Down to the
Hamrin Mountans it was all Kurdish land, but Kurds did not settle south of
Kirkuk because of the lack of water. The Iraqi government built irrigation
canals to make this area fertile for agriculture in order to move people from
Baiji, Tikrit, Mosul, and the south. Concomitantly they started displacing
Kurds, Turkmens, and Assyrians. They seized land, kicked people out, and
put everything under the control of the Iraqi North Oil Company. They
did everything they could to reduce the number of Kurds in this area.
Entire villages were destroyed.
(Anonymous, interview #8)
This long excerpt from that (recorded) conversation shows some junctions
tying collective identity and imaginative geographies together, and how
deep-rooted mistrust and unsolved territorial issues keep fuelling a frontline
mentality. In both interviews, the assertion of ethnic alterity was mixed with
apprehension about the worsening of federal relations. Given a past of military
occupations, forced displacements, and attempts of assimilation including the
atrocious extreme of genocide, questions about the contentious management
of natural resources in those grey areas in-between federal and regional jurisdictions brought up a palpable state of anxiety. I would have later learned to read
it as a form of sorrowful alienation from a contested homeland. As seen in the
previous chapter, the modern history of Kurds is marked by displacement and
the unfulfilled search for political recognition. The intertwined themes of exile
and statelessness are therefore very much present in the Kurdish self-narrative.
Kurdish Studies have devoted attention to the politics of exile, with particular
reference to the large, scattered diaspora in Western Europe (Wahlbeck, 1998;
Østergaard-Nielsen, 2003; Alinia, 2004; van Bruinessen, 2000). The feeling
of being exiled in their own land continues to exert a considerable influence
even inside the autonomous region in spite of the achievements made in terms
of self-rule. I remember chatting with an ordinary man from Dohuk who had
spent half of his life as a refugee in Iran. I asked him what it means to be Kurd.
He replied in a hard-hitting manner that I was not expecting: “being a Kurd
means to be forever alone, escape from different enemies, and grow up in a
place where you will always be kept under control.” The right to have a place
in the world was the mirrored image of loneliness and persecutions.
Hence, to any Kurd, the homeland bears the scars of a denied and even
displaced identity. That became clear to me since my first stay in the region.
At the end of May 2017, the so-called Golden Division, the Iraqi elite forces

88 The gate to statehood

wearing skull-like masks, were ready for a final assault against ISIS militants in
Mosul, the last major stronghold still under control of the Salafi-jihadist group.
All the international attention was on the offensive. I was not covering the
story in first person as it had little to do with what had brought me to Iraq, but
I was following developments on the ground closely since my best informants
were fixers escorting freelancers to and from the frontlines. During the siege,
ISF ranks were decimated because of booby-traps and snipers, who managed
to halt the Iraqi advance in the narrow streets of the Old City. One morning,
I shared my concern with Soran, a local environmentalist whom I collaborated
with at first and who then became a good friend, while walking through the
alley behind his house in Sulaymaniyah.
“My entire life has been a war,” he interrupted me with an expressive shrug.
There was no sad inflection in his voice. It was an accurate description. Soran
grew up in war times indeed. His family comes from Khanaqin, which was one
of the epicentres of the Ba’athist ruthless Arabisation policies. He left the country in the early 1990s when the KDP–PUK antagonism blew up into fratricidal
warfare. After years of deprivation, as well as countless arrests for entering the
European borders illegally, he finally reached the UK with the prospect of a
better future. He managed to rebuild his life and even obtain British citizenship, but a sense of denial remained with him. Because of that, when the
regime fell he came back home, without finding a pacified land though. Soran’s
biography is not unique. Kurds are not strangers to the thought of having come
through a perennial state of war, which has taken on different forms and faces
over time. As the ISIS insurgency was on retreat, Soran looked further ahead
to the moment after the liberation of Mosul wondering what would happen in
the disputed territories since the root causes that had led disenfranchised Sunni
Arabs to join the ranks of the Islamic Caliphate were still in plain sight. Once
more events would have proven him right.
Sense of place and nation-building

For an ethnic group denied of national rights in any country, the intimate
bond to the motherland became the primary identity marker. Kurdish selfrepresentation is anchored to a rich imaginative geography filled with national
symbols. Aziz is right in saying that Kurdistan “has always been assessed as a
territorial community” (ibidem: 45). Although a Kurdish state was never a reality, territory presupposes sovereignty. Therefore, national themes are all interwoven with a sense of place that defines the common belonging to a Kurdish
nation primarily in terms of emotional attachment to native land. In line with a
phenomenological approach, sense of place can be defined as a process of signification “involving both an interpretive perspective on the environment and an
emotional reaction to the environment” (Hummon, 1992: 262) through which
a set of affective, moral, and aesthetic qualities is attached to a place.2 The concept therefore refers to the relational experience, either conscious or unconscious, connected to a location or site (Relph, 1976; Tuan, 1977; Cresswell,

The gate to statehood 89

2004; Agnew, 2014). Such rootedness of self in a geographical setting may be
of varying intensity and of different kinds: it can be biographical but can also
be constructed through a mythology of the origins, which may sustain a feeling of identification even in the absence of direct experience, as often happens
with second-generation diaspora members. Radcliffe and Westwood stress the
importance of place in the making of the nation, which is intended as “the
context within which national identities are called forth” (1996: 7). From their
perspective, the nation is enacted and practiced precisely through the experience of national places. The representation of historical battlefields or the
monumental graves of “unknown soldiers,” which associate the sacrifice for the
homeland to the highest patriotic values (Raivo, 2015), are clear illustrations
of this process.
A history of identity suppression flows through Kurdistan and is fixed in
everyday spaces. Places are constructed as “lieux de memoire” (Nora, 1989)
through a symbolically coherent landscape of monuments, artistic artefacts, and
rituals of remembrance evoking a tragic heritage to be recalled and a collective destiny to be achieved, for instance, the cult of martyrdom. The portraits
of fallen Peshmerga are on display in squares and streets, and their bravery is
often lauded during political rallies to mobilise emotional support. Martyrdom has been a powerful signifier of nation-building since the dawn of the
liberation struggle. The celebration of martyrs who sacrificed their lives for
the right of a Kurdish nation to exist, as well as the nostalgic representation of
heroic warriors of a glorious past, is the proud response to a feeling of deprivation. On this point, McDowall alludes to the ideological attempt of “tracing
a national continuity fixed upon heroes of the nation across the centuries”
(McDowall, 2003: 5; see also Laizer, 1996; Strohmeier, 2003). The labelling of
Peshmerga as martyrs insists on the same mythology, which recounts a struggle
that is fundamentally unchanged from the times of Mullah Mustafa Barzani. As
Fisher-Tahir puts it, “as powerful symbols of the Kurdish liberation movement,
Peshmerga and martyrs served to legitimate the Kurdish Government in Iraq”
(2012: 93). Such symbolic apparatus, coupled with the cult of Masoud Barzani
and Jalal Talabani, is intrinsic to the hegemonic strategies of ruling parties.
Nonetheless, it also effectively awakens a national sentiment.
Heroism and martyrdom take centre stage in public discourse.3 To take one
example, border checkpoints are covered with flags, banners, and slogans to
visually signal that you are entering into a culturally different space from the
rest of the country, not only a separate administrative authority. This contributes to ritualise and sacralise collective memory by placing it into a spiritual
dimension but also keeping it tangible and very tied to the present. The same
can be said of memorials, relics, and commemorations of the al-Anfal campaigns launched by Saddam Hussein in 1988 to crush the Kurdish minority. The Amna Suraka heinous prison in Sulaymaniyah is one example. The
symbolic capital infused into these places of memory reiterates the image of
a “common external enemy” – the parent state (Kolsto, 2006) – and unifies
Kurds within a “representational space” (Lefebvre, 1991), though with an

90 The gate to statehood

emotional tone stressing victimhood instead of resistance.4 The “al-Anfal catastrophe” is presented by the KRG (which established a Ministry of Martyrs and
Anfal Affairs) as a key historical landmark in the nation-building narrative, for
several purposes: preserve autonomy vis-à-vis Baghdad, promote allegiance to
regional institutions, and draw international attention to the enduring violations of Kurdish rights. In this sense, Baser and Tovainen argue that al-Anfal
became the Iraqi Kurds’ chosen trauma “to underwrite a sense of shared history and a collective belonging to a nation that has fallen victim to genocidal
persecution” (2017: 17). In post-2005, Iraq claims for genocide recognition are
used then as a legitimisation tool to advance and internationalise the Kurdish
quest for self-determination. Tejel points out that, beyond many omissions, the
KRG hegemonic discourse “tends to link [al-Anfal] to present political issues
at stake” with the central government (2015: 2577), reproducing ethnic enmity.
The rendition of the past therefore bestows new meanings in order to nurture
a nationalistic imaginary.
The bond between place and collective identity is not solely reproduced topdown.5 Oftentimes my Kurdish friends showed me the place where a relative
had fallen in battle. “My father died on that hill behind the village, in 1991. He
fought against Saddam’s army,” Karwan said while we were driving to Kirkuk.
We stopped there for a while. “Beritan’s father was killed here too. Every family has lost someone. War never ends here.” When introduced to a circle of people, I was usually told about their martyrs: “Fazel has an important reputation
because his older brother was a great fighter who killed many Iraqi soldiers.
When he was taken to Amna Suraka and tortured to death he demonstrated his
courage one last time.” These comments shape an affective geography of loss
and sorrow, passed down from generation to generation. War remnants are also
inserted into that symbolic repertoire. Thousands of unexploded landmines
cover large swathes of the region, especially in the mountainous areas along
the Iranian border, and are a real threat that perpetuates a deep-seated sense
of struggling for survival.6 The separation between cleared and contaminated
areas not only brings people back to war memories but also disrupts access to
what are considered to be time-honoured ancestral birthplaces. Likewise, the
regular shelling on PKK headquarters in the Qandil Mountains by Turkish and
Iranian air forces renews the idea of an endless strife upon Kurds.
The examples mentioned earlier underline that land and bloodline are inextricably bound inasmuch as the image of a torn homeland is constantly renegotiated with a collective memory of violent marginalisation and oppression.
There is a sense of historical continuity, which sustains a narrative of national
redemption. A general point can be made: all those places of memory, to borrow Pierre Nora’s beautiful expression, bear witness to the dialectic of denial
and resistance Abbas Vali recognises to be the distinctive feature of Kurdish
nationalism. A significant body of literature does exist showing that memory
making can serve the purpose of forging a national self. Besides the vast work
by Nora on the modern re-articulation of French national identity with the
passing of peasant societies (2010), a large number of studies across disciplines

The gate to statehood 91

brought into focus the performative role memory has in grounding or recasting
a national imaginary in time and space (see, for instance, Gillis, 1996; Atkinson & Cosgrove, 1998; Osborne, 1998; Azaryahu & Kellerman Barrett, 1999;
Zubrzycki, 2017). In the Kurdish case, the foundations of national identity
tend to be negative in the literal sense since they are based more on the absence
of recognition than some other features in order to arouse a shared sense of
national commonality. As explained at length in the previous chapter, this is
not surprising given that Kurds seized the concept of nation as a response to the
aggressive nationalisms of emergent neighbouring states during the 20th century, which had fragmented Kurdistan into national blocks. External pressure –
namely, the ideological assimilation of heterogeneous tribes into the normative
and territorial body of emerging nation-states that replaced loosen forms of
imperial control – solicited Kurdish leaders to promote the idea of an equally
legitimate nation. Until then, Kurdish collective identification had not defined
upon a political basis and laid instead in ethnic self-consciousness. In other
words, nationalists politicised the Kurdish ethnos at a later stage.
The ways of seeing world fabricate political reality. The geographical perceptions surrounding the Kurdish national imaginary add a sense of complexity
to the discussion of energy issues within the federally reconstituted Iraq. The
struggles over natural resources are infused with a legacy of warfare, cultural
segregation, and material dispossession. A famous poem by Bashir Mustafa
associates the flame of Kirkuk, “the city of black gold,” to the “grief and rebellion” its citizens (and by extension Kurds in general) have suffered.7 The next
part of this chapter explores the road the KRG has taken to redeem past injustice and strengthen the Kurdish nation upon the oil dream.

The road to one million barrels
Since 2003 achieving the status of energy exporter has been the single most
important carrier of legitimation for the KRG. Whilst oil had cursed Kurdistan
for decades as many KRG officials emphatically told me, after the fall of Saddam Hussein, the (re)appropriation of hydrocarbons became the gate through
which Kurds were finally given a chance to pursue national sovereignty. Oil
was soon translated into a symbol of national unity, earned sovereignty, international recognition, deterrence, and even citizenship. To borrow a passage from
Kapuscinski’s story on the last Shah of Iran, “oil [created] the illusion of a completely changed life” (1982: 35). Ascending as a new hub in the global energy
markets opened the front door to the international stage, capturing a flow of
investments into the Kurdish region. This has had a paramount political value
prior to any economic consideration. Developing the petroleum industry away
from Baghdad was primarily driven by the pursuit of external legitimation
(Voller, 2013). The leadership was aware that without international support
the fragile autonomy of the three Kurdish governorates would have been at the
mercy of the central government. As unrecognised states are compelled to seek
the favour of the international community by demonstrating their compliance

92 The gate to statehood

to accepted norms and practices (Caspersen, 2013), the commitment to democratic values, religious tolerance, and good governance are to be read in that
same spirit. As banal as this may sound, getting the world to take interest in
Kurdish self-determination was foremost. Energy diplomacy proved to be the
strongest argument they had available. Seen in perspective, the establishment of
a viable and internationally competitive industry from scratch was an extraordinary achievement. In less than ten years, the KRG established itself as a reliable
supplier on the oil market. That, however, was far from easy.
KRG officials lacked expertise and experience in the sector. Moreover, no
pre-existing infrastructures were available for use. The prospect that Kurds
could extract oil in the autonomous region therefore raised eyebrows in Baghdad at first. Early approaches with foreign operators were very much improvised. Then, Ashti Hawrami stepped in. A petroleum engineer who had held
senior oil executive positions in the Iraqi National Oil Company and several
UK-based firms, he was appointed as the Minister for Natural Resources in
May 2006. Under his guidance and thanks to a pool of external advisers, the
KRG set up a business-friendly environment to attract IOCs. The long-serving
MNR Minister brought professionalism and an insight into the commercial
incentives to entice investors. The KRG began offering more favourable contractual terms than those set out by the Iraqi central government, which has
historically been distrustful of Western energy companies since the nationalisation of the industry: unlike the standard technical service contracts (TSCs) that
place all costs and risks of upstream operations upon the contractor in return
for a remuneration fee per barrel, the PSCs grated by the KRG provide the
contracting part with a share of profits for up to 30 years.
Enhanced by a more stable security situation and within the legislative
framework of the 2007 Oil and Gas Law, the PSC model allowed the KRG to
quickly level up their energy strategy and cash out hundreds of millions USD
without producing a single barrel of oil. By the end of 2007, a considerable
number of PSCs had already been signed with small- and medium-sized private companies – amongst others, the Norwegian DNO, the Turkish Genel,
the UAE Dana Gas, the Canadians Western Sands and Heritage Oil, the British
Sterling Energy, the American Hunt Oil, the French Perenco, the Indian Reliance Oil, the German OMV Petroleum Exploration, and the Hungarian MOL
(Zedalis, 2009). The spate of multimillionaire deals faced growing opposition
in Baghdad. The Iraqi Minister of Oil, Husain al-Shahristani, announced that
the independent oil contracts negotiated by the KRG had no legal foundation
and threatened to take actions against foreign companies partnering with Erbil.
On their side, Kurdish elites countered that the agreements were fully consistent with constitutional provisions, especially given the noticeable absence of a
federal law on the management of hydrocarbons.
Iraqi lawmakers were well aware that the development of a separate oil and
gas sector, with its own legislation, transcended the scent of petrodollars. What
was at stake was the very nature of Iraqi federalism. The MNR divided the
autonomous region into 48 blocks and eight border areas without leaving a

The gate to statehood 93

single square metre of land.8 Visualised as a prospective oil-producing area, the
KRI as a whole was re-engineered as a supply zone for the interest of foreign
investors. Once again, mapping turned out to be a formidable discursive device,
which declared both extent and purpose of KRG’s oil nationalism, in a twofold
sense. Firstly, IOCs and trading houses were encouraged to take an active interest in supporting Kurdish autonomy. The success of this operation provided
the regional government with an aura of international legitimacy. It is hardly
an exaggeration that reassurances from the MNR on the constitutionality of
the energy policy were primarily addressed to the audience of private buyers
operating in the energy markets. Suffice it to say that MNR press releases are
generally published in English or to notice the high-profile participation to
the KRG-sponsored CWC Kurdistan-Iraq Oil and Gas Conference,9 which
every year gathers oil majors and energy services companies in London. After
all, the international standing of the region fundamentally comes down to its
attractiveness as a new energy frontier to be added to the portfolio of IOCs and
the success rate returned to investors.
Secondly, on a symbolic level, the extractive regime envisaged on map gave
practical shape to territorial continuity. The KRG acted as a landowner by
dealing PSCs directly with IOCs, thus availing itself of a sovereign right over
land. In some cases, such exercise of power exceeded the letter of the Constitution. In September 2007, for instance, before the ink of the newly enacted
Oil and Gas Law dried, the MNR had struck an arrangement with Hunt
Oil for exploration rights in Ain Sifni (Wikileaks, 2007), outside the reach
of KRG administrative authority. That was not a one-off. Three out of six
blocks licensed to ExxonMobil in 2011 were located in contested borderlands:
Bashiqa and al-Qush near Mosul and Qara Hanjer near Kirkuk. By awarding
oil concessions in disputed territories, Kurds openly defied the Green Line,
which is to say the ceasefire line that since October 1991 has marked the
borderline between the region and the rest of the country. Minister Hawrami
repeatedly explained that both history and de facto administration in those
areas denied any “hard line” of separation.10 Accordingly, the MNR requested
IOCs and their sub-contractors to remove the Green Line from their maps
(Crisis Group, 2009: 11). The fait accompli was key to redraw contentious
borders in unredeemed lands and uphold territorial control. Put differently,
“territorialisation [established] authority” (Rasmussen & Lund, 2018: 2), rather
than the other way round.
Vetoes in Baghdad did not stall the process. The KRG raised the bar to the
ambitious goal of reaching a production capacity of 1 million bpd by 2015
(MNR, 2013). Minister Hawrami explained the rationale behind the figure
while addressing the 2013 European Energy Summit in Istanbul with concise and incisive words: “nowhere in the world does 1 million barrels per day
remain stranded” (Reuters, 2013). One year later, at the MERI Forum in Erbil,
Hawrami returned to this point. On that occasion, the MNR Minister revisited the journey made since 2006, from a backwater region to just a step away
from economic self-sufficiency. Hawrami spoke of federal decentralisation,

94 The gate to statehood

genuine revenue sharing, and the mutually beneficial partnership with Turkey, thus delineating the geopolitical profile of the KRG in full. He ended his
speech by reminding the audience, with well-founded confidence, that “when
there is oil, it will flow.” Exporting one million bpd would equal the production level of Oman, thus ranking the KRG among the top 20 oil-producing
countries, ahead of Azerbaijan, Algeria, and UK to name a few solid suppliers.
Reaching that output target was therefore seen as the strongest assurance for
the long-term acquisition of an international status.
In these terms, Hawrami’s consideration was not naïve at all. As “petroleum
is one the most fundamental building blocks of twentieth century hydrocarbon capitalism” (Watts, 2001: 189) or “the lifeblood of the world’s industrial
economies” (Yergin, 2011), and only a handful of exporters sustain the insatiable global thirst for energy, maintaining the oil flow sustains the international
order. This is demonstrated by the longstanding US commitment to the free
movement of oil from the Middle East, which first inspired the “twin pillars”
policy towards Saudi Arabia and Iran since the British withdrawal from the Persian Gulf in late 1960s and was then set out in the 1979 “Carter Doctrine.”11
The same strategic principle eventually led Washington to send boots on the
Iraqi ground in 1991 and again in 2003, with the dire consequences dramatically exposed by an almost decade long military occupation. Despite peak- or
post-oil narratives, the global hunt for oil supplies still drives the logic of accumulation of a fossil fuels-based industrial paradigm. The goal of scaling up the
export capacity, however, ran into difficulties.
Pipeline politics and federal disputes

The landlocked position has set the bandwidth of KRG foreign policy (Mills,
2013; Paasche & Mansurbeg, 2014; Natali, 2015; Romano, 2015). Caught
in-between historical enemies of Kurdish self-determination, Iraqi Kurds were
mindful of the limited room for manoeuvre and have pragmatically cultivated
amicable relations with neighbouring countries, and particularly Turkey. As
seen, when the leadership bet on the petroleum industry, securing export
routes was made a priority. As a matter of fact, the lack of direct access to
outside markets through sea lines penalises an export-oriented oil producer
because of higher fixed costs and transit agreements with third countries. Furthermore, economic peripherality from the rest of Iraq accentuated a condition
of physical insularity given by the rocky topography along the northern and
eastern borders. The Syrian civil war and the international sanctions applied on
Iran narrowed down options.
Despite being entitled to 17% of the federal budget and lobbying for a foreground position in Baghdad, the KRG has sought to achieve economic independence from the central government since the beginning of the federalist
experiment due to a bitter history of ethnic animosity. Therefore, integrating
the nascent Kurdish oil and gas sector in the Iraqi energy infrastructures was
not in the scheme of things. However, when the two flagship oilfields of Taq

The gate to statehood 95

Taq and Tawke started production in June 2009, the KRG was forced to agree
upon the federal management of oil sales through the Kirkuk–Ceyhan pipeline, with all revenues deposited into the Development Fund for Iraq (Crisis
Group, 2009: 18). The Iraqi North Oil Company (NOC) connected both
fields to the federal transportation grid. At the same time, the central government refused to recognise the agreements signed by the KRG with the companies running operation in Tawke (DNO) and Taq Taq (Addax Petroleum
and Genel Energy), and demanded regional authorities to put crude sales from
oilfields located within KRI under federal control. However, KRG officials
turned a deaf ear.
The scenario changed radically in a few years. In early 2014, ISIS repeatedly
attacked and eventually knocked out a key section of the Kirkuk–Ceyhan pipeline that linked the super-giant Kirkuk oilfield (which encompasses the domes
of Khurmala, Baba Gurgur, and Avana, plus the adjacent fields of Bai Hassan,
Khabbaz, and Jambur) to the refinery in Baiji and from there back to the main
conduit. Before its complete halt, the pipeline was operating at a capacity of
about 550.000 bpd (Reuters, 2017). With no other remaining option, crude
extracted in Kirkuk began to be shipped through the parallel 970 kilometres
long pipeline opened in December 2013 to connect the Khurmala field to the
Turkish portion of the Kirkuk–Ceyhan line via the Fish Khabur border crossing. Renamed “Kurdish pipeline,” the conduit running within the autonomous
region created a powerful sense of national unity amongst Kurds.
The decisive push, however, occurred in March 2014 when the central government led by Nouri al-Maliki decided to withhold the share of the federal budget owed to the KRG as a retaliation against the refusal to export oil
through the State Oil Marketing Organisation (SOMO) (Mills, 2016). In January, the MNR had announced the sale of its first crude cargo from the port of
Ceyhan (MNR, 2014a) in line with previous deals signed with Ankara, and
was negotiating pre-payments with major international trading houses, such as
Trafigura, Glencore, Petraco, and Vitol. Baghdad denounced the move as illegal
and turned off the tap to wreck plans in Erbil: federal allocations were reduced
by a half in January and drastically stopped by March (Reuters, 2015). Any
financial transfer from the centre was frozen. The first tanker loaded with over 1
million barrels officially left Ceyhan on 23 May, with proceeds being deposited
into an escrow account at Turkey’s state-run Halkbank and “treated as part of
the KRG’s budgetary entitlement” (MNR, 2014b).12 Before that, the amount
of unrefined petroleum exported to Turkey and on a much smaller extent Iran
via trucks was limited, ranging between 30,000 and 50,000 bpd. Baghdad had
not opposed those cargoes. In November, the Iraqi Minister of Oil Adil Abdul
Mahdi agreed upon the KRG’s handling of exports from Kirkuk through the
northern route for an amount of 150,000 bpd in exchange for a one-time
payment of 500 million USD (Aresti, 2016). A month later, a new agreement
was struck under which the KRG would deliver 550,000 bpd to SOMO and
federal transfers would resume, but both quarrelling sides failed to respect their
obligations during the first months of 2015, partly owing to the concomitant

96 The gate to statehood

slump in oil prices with Brent plummeting from over 110 USD per barrel in
mid-2014 to less than 70 USD per barrel at the beginning of the year.
The budget dispute dragged on for months and much animated the nationalistic rhetoric, not least because after the fall of Mosul in June 2014 and the
ISF retreat from disputed territories the Peshmerga stepped in to set up a barrage against ISIS. The KRG bore the brunt of conflict also in areas under federal administration. Against what was perceived as a breaching of constitutional
commitments, the KRG claimed the obligation towards any Kurd living outside the region and exposed to jihadist violence. At that point, under extenuating fiscal duress and with millions of dollars in arrears to oil companies, Kurdish
ruling parties decided to export oil independently from Baghdad in order to
survive economically. The conversation I had with the High Representative of
a KRG mission in Europe illustrates that position:
Payments of government salaries lagged behind because of the budget cut.
Then ISIS came and the Iraqi army collapsed. As Kurdish authorities, we
had two options: either allow them to fall into the hands of Daesh or protect our people. That is what happened. It was not to protect oilfields in
the first place. We decided to secure the perimeter of those areas and at the
same time we kept our borders open. Despite the economic burden and a
de facto embargo from Iraq, we hosted 1.8 million refugees and internally
displaced people from Mosul, from Baghdad, from Fallujah. From everywhere and without discrimination. While running a costly war and caring
for refugees, all of the sudden the oil prices dropped and we were already
selling below the market price because Iraq was chasing us. We managed
to resist only because of the oil we could export and thanks to our allies.
We received nothing from Baghdad.
(Interview #3)
The betrayal of the true partnership between the people of Iraq, as enshrined
in the preamble of the Constitution, is implicit in the aforementioned passage.
The KRG has often underlined its willingness to join a democratic and pluralistic Iraq so long as the other constituents adhered to the same principles. This
notion of voluntary union, however, has been rejected in Baghdad throughout the Iraqi history to preserve territorial integrity given that it evokes an
insurmountable confrontation between a subjugated Kurdistan and the Arab
occupier (Rafaat, 2016). The “failed experiment” of federalism, as Masoud
Barzani called it (Asharq al-Awsat, 2017), witnesses the enduring perception of
a threatened or denied legitimacy. In such context of alternative national projects, the Kurdish pipeline took on the meaning of a vested right of economic
self-sufficiency, even more so under exceptional war conditions that once again
were raging at the borders of the Kurdish enclave, while central government
seemingly relinquished its role. The pipeline appeared to be nothing less than
a lifeline.13
While the budget dispute was unfolding, the KRG proved to be an essential partner on the ground for the US-led international coalition to counter

The gate to statehood 97

ISIS. At the same time, Erbil felt anxious to reassure foreign investors that oil
shipments marketed through the port of Ceyhan on the Mediterranean were
rock-solid and constitutionally lawful. As seen, energy diplomacy was meant
to maintain international support. The KRG also defended the protection and
management of oilfields located in disputed Makhmour, Kirkuk, and Nineveh.
“Had we not had that oil, had we not developed that industry, it would have
been very difficult to survive. We exercised a constitutional right.”14 The KRG
High Representative to the UK, Karwan Jamal Tahir, began with these words
when I asked him about the deterioration of federal relations upon energy
issues. Until 2009, the High Representative had served as a senior advisor to
the MNR and later held the post of Deputy Head of the Department of Foreign Relations. During the interview, he stressed that Iraqi federalism had been
emptied of its contents in no time, as demonstrated not only by obstructionism
in complying with Article 140, which was supposed to settle the administrative
future of disputed areas through local referenda in a clear timeframe, but also
by the non-delivery of the due share of weapons and budget to Peshmerga and
not least by the unsuccessful oil-for-budget agreements15 to resume fiscal transfers. In his view, energy decentralisation had the potential to enrich Iraq as a
whole overcoming historical inequality given that additional revenue extracted
by producing fields inside the region would have been distributed between
regional and federal treasuries as envisaged by article 112 of the Constitution.
“We fully and firmly committed ourselves to a federal, democratic, pluralistic,
and free Iraq, at the end of the day we found to be more Iraqis than the other
Iraqis,” he added. All the government members I interviewed offered the same
version given by the High Representative, regardless of party affiliation.16 It
goes without saying that such discourse cannot be anything but partial and
biased but pinpoints a number of elements of KRG’s oil nationalism.
The lust of the commodity frontier

For many newly independent countries, Iraq included, the nationalisation of
the petroleum industry during the 1970s helped to further distance themselves
from former colonial powers. For the KRG, resource nationalism provided a
solution to the long-standing question of statelessness by securing an international commitment towards Kurdish self-rule. This would tackle vetoes of
neighbouring countries and a violent resurgence of ethno-sectarian conflicts
inside Iraq. International recognition, which echoes the sense of exile discussed
in the opening, is therefore seen as essential for maintaining a condition of
semi-statehood, let alone backing the quest for obtaining de jure sovereignty.
This point came out frequently during my conversations with KRG officials.
Minister Bakir spelt it out with an explicit statement:
We knew the importance of oil and we adopted energy diplomacy in a
way to prove ourselves internationally through this commodity. We were
able to put Kurdistan on the energy map of the world thanks to that vision.
(Interview #41)

98 The gate to statehood

The “energy map of the world” is a recurrent image in KRG official discourse
that exhibits a sense of historical accomplishment by envisioning the autonomous region at the centre of global energy flows. Once again, it exemplifies
the importance of cartography in the construction of Kurdish irredentism. As
Farinelli puts it, “managing reality comes through its geographical expression”
(2009: 29). Already in 2010 Nechirvan Barzani, then Vice President of the
KDP, took a stand for the constitutionally safeguarded right of developing the
energy sector using the same image:
And now, the KRG is in a position that would enable it to contribute
to securing the energy supplies needed by foreign countries, particularly
through gas exports to Turkey and Europe. We will continue with this
policy until Kurdistan has a place on the map of world’s energy supplies.
(quoted in Govari Gulan, 2010)
The KRG put to its utmost advantage global energy trends. In recent years, the
exhaustion of conventional fields and the overall increase in the global demand
have brought out a new geography of investment favouring either conventional
deposits in unconventional locations (e.g. offshore reservoirs) or unconventional resources in accessible and stable jurisdictions (e.g. shale formations in
Alberta) (Bridge & Le Billon, 2017). Deepwater drillings and unconventional
extraction, however, come with higher production costs and a number of side
issues, from legal controversies about extraction from seabed in international
waters (well illustrated by the debate on oil explorations in the Arctic) to related
environmental hazards (such as the Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of
Mexico). Moreover, with regard to unconventional crude, lower quality is an
additional issue that generates costs to the producer by virtue of more expensive refining. Against this background, the untapped resources in the Kurdish
north stood out as a valuable onshore and conventional source of hydrocarbons.
Sidelined and delayed for most of the Iraqi republican history due to political
reasons, the materialising of an oil and gas sector inside the autonomous region
was welcomed as a rare opportunity by international investors and operators.
For this reason, the attempt of touting and recasting Kurdistan as an uncharted
commodity frontier proved to be successful, as it bet on the entropic social
metabolism17 of industrial societies and the constant growth of conventional
energy supplies.
The concept of commodity frontier was formulated by Jason Moore (2000)
to illustrate the expansionary drive of capitalism. Based on Wallerstein’s worldsystem theory on the spatial division of labour in the global economy (1989),
Moore argues that the commodification of nature is the essential mode of capital accumulation feeding industrial cores upon the availability of resource-rich,
powerless peripheries. Resource extraction replaced the earlier “trading-post
imperialism” that had characterised early capitalism. In my view, the concept
is key to locate KRG’s energy-driven policies into broader perspective and
understand their relationship with the global petroleum industry.

The gate to statehood 99

Frontier is not the same as border. While the latter draws a neat separation between territories on a contiguous canvas, the former delineates a more
indefinite area of encounter. Not necessarily a buffer zone or a contentious
borderland, the frontier is seen as “a diffuse zone of transition” (Korf & Raeymaekers, 2013: 12) or a relational space (Barney, 2009: 146). As highlighted by
Eilenberg, “the frontier concept has a long and ambiguous history and has been
widely applied (often unreflectively) as a heuristic device to describe processes
of transition, exclusion, and inclusion, both physically and figuratively” (Eilenberg, 2014: 161). In this sense, the frontier was the ultimate heuristic device of
Western colonial projection. In his discussion on the genealogy of wilderness,
Cronon describes it precisely as the edge of a “savage world at the dawn of
civilisation” (1996: 16), situating its conventional usage in the folds of an epistemological separation between a civilised space and terra nullius – an empty,
unruly, and disordered space awaiting for a benevolent conqueror.
By analogy, Moore’s commodity frontier sheds light on the colonial expansion of capitalist modes of production and knowledge systems in “virgin” (i.e.
underexploited) areas, with the transformation of land, labour, and rule that
comes with it. Drawing a parallel with Turner’s overused frontier thesis (1893),
just as the continuous movement from east to west of European settlers in
North America was portrayed as the epic conquest of wild lands inhabited by
native primitive communities, it might be said that the capture of raw materials
and workforce in remote areas of the globe nowadays epitomises the equally
violent movement of capitalism. In the same vein, Bridge (2001) claims that
post-industrial narratives of “resource triumphalism” reconstitute distant places
into commodity supply zones, which are conceived as remote badlands denied
of any ecological and historical specificity, through a regulative mechanism
that reinforces the material practices undergirding consumer societies in the
Global North.
The idea of a resource frontier – “a space of desire” to use Tsing’s evocative expression (2003: 5102) – is as old as capitalism. Enclosure, predation,
and exploitation of land take centre stage in Marxist theory on the primitive
accumulation of capital (Harvey, 2003).18 Political ecologists, in particular,
have paid attention to the patterns of dispossession and environmental degradation engendered by exploitation of natural resources, from the Amazon
(Hecht & Cockburn, 1989; Schmink & Wood, 2010) to Southeast Asia (Barney, 2009; Tsing, 2011), from the Niger Delta (Watts, 2004) to the Arctic
(Nuttall, 2010). Moore’s argument is built upon the same terrain but more
accurately focuses on the commodity chain, which is to say the “network
of labour and production processes whose end result is a finished commodity” (Hopkins & Wallerstein, 1986). These processes operate transnationally.
Therefore, global commodity chains go beneath and beyond state jurisdictions. The KRG case itself is emblematic of interconnections between substate and global dynamics.
Another general consideration to be made is that the coercive disengagement
from local ecologies and livelihoods at the frontiers of capitalism by means of

100 The gate to statehood

extractive industries goes hand in hand with replacement and replenishment
of local systems of knowledge and rule (Tsing, 2011). This means that “as new
types of resource commodification emerge, institutional orders are sometimes
undermined or erased outright, and sometimes ‘taken apart’ and then reinterpreted, reinvented, and recycled” (Rasmussen & Lund, 2018: 2). Commodity
enclosures do not only extract economic value out of appropriated land and
alienate that value to local population but also end up overturning institutions
and norms embedded in land – from property rights to political jurisdictions.
Rasmussen and Lund provide an insightful understanding of these two-faced
“frontier dynamics,” which dissolve existing social orders and territorialise new
ones at once. In their view, frontier spaces are seen as “transitional, liminal
spaces in which existing regimes of resource control are suspended” (ibidem: 1).
The transformation of Kurdish society upon the extractive imperative is in tune
with such intuition.
Read in conjunction with global energy trends, the concept of commodity
frontier is therefore helpful to understand that hydrocarbon reserves have vested
the KRG with sought-after qualities that international traders and importing
countries look for. On their side, Kurdish elites encouraged the opening up of
a frontier at a steady pace with the purpose of outsourcing political autonomy
to global market demand. It should be borne in mind that investors are more
permissive than state chancelleries in engaging with sub-state entities: strained
political relations with the central government are part of a risk investment
assessment and may actually ease profitable opportunities for business operators. Kurdish elites took advantage of these incentives at the appropriate time
when the Iraqi state was near collapse. However, what happened after the referendum on independence shows the limits of relying on profit-oriented actors
to support the Kurdish cause to the extreme of full secession. This is nothing new: overconfidence on external patrons has dangerously characterised all
Kurdish history (McDowall, 2003).
The belief that political autonomy literally passes through energy routes is
well consolidated in the mindset of regional elites and is most likely to steer
the KRG trajectory in the foreseeable future as well. It is perhaps surprising
that Kurdish leaders are still firmly convinced that putting the KRG on the
energy map is the best way forward, notwithstanding a number of warnings.
As international recognition is crucial to Kurds’ survival, it could not have been
otherwise.
Petro populism

The toxic federal confrontation upon energy issues can be understood as deepseated antagonism between irreconcilable nationalisms locked in a stalemate.
This book focuses on the Kurdish side of the story only. Looking at the KRG
discourse, resource sovereignty mediates belonging to the homeland and territorialises rule by defending the existence of a pre-political jurisdiction, which
is figuratively inscribed in land and justifies subsequent claims of autonomy.

The gate to statehood 101

Oil ceases to be merely an object of struggle between central and regional
levels of government; rather, energy policies provide a terrain for the pursuit
of political legitimation. Furthermore, the so-called “Dubai dream” – the aspiration to making the Kurdish region a prosperous petro-state on the model
of oil monarchies in the Gulf – passed for a manifestation of national destiny.
The appropriation of hydrocarbons was presented by ruling elites as organic to
national existence, thus binding the nation-building process to the extractive
imperative. The exploitation of natural resources therefore became a national
right to be incorporated into the nationalist narrative. This ideological reconstruction of self-determination garnered acclaim amongst Kurds, not least
because it grabbed onto some cultural features of the Kurdish iconography such
as the lush mountainous landscape. That is where the processes of landscaping
and “mindscaping” (Whitehead, Jones, & Jones, 2007: 11) the nation meet.
However, a contradiction prevented the full transfiguration of the KRI into
an oil nation: extractivism created pockets of wealth that fuelled the exclusions of many. Despite its impact on the construction of nationhood, the oil
economy led to dismemberment, at times violent, of rural communities and
the explosion of social inequalities. As a result, the Dubai model has become
increasingly untenable over time. The following two chapters revolve around
this contradiction.
This paragraph explores, instead, the ideological foundation of KRG’s oil
nationalism, which links the narrative of national redemption to the abundance
of hydrocarbons. The extractive imperative championed by ruling elites frames
oil wealth as the shelter of Kurdish autonomy. Such imaginary was then used
to mobilise consent around the state-building endeavour. From the KDP angle,
it also served the purpose of gathering favour to Masoud Barzani’s leadership.
Beyond instrumental reasons, however, making the petroleum industry the
main source of income internalised deep assumptions about the right development model to pursue.
Arsel, Hogenboom, and Pellegrini refer to the extractive imperative as a
“broadened, deepened and self-sustained form of extractivism” (2016: 2). The
concept can be broken down into three ideological themes, which are central
in the developmental plans of many resource-based economies worldwide:
i) the belief that resource extraction is an indispensable stage to start up economic growth; ii) the identification of the state as the appropriate level of
governance for regulating extractive industries, in particular, and the economy,
in general; and iii) poverty reduction as a policy priority. The same elements
can be found in the KRG discourse. The goal of harnessing the vast geological
potential was unanimously considered to be the driving force for a povertystricken region to take off economically. Nevertheless, the resultant exceptional cash windfalls nourished a makeshift patrimonial welfare run by the two
major parties in place of proper redistributive policies. Diversification in other
sectors came out belatedly when falling oil prices hit the nerves of what had
been already restructured as a rentier economy. Booming double-digit growth
and unbridled urbanisation were soon betrayed by a rough downturn just as

102 The gate to statehood

quickly. The oil bonanza turned into a fairy tale for most Kurds, “and like
every fairy tale [into] a bit of a lie” to borrow again from Kapuscinski.
There is no doubt that the assertion of resource sovereignty has had a strong
imprint on the recent evolution of Kurdish self-determination in Iraq. Suffice
it to say that the very notion of citizenship was reoriented upon the extractive
imperative. A case in point is the Oil and Gas Law of the Kurdistan Region
(n. 22/2007) whose final provisions set out that a share of revenue would be
allocated for special purposes to the benefit of all citizens of Kurdistan, future
generations, and the families of martyrs.19 These general principles of revenue management were already delineated in full in an explanatory memorandum, which recognises “special moral obligations that the Kurdistan Region’s
petroleum wealth places on the KRG.”20 In greater detail, the memorandum
specified that 20% of future oil proceeds had to be allocated to the following
non-negotiable areas:
An annual cash dividend for citizens of the Kurdistan Region; a special
fund for the future to ensure that the Kurdistan Region has income when
the petroleum resources of the Kurdistan Region and Iraq are in decline; a
dividend for citizens who suffered greatly under the previous Iraqi regime;
funds to support the requirements of the Kurdistan Region’s ethnic and
religious minorities to provide their own social, cultural and governmental
services; and funds to restore the natural environment of the Kurdistan
Region.
Such provision shows that the setting up of a legislative framework for the
oil and gas sector was reflected in re-negotiating the conception of citizenship itself. The entitlement to a share of revenue, to be put “straight into the
pocket of the citizen” as stated in the memorandum, could not be clearer.
The oil rent returns to the people in the form of generous monetary subsidies
and sustained economic development. Furthermore, governance on national
natural resources is framed as the means to redress nearly a century of discrimination and earn a long-awaited sovereignty. In so doing, oil is translated into
a constitutive element of the national community. The KRG much indulged
in this rhetorical practice to give the regime international support and cultivate popular legitimacy,21 but petro-populism actually encouraged a vicious
cycle of unchecked government spending and rent-seeking behaviour that
were not conducive to poverty reduction and backlashed on the credibility
of ruling elites.
The notion of petro populism begs an explanation. In recent years, scholars
have resorted to it to illustrate the relationship between populist leadership
and public overspending in oil-producing countries (Parenti, 2005; Looney,
2007; Alizadeh & Hakimian, 2013; Lyall & Valdivia, 2019), without providing an in-depth conceptual discussion though. Matsen, Natvik, and Torvik
(2016) loosely define it as the economically excessive use of oil revenues to
buy political support, but the aspects emphasised in the definition (resource

The gate to statehood 103

over-extraction and the instrumental use of oil rent as political lever) say nothing about the ideological texture behind. Truth be told, populism is quite a
difficult concept to handle. Its multifaceted and chameleonic character, its heterogeneity over time and across space, and the prevalent negative connotation
in the common usage make it difficult to agree upon an unequivocal definition
(Tarchi, 2004). Whether a weak ideological manifesto (Mény & Surel, 2000;
Zanatta, 2002; Mudde, 2004), a political regime (Germani, 1978; Mair, 2002),
or a political style or mentality (Canovan, 1982, 1999; Taguieff, 2002), there is
no consensus on how to deal with the broad inventory of empirical phenomena that have been variously typified as populist.22
Such discordance has resulted in the abuse of a catch-all label of uncertain
content and with reduced analytical sharpness. Notwithstanding this, efforts to
find common traits have been made. Among others, Tarchi (2004) distinguishes
three core features: i) the idealisation of the people as a pure, homogeneous,
and organic community, which is morally superior to its various components;
ii) the opposition against a number of enemies; and iii) a message of reassurance to heal the wounds inflicted upon the community. These keep together
protest (the reaction against the moral decay or social disintegration of a natural
order) and identity (the reinstatement of a common good in the rightful place).
Populists sense community as a cohesive and undifferentiated totality, regardless
of class or ideological divisions. On the contrary, those who are not in line with
the values upon which the community is traditionally built are represented as
threats to its unity and integrity – be they a ruling elite that betrayed the popular mandate, immigrants, conspirators of various kinds, or social groups inciting
class struggle (ibidem). Nevertheless, the “people” is not a given, but a fictional
plural entity that cannot be observed empirically. Claiming to speak on behalf
of the people is rhetorically meant to mobilise masses and instil a feeling of
belonging. However, this happens in democracies and autocracies alike. Given
the many different referents it may have, the promiscuous appeal to the people
is therefore disorienting.
What does the “people” in the KRG discourse stand for? In my view, it does
not mean demos – the sovereign foundation of the polity from which political
legitimacy ensues, but rather ethnos – a timeless national community that has
firm roots in an ethnically defined homeland, relies upon forms of mechanical
solidarity, and needs to be protected against external enemies. In these terms,
the primacy of the people leans on a plebiscitary (if not caesarist) vision of
political representation that places national destiny on the shoulders of the two
hegemonic political parties. In fact, if considered in the limited sense of a symbolic register, the KRG discourse might be seen as populist. However, as will
be described further on, the two-party rule established by Masoud Barzani and
Jalal Talabani more accurately resembles a demagogic autocracy, which took
some tentative steps towards democratisation. This makes it incompatible with
a strong version of the concept given that the will of the people tends to be
purely cosmetic in authoritarian settings without acting as an effective check
on the rulers. As Canovan puts it, “populism is a shadow cast by democracy

104 The gate to statehood

itself ” (1999: 3), despite the fact that its outspoken illiberal vocation has led
some scholars to associate it with peronism and other so-called national-populist
regimes in Latin America (Germani, 1978).
Notwithstanding this, I argue that petro-populism offers an adequate key to
interpret the ideological dimension of oil nationalism in the Kurdish enclave.
As the whole is more than the sum of its parts, the prefix “petro” is s not as selfevident as it may at first seem and needs to be taken into proper consideration.
Terry Karl’s The Paradox of Plenty (1997) is a milestone in the literature on
petro-states. With reference to Venezuela, she explains the malaise of boomand-bust cycles suffered by the country on the basis of the “petrolisation” of
state institutions. According to Karl, the cash flow of petrodollars from oil
sales has had overwhelming effects in that it redesigned the decision-making
apparatus, generated “specific types of social classes, organised interests, and
patterns of collective action,” and produced “a distinctive type of institutional
setting.” The economic dependence on oil exports goes deep into the very
structure of the state, rebalancing authority and reshaping its symbolic images.
The end result of petrolisation is often unfortunate: petro-states are equated
to a modern King Midas dying of starvation because of the greedy appetite
for black gold.
The institutional metamorphosis (or degeneration) to which Karl refers sheds
light on the fetishisation of petroleum in energy-intensive modern societies,
which keeps fuelling mighty fantasies of power and wealth. The concept of
commodity fetishism comes from the Marxist critique of value-form, according to which the exchange value of a commodity is not determined by its
use-value arising from intrinsic properties. This brings to mind Adam Smith’s
theory of value, a pillar of classical economics, and the famous comparison
between water and diamonds, which is discussed in Chapter 1 of this book.
Marx took it a step further by highlighting that in capitalist societies commodities are turned into fetishes “endowed with a life of their own” (1990: 165).
Taussig’s (2010) inquiry on everyday rituals in sugarcane plantations in the
Cauca Valley and tin mines around Oruno in Bolivia is a remarkable, recent
study on the fetishisation of natural resources. In his anthropological writings,
Taussig recounts that the symbolism of the devil was invoked by landless peasants
and miners alike with the hope of increases in production and, consequently, in
their wages.23 Many scholars have similarly pointed out the mysticism embodied
in petroleum-derived products. Fernando Coronil’s (1997) ethnography of the
Venezuelan state along the bumpy road of oil-led “magical” transformation during the 1970s is a widely cited example. In a thorough discussion over the fetishist qualities bestowed upon oil, Michael Watts comments that Coronil “illustrates
the importance and the mystification of natural resources in the modern world”
(2004: 53): oil, in particular, is coveted as a treasure to jump-start development
and achieve unprecedented power (“a harbinger of El Dorado”) on the one
hand; and cursed as a deceptive and evil temptation (“the devil’s excrement,” to
use the more colourful statement of Juan Pablo Pérez Alfonso, the Venezuelan
co-founder of OPEC) on the other hand.

The gate to statehood 105

These resource imaginaries spread across extractive peripheries in oilproducing areas craving for economic growth at the frontiers of capitalist
expansion but equally resonate in metropolitan cores. The “American way of
life,” with its exceptionalist hubris and the imagination of free spaces, is precisely constructed through a repertoire of symbols (open roads, cars, and gasoline stations) entailing “access to and control over cheap gasoline as a natural,
commonsensical right” (Huber, 2009). Huber suggests that the seemingly endless consumption of fossil fuel has long guided the US security strategy and also
defined the American culture at large. From Edwin Drake’s first oil discovery in
Pennsylvania in 1859 to the latter-day “Drill, baby, drill!” slogan, the history of
petroleum and the US political culture have been inextricably bound together.
Taken to an extreme, oil shaped the very cult of individual mobility and commanded the openness of the multilateral trading system, which represent a key
feature of the American self and a durable postulate of the overseas projection
of the country, respectively. This is hardly an exaggeration when considering
that the US alone burns about half of all gasoline on the planet and accounts
for almost 20% of world’s energy consumption. These few examples tell us that
the influence of “petro-cultures” (Wilson, Carlson, & Szeman, 2017) on dominant social imaginaries has been pivotal and pervasive throughout the 20th
century. Nevertheless, this influence frequently goes unnoticed, concealed by
the fetishisation of oil. Put differently, the petro-culture we live in makes us
oblivious to the systematic presence of petroleum products in everyday life
and dissociates commodification processes from consumption patterns (Black,
2014). Such cognitive dissonance is displayed by the lack of resolve on effective
mitigation measures to counter the climate change, by the way. Despite these
mimetic manifestations, petroleum triggers a dazzling symbolic universe that
mesmerises political visions.
The loop closes here. Petro populism is one possible outcome of the interaction between politics and resource imaginaries. More precisely, in my understanding, petro populism denotes an ideological scheme that i) inserts oil
wealth into the re-imagining of the nation, ii) provides a sense of organic unity
between natural entitlements and national ethos, and iii) tightens the manifested destiny of the community upon a gift of nature. Applied to the present
study, petro-populism gives a solution to the overarching Kurdish question
insofar as it pledges to solve the issue of statelessness. Moreover, it brings a
reconciling message against the perils of modernisation, though the ramifications of hydrocarbon exploitation have actually engendered even more severe
forms of social exclusion. On the surface, this discourse appears to be a tool in
the hands of the oligarchy. At a closer look, it rather intercepts a widespread
cross-class mindset channelling political competition and social demands. Even
though Kurdish factions are not in full agreement about the way the oil and
gas sector should be managed, the extractive imperative is not disputed indeed.
The region is imagined as “blessed” because of its natural resources. As a KRG
high official told me: “if the Greater Kurdistan were united politically, it would
be the richest state in the Middle East by virtue of its copious raw materials.”24

106 The gate to statehood

Although such a patriotic argument is well rooted in popular imagination, in
point of fact the oil wealth is dis-embedded from the local economy and tied to
transnational capital. For this reason, the dominant petro-populist discourse has
been resisted by sections of the population, as illustrated in Chapter 5.
The same ideological dimension features prominently in the literature on
resource nationalism, especially in Latin America. For instance, Perrault and
Valdivia emphasise that “political economy and cultural politics are inseparable
in resource conflicts, as contests over the distribution of rents and the objectives of national economic policy are infused with struggles over the meanings
of development, citizenship and the nation itself ” (2010: 697). In an another
work, Valdivia (2008) uses the notion of “petro-citizenship” to explain that
petroleum delimits the perimeter of political subjectivity in Ecuador given that
natural resource governance mediates relations between state institutions and
the citizenry. A number of similar studies on the energy-informed formation of
spatial identities were already reviewed in the opening chapter.
Back to the Kurdish case, it should not be forgotten that the framing of oil as
national good harkens back to a collective memory of oppression. In the memorandum of the Oil and Gas Law, cash dividends are explicitly linked to the hardship suffered by “the many Kurdistanis whose lives were unjustly damaged as a
result of the genocide, war and terrorism of the Saddam regime.” Even more than
a promise of future prosperity, oil wealth is therefore conjured up in terms of
restoration of violated rights. Although the final version softened the aforementioned passage (which remained dead letter much like many other provisions), the
proposal of delivering a monthly cheque of about 500–1,000 USD to every family in Kurdistan was showcased again by PM Nechirvan Barzani during the 2013
parliamentary elections campaign, at a time when the KDP was already criticised
in public for the accumulation of revenues in party coffers (Hawlati, 2013), and
on several other occasions. Once again intentions were a long way away from
actual deeds, but that electoral trope showed that, in the short space of a few years,
the extractive imperative had become part of the Kurdish political culture.

Chokepoints
To sum up previous paragraphs, since the regime change in Baghdad oil has
backed, Kurdish renewed aspirations for political autonomy by granting a seat
amongst global energy suppliers. Despite strained federal relations, the KRG
managed to increase its legitimacy on the sudden and unprecedented economic
growth triggered by crude exports. On the one hand, the energy gamble won
the acquiescence of importing countries. On the other hand, the oil dream
influenced the reproduction of Kurdish collective identity itself by re-negotiating
belonging to the national community and re-territorialising ethno-national
claims to sovereignty. The flipside of it was resentment towards the central government, whereby both Erbil and Baghdad began exchanging mutual accusations over land and oil grabs in disputed territories. Although riding on the
groundswell of historical ethnic distrust, oil has stirred up acrimony further.

The gate to statehood 107

For all the importance identity formation has for this work, the discussion
would be incomplete without taking into account what Gavin Bridge calls
“the materialities of oil” (2010: 315), meaning the geographical, infrastructural,
and commercial conditions in which oil is produced and marketed. Some of
them were already mentioned, such as the landlocked position and the related
strategic importance of the Kurdish pipeline. “Geography is our main adversary,” Minister Falah Mustafa Bakir agreed. We were sitting on opposite golden
leaf sofas, as opulent as uncomfortable, in a large hall inside the Department of
Foreign Relations. The Minister emphasised that the landlocked issue had been
already broken by the evolution of geopolitical dynamics and savvy adjustments
to a mercurial landscape. There may be different opinions on whether those
adjustments hit the spot or not, but what is certain is that when Iraq plunged
into ethno-sectarian turmoil after the removal of Saddam Hussein, the KRG
was given new credentials. The void of power encouraged foreign countries to
reach out to Erbil without going through Baghdad,25 hard-pressed by the desire
of carving new areas of influence. For its part, the KRG actively supported
those intents by presenting itself to the international community as a beacon of
hope in midst of chaos – a safe, stable, and business-friendly proto-state at the
crossroads of Middle East, blessed with plentiful, untapped natural resources.
Or more concisely, the “Other Iraq,” as the KRG advertises.26 One could argue
that the turbulent post-referendum scenario puts into question the reliability of
such a strategy. Nevertheless, Minister Bakir shared a different interpretation:
We were not expecting Iran and Turkey to be so aggressive against us
because we thought we had assured our neighbours that the referendum
was not against them. However, both countries kept their consul generals
here. Even more importantly, Turkey did not close the border, nor shut
the pipeline. Had they done so, it would have been a disaster, but there
was an understanding that the sanctions already in place were enough to
send a message. After all, it was mutually beneficial because Turkey benefits
from what we have: oil and gas in the first place, but there are also about a
thousand Turkish companies active in Kurdistan nowadays. Therefore, the
pipeline remains the soft channel to keep relations open.
(Interview #41)
The statement tends to exaggerate Kurdish leverage vis-à-vis neighbours given
that it does not take into consideration the uncertain financial standing and
decreasing oil production capacity. By reading between the lines of the extract,
some other elements come to light. These are discussed in what follows.
International traders and clandestine routes

Ashti Hawrami would certainly agree that international traders have played a
vital role for the KRG’s oil policy to work. As seen, independent oil sales put
a landlocked sub-state regional government on the more malleable map of

108 The gate to statehood

energy trade. This never would have happened without the collaboration of
international trading houses, which have been keeping the ailing economy of
the region afloat with cash-for-crude prepayments since 2014. Since the KRG
in not entitled to secure international loans to encourage capital investment
(Natali, 2010), in the absence of federal allocations, upfront payments negotiated with oil traders became “the most important single metric of the KRG’s
financial health as a de-facto fiscally independent government” (Osgood,
2018). Although data on crude sales are opaque at best due to their high sensitivity, the three major purchasers combined (Vitol, Glencore, and Trafigura)
are rumoured to have loaned about 3.5 billion USD (Financial Times, 2017).
Furthermore, trading companies rose to prominence as crucial commercial
intermediaries to move and trade Kurdish barrels. Given legal disputes and
political tensions with Baghdad, there was actually no guarantee that exports
would ever reach destination. During 2014, the tanker United Kalavryta, which
carried more than 1 million barrels of oil, was stuck 60 miles off the coast of
Texas for six months before sailing back to the Mediterranean due to the fact
that the Iraqi central government filed a court case in a U.S. District Court
(Reuters, 2014a). Earlier that year, another tanker had not been allowed to
discharge oil at the Moroccan port of Mohammedia. Baghdad hired Vinson &
Elkins, one of the most authoritative international law firms with an expertise in the energy industry, to pursue buyers of Kurdish crude. That action
of disturbance to ward off KRG’s customers seemed to be working at first.
The Greek shipping company Marine Management Services was sued by the
Iraqi government for “its willing and active participation in the KRG’s illegal
crude oil export scheme” (Reuters, 2014b). However, Kurdish barrels never
remained stranded in Ceyhan but found their way through clandestine channels
and thanks to the world’s largest trading firms operating in the energy markets.
Kurds were new to the game, as candidly admitted by Hawrami (Reuters,
2015). The MNR Minister himself had no direct experience in trading oil shipments. His expertise was confined to the upstream segment of the value chain,
which fundamentally means extracting crude out of the ground. Therefore, the
MNR relied on external agents to actually implement the export phase. One
of them in particular, Murtaza Lakhani, became the dealmaker who opened the
doors of global oil trade. The former trader of Glencore in Iraq, in the early
2000s, Lakhani got busted for paying over 1 million USD illegal surcharges
to Saddam Hussein’s government outside the UN-administered Oil-for-Food
Programme. When in 2014 the question of how to access market arose amongst
Kurds, Lahkani positioned himself as the ideal middleman and offered his services. He quite literally walked the MNR through the nuts and bolts of the
industry by providing them with a framework of what was commercially acceptable for shipping companies and by putting his book of contacts to good use.
Hawrami trusted him so much that Lakhani handled banking transactions with
trading giants such as Rosneft and Vitol and transferred hundreds of millions
of dollars through his company’s account on behalf of the MNR (Bloomberg,
2020). He was basically running the whole show. And still is.

The gate to statehood 109

This made it possible for Kurdish cargoes to be lifted in the Turkish port of
Ceyhan on a regular basis. Crude oil tankers usually go offline once in international waters to fool SOMO’s tracking; then cargoes are either unloaded at the
Israeli port of Ashkelon or loaded on different vessels offshore Malta via shipto-ship transfers to reach refineries in Europe. In February 2018, for instance,
the Malta flagged Valtamed first delivered 300,000 barrels to Greece and then
went off the grid eventually reappearing in Israeli waters to make another
delivery. These shady shipping routes help disguise final buyers. Israel is a busy
mid-point for selling oil worldwide out of sight of Baghdad. After all, Iraq does
not have diplomatic relations with Israel and this circumstance prevents legal
actions against KRG cargoes, which thus fall into a cone of shadow. Moreover,
Israel is a large and convenient market to the extent that about three-quarters
of the domestic energy demand is covered by Kurdish oil. Unsurprisingly, the
Netanyahu government was a lone voice in enthusiastically supporting the
independence referendum.
The journey of a barrel of crude is then quite informative of the commercial
relations that are in favour of KRG’s independent sales. Oil trading is a clandestine business with decoy ships, murky transactions, and straw buyers. On the
other hand, such conditions of dependency give traders power to dictate terms,
which does not amount to having a strong commercial position in the market.
With only a certain number of foreign investors willing to take risks and no
spare wells left, the KRG was in dire straits and slipped into borrowing funds
from private lenders to cover current expenditure at an unsustainable pace. The
net result was an expanding debt estimated in 4 billion USD. When the KRG
lost the oilfields in Kirkuk and some 300,000 bpd went up in smoke overnight,
the MNR requested trading houses to re-negotiate their obligations, which in
addition had been sealed at high oil prices. Despite backlogs, traders accepted
but set the terms of the new arrangements. With IOCs having billions of USD
worth of projects underway, traders will not walk away from the region, but
what is owed to will be paid at some point and this shrinks the range of options
for the cash-strapped regional government. That also reverberates back into the
political sphere. The KDP-dominated MNR drew a veil of secrecy over renegotiations not to let PUK and opposition parties’ exact data about the debit
position of the regional government. As discussed in the following chapter,
opacity strengthens the lack of accountability in the sector.
Notwithstanding his mastery of deal making, Minister Hawrami could not
win over the rocky geology of Kurds’ beloved mountains, which turned out to
be more difficult to tame and less profitable to exploit than originally expected.
On the one side, the mountainous terrain raised extractive costs and discouraged new drillings in remote areas; on the other side, downward estimates
about recoverable reserves from producing fields impacted on commercial
prospects. Far from initial optimism, falling profits and unsatisfactory discoveries have led to diminished investments in recent years. Between 2014 and 2016,
IOCs relinquished 19 exploration blocks (Iraqi Oil Report, 2016): ExxonMobil pulled out from Arbat East, Betwata, and Qara Hanjer while also scaling

110 The gate to statehood

down operations in al-Qush, Pirmam, and Bashiqa; Chevron walked away from
Rovi; Total abandoned both Baranan and Safeen. Likewise, minor companies
(such as Genel Energy, Repsol, TEC, KNOC, Marathon, Hess, Gulf Keystone,
and MOL) followed suit. The lack of infrastructures, debt arrears, plummeting
oil prices, water saturation of reservoir rocks, and the downgrading of reserves
in some fields (e.g. Taq Taq) were amongst the main reasons given by operators
(Mills, 2016), besides the tumultuous political scenario amid the ISIS insurgency and the Erbil-Baghdad row.27 Seen in this light, the economic lifeline of
the KRG seems to be rather frayed and precarious.
External patrons

The entrance of Rosneft was a turn of events. Since February 2017, the Russian state-owned company has struck a series of pre-financed deals with the
KRG. An initial off-take contract for the purchase and sale of crude evolved
into a stronger investment agreement signed in June 2017 and then complemented with additional deals in September, just a couple of weeks before
the referendum. As a result, Rosneft became the majority shareholder of the
Khurmala–Fish Kabur pipeline by buying $1.8 billion stocks (which amount
to about 60% of the share value), raised the effective carrying capacity of conduit to 1 million bpd, began the development of five exploration blocks (Batil,
Darato, Qasrok, Zawita, and Harir-Bejil) that other operators had relinquished,
and committed to expand the regional infrastructures with a gas pipeline that is
intended to export up to 30 billion cubic metres (bcm) per year to Turkey (and
from there to the European markets through the Southern Gas Corridor) by
2020. The aggregate value of such investments signals a long-term engagement
alongside the Kurds. This is in line with renewed Russian stakes in the Middle
East, which became apparent with the military intervention in the Syrian civil
war. Amid mounting skirmishes after the independence referendum held by
the KRG, it is worthy of note that President Putin warned about the inconvenient consequences that the disruption of oil exports from the Kurdish enclave
would cause on the energy markets, whereas Western countries fell back on
more cautious stances.
The Russian footprint is further substantiated by the desire to lay hands on
disputed oilfields in Kirkuk. Hours after the ISF took over the city and ousted
Peshmerga, the Iraqi Minister of Oil Jabar al-Luaibi revived old contacts with
BP to re-develop oil production under federal control, despite the serious constraint of not having an operative export route. However, the circumstance
that BP owns 19.75% of Rosneft share capital and that, in turn, the Russian
energy giant owns the Kurdish pipeline soothed oppositions against the contracts independently approved in Erbil, thus setting favourable conditions for
the resumption of exports through the Kurdish-controlled northern route. The
CEO, Igor Sechin, acted as a mediator in Baghdad (Reuters, 2018b). When
the state-building endeavour was falling apart in tatters, Rosneft supported the
KRG financially with some $4 billion, establishing itself as the first investor by

The gate to statehood 111

far in the region, and also politically by acting as influential third party in the
head-to-head against the central government. Not least, the Russian backing
restored a piece of reputation in the eyes of international markets. Whilst trading houses seek profit margins, the Russian assistance follows the more traditional rationale of power projection. Generally speaking, it might be argued
that the strategic exposure of state actors is less uncertain and more durable
than the interests of private firms, whose convenience may swing and vanish
rapidly.
The argument looks compelling when considering the relationship with
Turkey and the price Barzani’s upper cadres agreed to pay for market access.
Dependence on Turkey was seen as an acceptable risk for the purpose of solidifying economic discontinuity with the rest of Iraq. The partnership seemed to
be at odds with history given Turkish repression of brethren in Bakur, but Erbil
had no other outlet to disengage exports from the Iraqi federal infrastructure.
Accordingly, the KRG was savvy in not provoking Turkey into reaction while
stepping up self-rule in northern Iraq, until the referendum at least. Barzani
spent much effort to drop suspicions about potential repercussions to internal
affairs, especially with the raging of the Syrian civil war against the southern
Anatolian border, which historically is considered as the bulwark of Turkey’s
territorial integrity. The KRG stood back from the Kurdish insurgency in
northern Syria and turned a blind eye on Turkish anti-PKK raids over the
Qandil Mountains. Moreover, Ankara was offered the opportunity to retain
a strategic presence in Iraq at a moment in which relations with the Shi’a-led
governments in Baghdad were deteriorating because of Iranian influence. At
the same time, President Erdoğan took advantage of the alliance with Masoud
Barzani to delegitimise the PKK.
A number of factors encouraged the Turkish gradual rapprochement towards
the KRG (Tol, 2014). From an energy perspective, unexploited oil and gas
reserves in the autonomous region came in handy for pursuing energy diversification in view of a rising domestic demand, which was mainly met with
Russian and Iranian supplies (Morelli & Pischedda, 2014). It is noteworthy
that the KRG signed the first PSC ever with the Turkish companies Petoil and
Genel Energy in 2002. Saddam Hussein was still in power. Successive deals
between Barzani’s KDP and Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party created
the framework of the KRG–Turkey relationship. From 2010 onwards, President Masoud Barzani was welcomed several times with the honours befitting
a head of state and with the Kurdish flag flying alongside the Turkish and Iraqi
ones. The “friendship pipeline” evolved into an even closer partnership with a
50-year-long energy agreement signed with the state-backed Turkish Energy
Company (TEC) in November 2013. The agreement has never been disclosed
publicly. It is highly likely that former PM Nechirvan Barzani and former
MNR Minister Ashti Hawrami28 are the only KRG members with full knowledge of the terms. This policy-making happened in a very close circle around
the Barzani family and bilateral protocols have thus remained confidential, as
further demonstration of a patrimonial rule.

112 The gate to statehood

There is no doubt that the deal was a milestone achievement. Since 2011,
TEC had been teaming up with ExxonMobil in their exploration blocks. The
2013 agreement laid the groundwork for a full-fledged and enduring collaboration, which provided Ankara with considerable dividends: a preferential share
of exports at a discounted price, easy access to unexploited gas resources (with
the Miran and Bina Bawi fields currently being developed by the Anglo-Turkish
Genel Energy), transit fees levied on shipments from Ceyhan, and plans for
expanding the pipeline with further branches. Furthermore, a 2.5 billion USD
bilateral trade volume, which is utterly skewed towards the massive import of
goods from Turkey, and the transfer of oil revenues via Turkish banks complete
the picture.
Notwithstanding this, the geopolitical aspect of it has very much impacted
on the health of Kurdish politics. The inauguration of the Khurmala–Fish Khabur pipeline reversed the scenario in favour of Erbil, but this is not without
risks given that Turkey has the capacity of breaking the thin bottleneck of the
oil-based economy at any time. The KRG relies on its neighbour not only for
crude shipments but also for imports of food and goods, let alone an estimated $4
billion debt to be paid off (Bloomberg, 2017). Such precarious reliance on an
external patron also implied deepening internal divisions given that the PUK
has been historically close to Iran. Moreover, the Barzani–Erdoğan alliance
undermined pan-Kurdish solidarity. The KRG has been careful in distancing
from Kurdish national mobilisations in other host countries in order to not
alienate international support.29 After all, after Iraqi Kurds inked “yes” (often
with a drop of blood) on the ballot for independence in September 2017, Turkey, Iran, and Iraq took coordinated countermeasures to cripple secessionist
temptations. President Erdoğan, in particular, got to the point of threatening
the closure of the Khurmala–Ceyhan pipeline. At the same time, Baghdad
resumed the dialogue with both Ankara and Teheran to plan additional conduits from Kirkuk in a move to shut Erbil out. Although any infrastructural
project would require years to become operational, the landlocked condition
came back to the fore.
In conclusion, these chokepoints tell where the short-termism of Kurdish leaders comes from. Dependency on external sponsors is seen as a necessary evil to maintain autonomy, whereas wariness toward any form of
arrangement with the central government imparts centrifugal forces to federal relations. These considerations leave a series of questions unanswered.
For one thing, future oil sales might not be enough to pay back obligations
to creditors. Even when there are no more loans to be repaid or debt to be
refinanced, at current oil prices, the KRG will be break-even at best, without being able to generate income. In short, the oil dream seems to have
dragged the region to the bottom of explosive contradictions. This requires
an in-depth analysis of how the history of the two ruling dynasties came to
be intertwined with oil politics. After all, the goal of autonomy voiced on
the surface has often concealed the agendas of hegemonic Kurdish parties
underneath.

The gate to statehood 113

Notes
1 The map is included at the end of the book.
2 The concept of place and the relationship between place and self are central in human
geography, although according to divergent sensibilities and traditions of thought that
are not reviewed in the present work. The phenomenological notion adopted here,
for instance, does not take into consideration the debate around the “time-space
compression” of late modernity (Harvey, 1989) and the progressive re-articulation
of place at the time of globalization (Massey, 1994), which nevertheless would be
relevant for a full understanding of Kurdishness given the large and heterogeneous
diaspora.
3 Martyrdom is worshipped all across the Greater Kurdistan. Koefoed (2017) sees the cult
of martyrs as an act of emotional resistance that is part of everyday lives in Bakur (North
Kurdistan).
4 Fischer Tahir investigated how Kurds dealt with the narration of al-Anfal and noted an
interesting shift in the gendered symbolism used in the Kurdish nationalist discourse: in
order to grieve the defeat of brave Peshmerga, typically portrayed as protectors of Kurdish rights, “the ruling parties introduced the image of rural women dressed in black,
mourning the fate of their disappeared husbands and sons” (Fischer-Tahir, 2012: 93).
Women who survived persecutions later rejected this imaginary already in early 1990s:
“they organized their social lives and constructed counter-narratives that incorporated
the complicity of former regime supporters” (ibidem: 94). For a gender-sensitive reconstruction of the al-Anfal aftermath through women’s memories, see also the excellent
book by Choman Hardi (2016).
5 Furthermore, top-down discourses are sometimes resisted by subaltern discourses (Till,
2003). Nicole Watts (2012) takes the destruction of the Halabja Martyrs Monument
following the killing of a young protester by police forces in March 2006 as a powerful
example of elite-mass tensions. The memorial was built as a sacred place to commemorate the 1988 devastating chemical bombardment, which is emblematic of Ba’athist
repression. Nevertheless, the KRG official representation of the Halabjan martyrdom
overshadows local memories that recriminate a complicity of PUK leaders, blamed by
some for having put the lives of Halabja residents at risk. On the backdrop of grievances
and historical inconsistencies, when anti-government protests stormed, the Sulaymaniyah governorate during 2006 protesters chose that site to raise demands and mobilize
shame against the KRG.
6 According to the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) and Cluster Munition Coalition’s (CMC) Landmine and Cluster Munition Monitor, around 1000 square
kilometres in Iraq are contaminated by tons of unexploded antipersonnel mines and
cluster munition remnants (ICBL-CMC, 2018). Such a legacy tells the different phases
of a prolonged state of warfare across the country: from repression of Kurdish revolts
in the 1970s, to the Iraq–Iran war throughout the 1980s, until the First Gulf War and
ensuing civil war between Kurdish factions during the 1990s. Since the end of 2013, a
total of 13,423 mine casualties in the KRI have been recorded. Despite the declining
rate of victims, the psychological, social, and economic impact of landmines on affected
communities is severe (Heshmati & Khayyat, 2015).
7 “O city of black gold, / this flame of yours does not have a hearth / as though your insides
burned/ blazingly, bursting forth from a closed heart / that complains with tongues
of flame superiorly / and the superiority of the complainers is the greatest glory /
and it draws with the lights the clearest picture / of what grief and rebellion it suffers”
(Bashir Mustafa, Al-Nar al-Khalida, 1958; as translated in Bet-Shlimon, 2012).
8 A series of maps illustrating the energy infrastructure and licensed blocks inside the KRI
are available on the MNR website at: http://archive.gov.krd/mnr/mnr.krg.org/index.
php/en/oil/oil-maps.html
9 Here is the link of the event: www.cwckiog.com/

114 The gate to statehood
10 “There is no hard line drawn somewhere that says this is KRG controlled territory and
these are disputed territories, it is all gray areas. . . . We provide the security; administratively we run the towns and villages in that area. It is and has always been under control
of KRG, under our security” (quoted in Lando, 2007).
11 President Carter made explicit the doctrine that bears his name in January 1980 by
warning that any threat to oil seaborne trade in the Middle East would be considered
a threat to US national interests. Zbigniew Brzezinski, then National Security Adviser,
formulated that passage as follows: “An attempt by any outside force to gain control of
the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United
States of America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including
military force” (State of the Union Address, 21 January 1980). In fact, the preservation
of the status quo in the Middle East was a strategic principle that President Truman
had already laid down in 1947 as a corollary of the programmatic support to “the free
peoples of the world,” at a time when the two power blocks of the Cold War were thickening (Address of the President to Congress, 12 March 1947). However, the emphasis
placed by Carter was prompted by the series of watershed events that in 1979 changed
the rules of engagement with the region: the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the Iranian
revolution, the takeover of the Grand Mosque in Mecca by Islamist opponents to the
House of Saud, and the start of Saddam Hussein’s presidency in Iraq with the bloody
purge among the higher ranks of the Ba’ath Party.
12 With the Kurdistan Region Financial Compensation Law (n. 5/2013), the KRG had
granted itself the authorization to sell oil in the event of unpaid dues from the federal
government.
13 This is the reason why, while withdrawing from Kirkuk almost without firing a shot
during the convulsive night of 16 October 2017, KDP Peshmerga fought off the ISF 40
kilometres south of Fish Khabur, before reaching a truce. Although an escalation would
have implied a violation of the autonomous region, the military attack demonstrated the
vital role of having access to the border crossing.
14 Interview n. 39
15 By way of example, see MNR (2015).
16 Although relevant variations can be found in the KPD and PUK positions with regard
to federal relations, it should be noted the consistency of the oil discourse over time and
along the political spectrum. The then PM of KRG and senior PUK member Barham
Salih said in 2010: “Some look at the Oil and Gas Law as a Kurdish demand. But let me
tell my Iraqi brother in Basra and my people in Baghdad, al-Ramadi, and other places,
that seven years after the fall of the regime, our oil production and exports continue to
be very low. . . . We are producing 100,000 barrels per day and these are being exported.
This is the oil of the Iraqis and not our oil. It belongs to all Iraqis. The revenues are not
deposited in Kurdistan’s account but in the Iraqi treasury. Each barrel of oil that is not
exported is a loss for Iraq.” (quoted in Al Iraqiya, 2010)
17 Mentioned in the Capital with reference to human-nature relations “as mediated by the
labor process” (Healy & Walter, 2013: 38), social metabolism is a key concept in ecological economics. It conceptualizes the economy “in terms of flows of energy and materials” (Martinez-Alier, 2009: 64) and draws attention on how industrial societies have
reproduced through increasing demand of raw materials (see also Fischer-Kowalski &
Haberl, 1993).
18 Rosa Luxemburg’s diagnosis is still appropriate to highlight that the unrestricted
exploitation of nature is a material requirement of capital accumulation: “Thus, if it
were dependent exclusively, on elements of production obtainable within such narrow limits, its present level and indeed, its development in general would have been
impossible. From the very beginning, the forms and laws of capitalist production aim to
comprise the entire globe as a store of productive forces. Capital, impelled to appropriate productive forces for purposes of exploitation, ransacks the whole world, it procures

The gate to statehood 115

19
20
21
22
23

24
25

26
27
28

29

its means of production from all corners of the earth, seizing them, if necessary by
force, from all levels of civilization and from all forms of society. The problem of the
material elements of capitalist accumulation, far from being solved by the material
form of the surplus value that has been produced, takes on quite a different aspect.
It becomes necessary for capital progressively to dispose ever more fully of the whole
globe, to acquire an unlimited choice of means of production, with regard to both
quality and quantity, so as to find productive employment for the surplus value it has
realized. The process of accumulation, elastic and spasmodic as it is, requires inevitably free access to ever new areas of raw materials in case of need, both when imports
from old sources fall or when social demand suddenly increases.” (quoted in Moore,
2000: 430).
Oil and Gas Law of the Kurdistan Region – Iraq, Law No. (22), 2007; see, in particular,
Chapter 17 and art. 57.
Explanatory Memorandum for the Draft Petroleum Act of the Kurdistan Region of
Iraq, KRG Council of Ministers, 22 October 2006, p. 9.
It is worthy of note that the discursive register in Baghdad was not different in kind. In
February 2016, for instance, the Iraqi PM Haider al-Abadi offered to pay the salaries of
KRG civil servants in exchange for handing over oilfields in Kirkuk.
For a more comprehensive and accurate overview of the concept, see Chiapponi
(2012).
Taussig interprets devil-beliefs not as manifestations of “desire for material gain,” but
rather as a collective opposition against the proletarisation of indigenous communities
and the process of alienation it arouses. In other words, the reinterpretation of esoteric
symbols is a reaction to the destructive forces that supplanted traditional livelihoods and
beliefs: “the devil represents not merely the deep-seated changes in the material conditions of life but also the changing criteria in all their dialectical turmoil of truth and
being with which those changes are associated – most especially the radically different
concepts of creation, life, and growth through which the new material conditions and
social relations are defined” (2010: 17).
Interview #17.
As a former Minister noted while commenting on the growing confidence of KRG
leadership: “They [regional and global powers] would appease Baghdad. They would
make a phone call, but they are not waiting for permission; they are just informing.”
Interview #9
See the website of the campaign at: www.theotheriraq.com/
Chevron, for instance, halted drilling operations in Sarta in October 2017 due to the
stand-off between ISF and Peshmerga after the referendum and resumed them in February 2018 (Reuters, 2018a).
Involved in a series of corruption scandals, Ashti Hawrami left his post at the MNR
in July 2019 to be appointed as PM Masrour Barzani’s Assistant for Energy Affairs.
In such a capacity, Hawrami will be joining the Regional Council for Oil and Gas
Affairs as an additional member, which raises doubts about the relinquishment of an
executive role.
Although the KRG policies put a distance with the rest of Kurdistan, it would be
simplistic and inaccurate to ascribe the lack of pan-Kurdish nationalism to the agenda
devised in Erbil. In point of fact, no Kurdish reality can lift itself out of the host
country. From time to time, this circumstance has resulted in divergent alliances with
regional powers. The pragmatic and fluid re-composition of national movements inside
such narrow space is at odds with the image of the Greater Kurdistan. Rather than
the frequently evoked metaphor of toppling dominoes, Kurdish mobilizations across
the region resemble more the one of communicating vessels: containers of different
ideological shapes and political directions, though filled with a shared sense of ethnic
belonging.

116 The gate to statehood

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4

A nation divided
Kurdish infighting and black gold

The unredeemed Kurdish nation has a fissure at its heart that rises from deeprooted antagonism between two long-governing dynasties fighting for its soul.
The KRI is divided into two mirrored political constituencies: the KDP-held
“yellow zone” encompassing the Erbil and Duhok governorates, and the PUKcontrolled “green zone” in the Sulaymaniyah one. If you drive from the fertile
mountains surrounding Sulaymaniyah to the dry plains of Erbil and stare at
the changing landscape unfolding out the window, there is almost a feeling
that the geography of power chromatically follows suit. As roadside banners
in green depicting PUK martyrs are replaced by corresponding KDP portraits
and logos in yellow, military checkpoints along the way draw borders between
competing areas of influence. The KDP–PUK division is more than the legacy
of the bloody civil war that wreaked havoc and despair during the 1990s, nor
does it reflect only the territorial partition ensuing from the power-sharing
agreement between the oligarchs. Beyond that, the two areas are also socialised
as containers of different values and different people. “Dry people in a dry
land,” a taxi driver from Sulaymaniyah so described his countrymen in Erbil
while we were on our way to the capital and had just passed Koya. Similar
mockeries are commonplace on both sides. Localism is everywhere, but the
relevance of these mutual collective perceptions in the ordinary language much
surprised me given the powerful Kurdistani identity uniting the region under
the “colourful flag” (alaya rengîn), whose burning golden sun pledges for the
long-wished independence of Kurdistan. It allowed me a glimpse into the fascinating complexity of Kurdish society.
In fact, the political division draws on long-time tribal structures and cultural attributes. Linguistically, for instance, KDP- and PUK-held territories are
characterised by the two main dialects spoken in the region: Bahdinani, a variation of Kurmanji, in the northwest and Soranî in the southeast, with several
other sub-dialects. Ideologically, the PUK has opposed KDP’s conservatism by
inserting Kurdish nationalism into a more progressive and Marxist inspired platform. To some extent, the ruling class has capitalised on these identity markers
in order to tighten party control over their heartlands. As a consequence, subregional political groupings have fuelled two different nation-building visions.
However, it would be misleading to portray the KDP–PUK feud as sociological
DOI: 10.4324/9781003161103-5

122 A nation divided

in nature or to exaggerate personal rivalries between leaders: as pointed out by
Leezenberg (2006), intra-Kurdish fighting has been instrumental in maintaining a war economy on which the survival of those in power is dependent. From
this perspective, it can be said that unity of purpose outweighs differences and
divisions. This chapter is devoted to illustrate the hegemony of ruling elites and
how this has been implicated with the creation of the oil and gas sector in the
Kurdish enclave.

A history of violence
The territorial configuration represents the traditional power bases of the two
dynastic ruling families: whilst the Barzanis enjoy a position of supremacy in
the western part of the region, the Talabanis are hegemonic in the eastern one,
though within a more volatile political environment. Military checkpoints and
patches on Peshmerga uniforms give substance to such division, which relies
upon mutual mistrust and enduring competition. The colours attached to each
zone come from party emblems. As said, chromatic differences do not go unnoticed: wearing yellow or green is a political statement, and every city and town
in the region is crammed with colourful party flags and logos. This visual overrepresentation is not limited to electoral campaigns but permanent in that it
makes party influence visible. Although both parties enjoy some electoral consent in the opposite zone, territorial control is not projected across the internal
boundary to comply with a tacit accord that has been in effect since 1992.1
The political regime consolidated in the Kurdish region is defined by the twoparty duopoly, which has roots in the tribal ascendancy of Barzani and Talabani’s
clans. Similar to Masoud Barzani, Jalal Talabani – fondly known as Mam Jalal
(Uncle Jalal) to his supporters – was heir to a family of sheiks belonging to the
Qadiri order. First under the mentorship of his father-in-law Ibrahim Ahmed,
Talabani then took the lead of the leftist wing within the KDP and eventually
founded the PUK in 1975 after the schism with the Barzani’s faction. The two
main Kurdish political organisations have competed against each other ever since,
at times very violently. Until the Gulf War, the common purpose of fighting
back the Iraqi army and acquiring national rights prevented inter-party rivalry
to plunge into full-blown warfare, which nevertheless broke out in May 1994.
Only two years earlier, the Kurdistan Front consisting of both KDP and
PUK had set up regional institutions and held the first regional elections under
the shield of the UN-mandated no-fly zone. Barzani and Talabani had agreed
upon the equal division of all ministerial posts according to a 50–50 formula
(Stansfield, 2003). As said in the previous chapter, international protection
offered Kurds the unprecedented chance of enjoying effective autonomy.
Although safe from bombing raids, skirmishes between the two major Kurdish
parties soon turned into open conflict. Coupled by a double blockade (the UN
embargo plus the closure of the region from the rest of the country), the fratricidal confrontation was overly destructive and left about 3,000 people dead
(Rogg & Rimscha, 2007). It is common saying that Kurds became their own

A nation divided 123

worst enemies, proving themselves unable to set down a constructive path to
self-determination. Intra-Kurdish animosity reached a point where opposition
against Baghdad was secondary, so much that the KDP forged a temporary
alliance with Saddam Hussein to drive the PUK out of Erbil in August 1996.
The US-brokered Washington Agreement in September 1998 ended a fouryear-long bloodbath. A sense of exasperation and external pressure had created
an environment for ceasefire, inducing the belligerants to bury the hatchet
and normalise relations. The consequence of the civil war was to cut regional
institutions in half: two different administrations, two separate territories, two
decision-making processes, and two judicial systems – each resembling Masoud
Barzani and Jalal Talabani’s fiefdoms. On the contrary, the ideological differences of the origins were no longer significant (Jüde, 2017). The division is
still there: despite the reunification in 2006, finances were not merged and
the parallel administration in Sulaymaniyah not dismantled. Therefore, nationbuilding was reintegrated in the process, albeit with a heavy burden to bear.
The fall of Saddam Hussein was the turning point that pushed Kurdish leadership to make the most of an opportunity that was far bigger than anything they
had had in terms of political influence and economic rewards. The moment was
then propitious to set controversies aside, and efforts to bring the two zones into
a unified structure were done. Although long-time rivals, KDP and PUK found
a ripe ground for cooperation, with the consequence, that party interests have
continued to bare more weight than the public one. It can be argued that the
KRG has served the primary purpose of intercepting and distributing financial
flows pouring in the region either via federal allocations or foreign investments,
thus leaving the two partners free to run the respective territories as they please.
A unitary stance was required to make a difference in Baghdad and negotiate with international players though. Accordingly, the bipartisan agreement
in 20062 expressed commitment to reactivate the unified government and deal
with federal issues on equal footing. The injection of petrodollars made such
byzantine pact to work – at least until oil prices remained high.
The alliance was later challenged by the rise of Gorran (Movement for Change),
which entered the Kurdistan National Assembly (KNA) in 2009 with an electoral
breakthrough that made it the second parliamentary bloc after the Kurdistani List
made up of KDP and PUK, thus establishing itself as the main contender of the
duopoly. The movement was founded by the charismatic Nawshirwan Mustafa,3
the Sulaymaniyah-born former leader of the Marxist-Leninist Komala that had
merged into the PUK and one of the initiators of the uprising against Saddam
Hussein in March 1991. At the subsequent elections in 2013, Gorran garnered 24
seats out of 111 and overtook the PUK (18 seats), which had presented its own list
for the first time, as the second biggest party in the parliament behind the KDP
(38 seats). Gorran ran on a vocal anti-corruption and reformist programme, winning a deluge of votes especially in the green zone at the expense of PUK.
However, Gorran’s electoral thrust was not a serious blow to the hegemony of
the twin dynasties. Given that real decision-making has continued to go through
KDP and PUK politburos bypassing ineffective representative institutions, the

124 A nation divided

entrance of a third major party did not undermine the traditional elites’ hold
on power. Suffice to think that when the opposition resisted Masoud Barzani’s
intention of deferring the presidential tenure in office, which was set to expire
in August 2015 after a two-year extension, Gorran’s four ministers were sacked
and the Speaker of Parliament, Yousif Mohammed Sadiq, was prevented from
entering Erbil by KDP forces (Iraqi Oil Report, 2015a). The KDP justified
the move by holding the movement responsible for the arson attacks against
party offices occurred throughout the Sulaymaniyah Governorate during three
days of rage over delayed salaries, though without evidence to substantiate any
involvement (Iraqi Oil Report, 2015b). Gorran had joined a short-lived government of national unity in June 2014 when the region was confronted with
the threat posed by ISIS. Although rewarded with key ministerial posts (Finance,
Peshmerga Affairs, Investment and Trade, and Religious Affairs) and the KNA
presidency, Gorran’s participation in the cabinet only scratched the surface of
the power-sharing agreement originally laid down by Barzani and Talabani.
Instead, it would have jeopardised the reputation of the opposition movement
thereafter. The removal (and later replacement) of Gorran ministers in October
2015 was followed by the closure of the KNA for two years.4 Oil issues were also
implicated in the institutional paralysis, as will be shown in a few pages.
Two considerations are in order. Firstly, the two dominant families have alternated overt competition and behind-the-scenes cooperation, this latter revealing
a substantial continuity of interests. The extractive economy highlights this aspect
even more. The strategic pact between ruling elites is cemented by the privatisation of force. Although Law n. 5/2009 passed by the KNA made provision for
party militias to be integrated into a unified army (in line with article 117 of the
Iraqi Constitution), Peshmerga remain instead a collection of politicised armed
groups under separate control of party bureaus (Van Wilgenburg & Fumerton,
2015). The military apparatus is organised along partisan lines with brigades taking orders from and being loyal to party leaders rather than regional institutions.5
Once the embodiment par excellence of the national liberation struggles, Peshmerga represent the security ring around ruling families and party upper cadres,
with the consequence that violence is used to secure cabinet positions and achieve
economic gains. Secondly, and relatedly, KDP and PUK dominate a political process that functions on a personal and neo-patrimonial basis (Marr, 2012).
My Kurdish Oppressor6
We live in an illegal state of exception, which is not regulated by any law and ripples
through a crisis of legitimacy. What is worse is that this extreme state of emergency
does not follow any constitutional provision.
(Anonymous, interview #13)

After the fallout of the ill-fated independence referendum, discontent against
the elites was clearly visible throughout the region. In December 2017, a rush
of anger surged in Sulaymaniyah, Ranya, and Halabja with protesters setting

A nation divided 125

fire to party buildings and banners. The uproar was suppressed right at the
onset by party-affiliated police forces, leaving six dead and over 100 wounded
(CNN, 2017). In March, civil servants and youth took to the streets to demonstrate against delays and cuts in salary payment,7 even in Erbil where the KDP
one-party rule had always been strong enough to prevent the outbreak of antigovernment protests. On the eve of the Iraqi general elections in May, it was
apparent that the legitimacy of the ruling class was in jeopardy. As a sign of the
enfeeblement of PUK hegemony in its heartland, two newly founded parties
came out on the scene: the Coalition for Democracy and Justice (CDJ), former
PM Barham Salih’s card to obtain political virginity after leaving the PUK, and
the New Generation Movement (Naway Nwe), founded by the businessman
Shaswar Abdulwahid. Although Sulaymaniyah is renowned for a rich literary
tradition that has translated into a more liberal and tolerant political culture,
such fragmentation of the political landscape was a byword for the dangerous
cracking of the PUK power base.
On 12 May 2018, the electoral process was tainted with widespread allegations of ballot rigging and irregularities related to the electronic balloting system (van den Toorn, 2018). Backdated voting receipts, the fact that electoral
results were made available hours before the official closing of polling stations,
and intimidations gave the impression of a charade orchestrated by ruling parties.8 The presence of Qasem Soleimani, the then Commander of the Iranian
Quds Forces, also raised suspicion of foreign interference. On the same day,
Gorran, Kurdistan Islamic Group (Komal), Kurdistan Islamic Union (KIU),
CDJ, and the Islamic Movement issued a joint statement that denounced the
tampering of votes and requested a new vote under international supervision
(Kurdistan 24, 2018b). During the night, heavy gunfire hit the Gorran headquarters at Zargata Hill in Sulaymaniyah, a couple of miles from the place
where I lived. At the time, I was still in the region for a last batch of interviews.
I witnessed the attack from the balcony of my apartment. A PUK convoy of
pickups with mounted machine guns at the orders of Jaafar Sheikh Mustafa
(Commander of the 70th Brigade later appointed as Nechirvan Barzani’s vice
president) fired incessantly for almost half an hour on the main building of the
opposition party (Hawramy, 2018). Meanwhile, ballot boxes were stolen to
avoid manual recount. Next morning, there was an air of anger and frustration.
PUK officials and party media belittled the aggression as celebratory gunfire.
Lahur Talabani denied that any attack had even taken place. Followed by the
declaration of the state of emergency by the Sulaymaniyah Provincial Council
and the consequent deployment of Asayish along streets and public spaces the
days after, the punitive expedition was an obvious warning against any change
to the status quo. Despite the rushing of hundreds Gorran supporters vowing
to protect Nawshirwan Mustafa’s grave on Zargata Hill at all costs, the events
did not escalate further and PUK later apologised for the attack.
The anecdote gives a snapshot of the state of exception mentioned by a
member of an opposition party during an interview. The extra-legal resort to
violence is indeed hardwired in the hegemonic strategies of governing parties. Quite differently from the image of a thriving democracy that the KRG

126 A nation divided

has projected to the outside world, the privatisation of security forces and the
deadly repression of dissent reveal a draconian reality. In point of fact, KDP
and PUK leadership has never been reluctant to use whatever means necessary to safeguard their survival. Already in 2011 the so-called Kurdish Spring,
a two-month-long street protest inspired by the wave of upheavals that spread
across much of the Arab world in later 2010, was crushed in blood and in a
climate of impunity. The unrest broke out on 17 February 2011 when a gathering in Sara Square in downtown Sulaymaniyah to celebrate the resignation
of Ben Ali and Hosni Mubarak after decades of tyranny turned sour as security forces shot dead two youths who had joined other protesters in throwing
stones against the KDP local headquarters on Salim Street (Watts, 2012). The
shooting sparked clashes and sit-ins across the Sulaymaniyah Governorate for
62 consecutive days until KRG authorities forcibly banned all gatherings.
Arbitrary arrests, abuses of power, severe restrictions of civil liberties, and
harassments and murders of activists or journalists have been documented several other times since then.9 Notwithstanding the crackdown, public protests
calling for reform have flared up at regular intervals, becoming widespread
when the fiscal crisis made the KRG unable to pay the public sector salaries.
According to Nicole Watts, the protests were a watershed in Kurdish state–
society relations as “they signalled a clear shift from local demands to calls
for broad-based systemic reform” to the extent of proffering an alternative
national identity leaning on democratic values. I elaborate on this point at the
end of the book.
Definitions of the political regime in the Kurdish enclave range from managed democracy (Knights, 2014) to sultanistic system (Hassan, 2015). Either
way, the supremacy of the ruling coalition is underlined as a fundamental trait.
Two decades of self-rule shows that the KRG has acquired some institutions
and procedures of democracy while retaining certain illiberal traits typical of
authoritarianism. In line with many other examples of “competitive authoritarianism” (Levitsky & Way, 2002), the form of electoral democracy fails to
meet the substantive test (Diamond, 2002). Despite a formally inclusive political process with regular and relatively fair elections in a multi-party system,
the presence of veto players (Tsebelis, 2002) restricts the arena of contestation
so much that a change in government is not realistic. The literature on hybrid
regimes points out that in contexts of electoral authoritarianism, the establishment takes advantage of ballots to legitimate the regime domestically and
internationally (Diamond, 2002), distribute resources and broaden the support base through patronage networks (Blaydes, 2008; Lust, 2009), and reduce
contestation with occasional reshuffles of government coalitions (Gandhi &
Przeworski, 2006).
Caught in between electoral practice and undemocratic rule, the KRG is
no exception. High levels of coercion, lack of accountable and autonomous
institutions, and violations of fundamental freedoms by hegemonic parties tell
that competition over the levers of power is out of the game. It could be said
that Bellin’s argument on the robustness of authoritarianism in the Middle

A nation divided 127

East – “extraordinary access to rent and international support, combined with
the less extraordinary proliferation of patrimonially organized security forces
and low levels of social mobilization, together gave rise, in the lion’s share
of countries, to coercive apparatuses that were endowed with extraordinary
capacity and will to repress” (2012: 129) – finds continuity in the Kurdish
case too. Diamond (2010) also pointed out that a mixture of repression and
mechanisms of representation, consultation, and co-optation is at work in
many countries in the region. From macro to local, it is hard not to agree
with Watts (2014) that the legacy of the party-state regime inherited from
Ba’athist Iraq, the patron-client nature of state–society relations, and foreign
interests together account for the democratic deficit in the KRI. For historical reasons, the armed movements of the national liberation struggle took the
lead of political transition, after the withdrawal of the Iraqi Army, from the
region and transferred traditional tribal authority into the newly founded state
institutions. In the absence of counterweights, the long period (1992–2006) of
split governance was not conducive to democratic consolidation inasmuch as
it did not allow for neutralisation of party militias and development of private
interests groups.
The role of paramilitary forces is of particular importance. Recruited from
the poorest and less educated strata of society, Peshmerga are the hammer
and the anvil in the hands of ruling elites. Since 1991, KDP and PUK have
been the largest employers in the region through clientelism and party militias (Leezenberg, 2006). Even today enlisting in the ranks of Peshmerga is
the most reliable income for many youths. Moreover, it also offers a culturally prestigious status to live (and die) for. The outsized military reflects the
“continuing expansion of patronage-based recruitment” (Van Wilgenburg &
Fumerton, 2015: 5) and acts as the strongest bulwark against non-armed
oppositions and public discontent. This stands out when looking at the criteria through which the KRG reduced government spending during 2016 to
cope with the fiscal crisis. Austerity measures included heavy cuts in the wage
bill of public servants with the budget being reduced by one-quarter, but
the salaries of Peshmerga were barely touched (World Bank, 2016). Despite
cuts across all ministries, the oligarchy kept feeding the security apparatus at
full capacity. As a member of the Finance and Economic Affairs Committee commented, “the math is pretty simple: whenever an uprising happens,
the military will nip it in the bud.” Civil–military relations inevitably suffer
from the KDP–PUK balance of power, which makes it difficult to envisage
anything other than privatised armed wings tied to the fortunes of patrimonial elites. The oppositions put the goal of a regular armed force under
depoliticised command on the public agenda, but the gradual integration of
military units was halted after a few tentative steps in that direction, in spite
of the appointment of Gorran’s Mustafa Sayid Qadir to the Ministry of Peshmerga Affairs. The continuing subordination of Peshmerga to party interests
relapses into low mass mobilisation against the political regime. This is being
compounded by patron-client patterns of rent accumulation and circulation,

128 A nation divided

whereas class-consciousness pales into insignificance when compared to party
membership.
Dynastic rule and crony capitalism

Besides the mixing of the civilian with the military, KDP and PUK occupy the
regional economy through ubiquitous patrimonial ramifications. Both ruling
families have their own large conglomerate of media outlets and business companies. In a nutshell, the power base of regional power-holders falls within the
large perimeter of patronage. As commented by former Speaker of Parliament,
Yousif Mohammed Sadiq, the oligarchy needs to monopolise the economy in
order to survive.10
First of all, such an overlap has a great deal to do with the endurance of tribal
customs, for which leadership is handed down from father to son. Despite
formal election procedures, in both KDP and PUK, the offspring are leaders
by birthright. Not only does leadership in ruling parties remain within the
Barzani and Talabani families, but it also extends into government areas to
such an extent that it is not out of place to talk about the progressive “Saudification” of KRG institutions (Aziz, 2017). The sway of traditional parties on
public affairs is clear from appointments to top government positions, which
are based on kinship for the most part. If one looks at the KRG structure, there
is indeed striking evidence of nepotism. Even without holding formal public responsibilities after his resignation, Masoud Barzani still is the undisputed
leader of KDP and the apex of a family-based power structure. His son-in-law,
Nechirvan, who is also Mullah Mustafa’s grandson, formally succeeded him as
President of the KRG. He had previously served as PM since the reconciliation
between KDP and PUK in 2006 until taking on the presidency in June 2019,
except for the brief interlude of Barham Salih’s cabinet (2009–2012). Masoud’s
eldest son, Masrour, was promoted at the helm of the government after leading
the Kurdistan Security Council (KRG’s primary intelligence agency) for years.
Masoud’s other son, Mansour, heads the Gulan Special Forces, while his nephews Sirwan and Rawan are also notable Peshmerga commanders. The Barzanis
fill top political and military posts.
Albeit in a less invasive and systematic manner, the same dynastic tendency is mirrored in the green zone, where Hero Ahmed, Ibrahim Ahmed’s
daughter, holds a preeminent position in the PUK Politburo after the passing
of her husband, Jalal Tabalani. Her younger son, Qubad, has been serving as
the deputy PM since 2014 safeguarding Tabalanis’ interests in government
affairs. The older son, Bafel, is on the rise as one of the most influential figures in the PUK, of which he holds the co-presidency alongside his cousin
Lahur. Both founded the Counter Terrorism Group and led PUK’s intelligence services. Bafel is married to the daughter of Mala Bakhtiar a senior
PUK leader. Lahur’s brothers, Polad and Aras, are military commanders.
Hero’s sister, Shanaz Ibrahim Ahmed, was the KRG representative in the
UK and is said to oversee the finances of the party-run Nokan Group; she

A nation divided 129

is married to Abdul Latif Rashid, the influential former Iraqi Minister of
Water Resources. Mam Jala’s niece, Ala, has long headed the PUK bloc in
the Iraqi Parliament.
The list is not exhaustive, but sufficient to get an idea of the sultanistic
regime maintained by the Barzani and Talabani royal houses under the facade
of pseudo-democratic regional government. As Rubin (2020) points out in
detail, nepotism fuels extreme corruption from the top down. Allegations of
public funds amassed by the two families abound indeed. At a lower extent,
senior KDP and PUK members are equally prone to clientelist practices, with
inflated payrolls and scores of ghost employees. Besides the distortion of political
institutions, family connections also resonate in a crony economy that extends
party allegiance into business empires, without independent checks on the
private use of public monies. KDP and PUK leaders are owners or shareholders of most enterprises. A confidential cable from the US Consulate in Kirkuk
from early 2006 reports that “leading private companies in Kurdistan are all
vertically integrated cross-sectoral conglomerates” run by politically connected
entrepreneurs, and that related “godfathers” in the local ruling party typically
take a 10–30% stake in the project or business (Wikileaks, 2006). According to
the source, family clans and second-tier Peshmerga leaders warp the economy
by funnelling government contracts through corruption networks, with no
substantial difference between the two zones if not in terms of degree. Diyar
Group, Eagle Group, Falcon Group, KAR Group, Nasri Group, Sandi Group,
Silver Star Group, and Ster Group figure as examples of KDP-affiliated companies in the Erbil area.
Headquartered in the eponymous tower in Erbil, Ster Group, for instance,
is a large conglomerate with a number of subsidiaries in different businesses
(construction, security, oil and gas, communications, insurance, and manpower
among many others). Its founder and chairman, Sarwar Pedawi, served as the
economic advisor to former President Masoud Barzani and acts as a treasurer of
the American University of Kurdistan, which Michael Rubin (2020) describes,
without mincing words, as PM Masrour Barzani’s “vanity project, modelled
after [his] own experience of basically buying a degree via lavish donations
during his own student career.” The strong influence of the Barzani family on
the corporation is well acknowledged. In some cases, the connections are quite
straightforward: for instance, Sirwan Barzani founded and has chaired Korek
Telecom, Masoud’s nephew Saman owns ZagrosJet Airlines, and the Zagros
Group as a whole has been led by another Barzani, Aram, for 23 years.
The same holds true in the green zone, where the Nokan Group is considered
to be the Talabani’s financial outlet (Rubin, 2018: 332). The Nokan Group has 23
subsidiary companies and an estimated net worth of 4–5 billion USD (Abdulla,
2012). The co-founder and main shareholder of the conglomerate, Deler Saeed
Majid, is also PUK financial officer. Not by chance, the Nokan Group is headquartered in the PUK General Management building in Sulaymaniyah, which
leaves little doubt about the political connection with the party. Likewise, the
Sulaymaniyah-based telecommunication giant Asia Cell is under PUK control.

130 A nation divided

Even though there are no direct links to party members, it is known that PUK
Politburo members levy a percentage of profits (Wikileaks, 2006).
In conclusion, to say that the KRG is a family business would be no exaggeration. The regional institutions cannot be disentangled from the dominance
of two ruling parties, which were tailored in the image and likeness of their
leaders and family clans. Then, there is oil.

Party politics and the extractive regime
The agreements in place to export crude from Kurdish oilfields were a recurring topic during my interviews. “That word [agreement] has lost its meaning,”
a foreign consultant to the MNR told me. In a politically volatile environment
with very poor institutional oversight, oil negotiations tend to be ever changing and flimsy. “Sometimes both sides stick with each other, most of the times
not,” he added. The more I inquired into deals between the many stakeholders
involved (federal and regional governments, Kurdish political parties, militias,
IOCs, traders, and foreign countries), the more I understood what he meant.
Data and information are indeed piecemeal and partial. Moreover, percentages
and barrels swung widely depending on the source. Even if you put all the
pieces together, the fleeting picture that emerges is therefore one of the contradictions. Conducting field research in disputed areas was anything but easy as
the escalation of federal tensions and massive paranoia had reinforced the screen
of secrecy around certain issues. A further complication was the high turnover
in local administrations, most notably in Kirkuk, after the ISF takeover. Nevertheless, I also discovered that there is always someone willing to talk. What follows is the analysis of the extractive regime run by KDP and PUK leaders based
on in-depth interviews with selected informants (MPs from the entire political
spectrum, MRN insiders, oil and gas professionals, and journalists who asked
to remain anonymous) and secondary sources.
There are two interpretations to the relationship between the oligarchy and
the petroleum industry. The prevalent one is that oil management, in all its
aspects, is dominated by the KDP only. This would make the Barzani family
capable of retaining power by disbursing allocations to clients and allies while
closing doors to anyone else. The second interpretation, instead, places equal
responsibility on KDP and PUK, both accused of feasting on a flood of petrodollars for their own benefits. The relatively short story of extractivism in the
KRI seems to support the latter in view of a series of considerations that make
the one-party rule thesis inaccurate or at least incomplete.
The Kurdish oil saga is one of many twists and turns. It is worth noting
that the PUK actually initiated oil exploitation during the early 1990s. At
the time, the KDP controlled most border crossings and taxation of smuggling routes11 was a substantial source of income estimated in 750 million
USD annually (Chorev, 2007). In particular, the semi-clandestine petrol trade
through the KDP-held Ibrahim Khalil checkpoint was a much lucrative business, in which Nechirvan Barzani was personally involved (Leezenberg, 2006).

A nation divided 131

From a comparatively disadvantageous position, the PUK turned the attention
to oilfields in the green zone as a viable alternative. Between 1994 and 1996,
two wells in the Taq Taq oilfield, plugged in late 1950s but abandoned during the Iraq–Iran war, were reactivated. Small amounts of crude (3.000–5.000
bpd) began to be refined in Sulaymaniyah for domestic use only. It is worth
remembering that the region was embargoed and isolated. With the ousting of
Saddam Hussein at the hands of US-led forces in 2003, Kurdish major parties
were poised to explore new opportunities and raise ambitions, which led KDP
and PUK to sign separate contracts with foreign upstream investors (Genel
Enerji and Addax in Taq Taq; DNO in Tawke).
The balance of power between the two parties was soon reversed. Geopolitics was not neutral given that the KDP-held border crossing into Turkey via Zahko and Fish Kabur was the only prospective export route for the
KRG. Another key factor was the irresistible rise of Abdullah Abdul Rahman
Abdullah, commonly known as Ashti Hawrami, a senior oil engineer with long
experience at the head of UK-based consulting firms. Hawrami was requested
by then PM Barham Salih to lead the newly established MNR. After some hesitation, Hawrami accepted the appointment and held the position for 13 years
without interruption, designing the oil and gas sector from scratch. When he
first set foot inside the ministry, Hawrami was not credited yet as Barzani’s
right-man. However, the KDP won him over in a timely fashion. At the time,
the PUK was pushing for Jalal Talabani’s candidacy to the Iraqi presidency and
ceded ground in exchange for support in Baghdad. Masoud Barzani played
his cards right, so to speak: the MNR would have quickly become the actual
treasury of the KRG, and Hawrami managed to bring the ministry under his
personal authority. As a PUK member told with some regret, “we passed from
owning the oil dossier to begging for charity.”
Despite the KDP always having the upper hand in shaping and running
the governance over the oil and gas sector, the PUK has held senior positions
within the MNR as well. From 2007 until 2014, ruling elites worked in synergy to lure foreign investors and auction exploration blocks. Negotiations with
IOCs were based on a colour-coded map that explicitly followed the division
between yellow and green spheres of influence. That was somewhat necessary
in order to ensure internal coordination given that both parties were suspicious of each other. When approached by an IOC, Minister Hawrami would
mediate preliminary meetings with KDP or PUK local brokers, depending on
where the exploration block was located, prior to drawing up a contract. Once
a deal was reached, the Minister would officially invite company representatives
to larger meetings and greet them as if they just met for the first time. Although
prone to clientelism, the rules of the game were thus clear. Inter-party cooperation broadly worked out for quite some time. All PSCs in the period 2002–
2011 have the double signature of the KRG PM and of the MNR Minister
“on behalf of the Regional Council for the Oil and Gas Affairs.”
The reference is worthy of attention. Introduced by Law n. 22/2007 (better known as the Oil and Gas Law of the Kurdistan Region), the Regional

132 A nation divided

Council is the bipartisan negotiating table approving petroleum contracts.
Given that the PSC model typically includes upfront payments for the concession of exploration and production rights to IOCs, the approval of a contract
implies cashing in billionaire cheques. In the absence of parliamentary oversight, the Regional Council is therefore vested with extensive decisional power.
Its entitled members are: the PM, the deputy PM, the Minister of the MNR,
the Minister of Economy and Finance, and the Minister of Planning. Since
other parties are excluded from these top government positions, the Regional
Council is a prerogative of KDP and PUK only. This is further evidence of
the alliance between ruling elites. Depending on the cabinet composition, the
PUK occasionally had more seats than the KDP, which suggests that the former
has been fully involved in devising the KRG oil policy.
This framework was partially upended by the worsening of federal relations
during 2014, when the Kurdish leadership suddenly found itself under extraordinary duress and began exporting crude independently. As said, the freezing
of budget transfers from central government and collapse in oil prices put the
KRG in dire financial straits. Moreover, the country was in turmoil because of
the ISIS outbreak. For the rentier nature of the economy, the fiscal crisis could
not also have repercussions on the mechanisms through which the extractive
regime had been shaped and regulated until then. Oil management was further
centralised through the MNR and with a small group of KDP trusted intermediaries to whom the PUK had no direct access. Since Baghdad was chasing
on KRG exports, extending the circle of trust by one degree was a long shot
and Barzani preferred to bring everything under his control. At that point the
PUK fundamentally lost sight of the KDP-run process, from contracting to
trading. Changes in the political landscape also played a role. At the end of
2012 Jalal Talabani had suffered a stroke leaving his party prey to internecine
competition. Besides succession problems, the electoral inroads of Gorran and
the formation of a grand coalition government led to an incremental loss in
terms of both popular support and influence over the government.
The Talabani family kept exerting considerable pressure on revenue management. Reportedly, from the outset the profit-sharing mechanism has complied
with the formula for the allocation of federal funds, which are split pro-rata
according to the size of population under the different parties’ control. There is
no publicly available information on how the money comes in, where it goes,
and how it is spent. The cash flow partly disappears internationally in Turkish,
Swiss, or Lebanese bank accounts to get around Baghdad monitoring. The
KRG has used clandestine mechanisms to bring that money offshore and put
it back into circulation via grey currency exchange markets. At the time of the
budget dispute with the central government, bagmen throughout Iraq were
busy finding ways of disguising petrodollar recycling as non-oil trade transactions to get access to dinars. The Kurdistan International Bank (chaired by
Salar Mustafa Hakim, Nechirvan Barzani’s uncle) is the recovery point where
physical cash is accumulated. Only a handful of senior members in KDP and
PUK bureaus handle the cash flow. A KDP–PUK two-member commission

A nation divided 133

was formed in 2008 to ensure the equal distribution of the “hidden revenue”
falling outside the PSCs approved by the Regional Council (Awene, 2008).
The high commission is an informal body outside the KRG structure. At the
time, it was made up of then PM Nechirvan Barzani and PUK’s treasurer Deler
Saeed Majid.
Therefore, both major parties benefit from sharing the petroleum revenues,
and every drop of crude is exported through the KRG pipeline without prejudice to the area from which it is extracted. But there is more. In each zone
the hegemonic party thrive on the underbelly of the industry, meaning that
the midstream and downstream segments of the supply chain (e.g. refining,
warehousing, trading, transport, and retailing) are swallowed through affiliated
companies. This is consistent with the overall pattern according to which the
two dynasties monopolise the economy. As described before, vertically integrated conglomerates connected to KDP and PUK party bureaus dominate the
regional economy. Albeit at a lower scale than that of the large advance payments received from oil traders, the satellite activities of upstream operations
are highly profitable. Many KDP and PUK officials have shares in the business –
be it through a security firm, a construction company, or procurement services.12 As mentioned, deals with local sub-contractors were cut even before
the actual signing of PSCs with IOCs. Given the mammoth size of patronage,
ruling elites hold the higher ground by licensing oil-related activities to their
networks. This implies that giving a slice of the pie may serve as a reward to
encourage loyalty or settle disputes within the party.
The Erbil-based KAR Group and the Sulaymaniyah-based Qaiwan Group
are the major Kurdish oil services providers with a diversified portfolio of
activities encompassing refining, energy trading, power generation, real estate
construction, and other business sectors. Despite political ties are not openly
acknowledged, it is no secret that the former is close to the KDP, while the
latter to PUK. In 2004, KAR won a 25-year contract for the rehabilitation of
Khurmala oilfield, the northernmost dome of Kirkuk formation that lies within
the borders of the autonomous region. Production started in 2009, thus making
KAR the first (and so far only) local operator with upstream capabilities and
assets. The high-quality crude extracted in Khurmala supplies the Kalak refinery, which is the biggest production plant in the region with a refining capacity
of 100,000 bpd and is owned by the KAR Group itself. The extensive footprint
of the company across the yellow zone and full participation in the MNR strategy (demonstrated, for instance, by company shares in the KRG-Rosneft projects) reflect close connection with the KDP. After the fight against ISIS changed
the energy map in a way that allowed for the expansion of KRG holdings in
disputed territories, the KAR Group replaced the North Oil Company (NOC)
in Bai Hassan and Avana domes, but was later banned by the Iraqi Parliament
when the security situation returned to normal (Reuters, 2018). Since 2009
the Qaiwan Group has operated the Bazian refinery, which is the second largest with a capacity of 34.000 bpd and is owned by WZA Petroleum. This latter
company can be considered as the subsidiary of the Nokan Group in the oil and

134 A nation divided

gas sector. Parwen Babakir, former Ministry of Industry in the PUK separate
administration from 2003 to 2006, serves as both WZA Petroleum’s CEO and
Chair of the Executive Board of the Nokan Group.
As is apparent from the comparison, the 50–50 formula ingrained in the
Washington Agreement has modelled the structuring of the extractive regime
along partisan lines.13 In the same fashion of KAR and Qaiwan, all other Kurdish private companies in the sector (e.g. Ster Petroleum, Zagros Oil & Gas, UB
Holding, Eagle Group, and Sher Oil to mention but a few) are linked to one of
the two blocks. At times, affiliated companies turned out to be a battleground
for inter-party competition. A recent example is the serious dispute over a
tender for the distribution of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG, propane) from the
Dana Gas-operated Khor Mor field in the Sulaymaniyah Governorate. During
2019 Sorgas won the contract at the expense of another domestic company,
Golden Jaguar, which had purchased and resold LPG and condensate from
Dana Gas to customers across the region since 2015. Following the tendering
process, unidentified gunmen raided Sorgas’ headquarters and fired on trucks
transporting LPG to Erbil and Dohuk (AFP, 2020). According to the KRG
spokesperson, “a few influential individuals in Garmiyan and Sulaymaniyah”
were behind the attacks, which caused local shortages and a price hike (Rudaw,
2020). As Golden Jaguar allegedly has links with the PUK and lost the bid to a
KDP-sponsored company, it may well be assumed that the contract awarded to
Sorgas was seen as an interference by local PUK factions previously involved in
the business. Not by chance, the dispute was resolved with the intervention of
Deputy PM Qubad Talabani.
To summarise, the complex relationship between ruling parties and governance in the oil and gas sector can be broken down in three different levels.
At the outermost level of federal relations, KDP and PUK forged an alliance
to stand united against the central government. This has taken place by holding out a more investor-friendly environment for IOCs and by selling crude at
deep discount despite the price drop (as in the case of the 50-year long energy
partnership with TEC), which stands as a demonstration of the importance
attached to maintaining access to energy markets. Such goal is shared by ruling
elites regardless of political divisions. At the regional level, KDP and PUK are
equally committed to reserve the dividends of hydrocarbon exploitation for
themselves and set a barrier against any threat to their hegemony. Whilst party
militias are a life insurance against anti-government upheavals, decentralisation
and parliamentary oversight on the management of the oil and gas sector was
prevented through legal and extra-legal means. Further down to the innermost
level, oil issues have fuelled cutthroat competition between ruling parties and
exasperated intra-party factionalism.
Opacity, enclaveness, predation

Law n. 22/2007 was intended to set up a comprehensive institutional framework that would decouple the oil and gas management from partisanship.

A nation divided 135

Before its promulgation, 16 PSCs had already been signed off without passing
through the KNA or any regulation. The Law made provision for the establishment of five public entities “with independent finance and management”:
i) Kurdistan Exploration and Production Company (KEPCO) “to compete
with other companies to obtain authorisations regarding future fields” and enter
into joint ventures, inside and beyond the region; ii) Kurdistan National Oil
Company (KNOC) to participate with other companies in the management of
fields already in commercial production; iii) Kurdistan Oil Marketing Organisation (KOMO), “to market or regulate the marketing of the production from
petroleum operations”; iv) Kurdistan Organisation for Downstream Operations (KODO), to manage all the petroleum-related infrastructures owned by
the KRG and create subsidiaries operating in the downstream sector; and iv)
Kurdistan Oil Trust Organisation (KOTO), as the safe box for revenue collection into accounts that “shall be subject to regular independent audit [and] be
available for public viewing”.
Unfortunately, none of these has seen the light of day. The board members
of all bodies provided for by the law were to be appointed by the Council of
Ministers, and then approved by the KNA, within 90 days from the enactment, but nominations were not done and draft laws for the execution of the
new legislation remained pending. Had it received effective political backing,
the institutional framework would limit the competence areas of the MNR
to supervision and regulation of petroleum operations, and negotiation and
implementation of contracts. Instead, the non-fulfilment of provisions concerning the establishment of the aforementioned public entities left the MNR
with oversized authority and no countervailing powers. The only institution
introduced on the basis of the law was the Regional Council for the Oil and
Gas Affairs, which formalised the political preponderance of ruling parties in
setting terms and conditions of the petroleum policy as well as approving PSCs.
It is hard not to recognise the reluctance of Barzani and Talabani clans to
give up exclusive control over the sector behind the failure of the implementation of Law n. 22/2007. According to some, the closure of the KNA had much
to do with the attempt of resuming the aborted process within the parliament.
In fact, the institutional gap has paved the way to manipulation of the revenue
system to suit the needs of the oligarchy. This is also corroborated by the reliance of MNR on foreign staff. High-level advisors to the Minister are often
from UK or US. Whilst recruitment of local staff in the petroleum industry is
generally low and skewed towards low-skilled jobs in many producing countries, the rationale for such high share of foreign managers in top managementlevel appears to be political rather than technical.14 Although justified on the
grounds of employing specialised professionals, this might be seen as an additional way of further insulating decision-making.
Initially, the MNR published very detailed and reliable monthly bulletins
on output and exports levels, with field-by-field production data and the list
of tankers loading KRG crude at the port of Ceyhan. Even in the absence of
third-party control, according to some external consultants with whom I came

136 A nation divided

into contact, shipping data were consonant with what the MNR was reporting:
every single cargo going in and out from Ceyhan was included in the reports.
In comparison with the Iraqi central government, the KRG exhibited a surplus of transparency with the purpose of building investor confidence. Furthermore, in September 2011, almost all PSCs were published on the MNR
website, which is quite rare in commodity trading anywhere. Under enormous amounts of political pressure, the KRG later took a step back. This was
due to various reasons, but two in particular come to mind. First, commercial
confidentiality. When Exxon came in, the company dictated Ashti Hawrami
not to publish the contract, thus setting a precedent for all subsequent PSCs.
For a super-major like Exxon, such a high level of visibility was unacceptable.
Second, oil disputes with Baghdad. After the KRG decided to go its own way
with independent crude oil sales and the central government threatened to sue
buyers of Kurdish barrels, international trading houses requested lower exposure in order to avoid potential legal actions against them. In mid-2016, the
MNR stopped publishing monthly reports and has never resumed consistent
public reporting since then. It is interesting to notice, then, that exogenous circumstances had an influence on how opaque and patchy the oil and gas sector
would eventually become.
This does not alter the fact that the lack of transparency is obviously tilted
in favour of ruling elites. The KRG brings weak excuses for not revealing oil
data. The argument that secrecy is meant to avoid sensitive information falling
into the hands of Baghdad or whoever may take advantage of them to hamper
Kurdish autonomy was sound, but has grown weaker over time. KDP and PUK
are much more afraid of prying eyes at home given that the disbursement of
side bonuses from oil trade underpins the patronage machine upon which their
grip on power relies. Since Iraq joined the Extractive Industries Transparency
Initiative (EITI, a non-profit organisation promoting transparency standards for
petroleum and mining industries) in 2008, the KRG has not shared data to be
included in the EITI reporting process on the country. As goodwill gesture,
the MRN belatedly released an independent audit conducted by Deloitte in
January 2018. However, the exercise was a long way from being a proper audit
since the final report was scant in detail and did not take into account other
sources than those provided by the KRG itself (Osgood, 2018). In recent years,
the disclosure of information has been sporadic and inconsistent at best, thus
“[failing] to instil public or political confidence in the probity of the KRG’s
oil policy or administration” (ivi). The Head of the parliamentary Finance
Committee, Ali Hama-Salih, highlighted discrepancies between export volumes and sales, for which on average about 500 million USD would go missing
each month (KNN, 2015). The Oil and Gas Revenue Fund Law, passed by
the KNA in April 2015 after a long parliamentary procedure, would establish
transparent accounting mechanisms for the revenue accruing from oil exports,
but once again the law has not been implemented to any practical extent. The
circumstance that the KNA did not pass a regional budget law for years completes the picture.

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As the saying goes, too many coincidences are not a coincidence anymore.
To call a spade a spade, opacity is the most salient feature of the ruling elites
siphoning off public resources at an appalling scale for the purpose of financing
patrimonial relations. The result is endemic corruption at all levels, rent-seeking
behaviour, and high factionalism. Furthermore, the institutional vacuum was
conducive to the coercive capture of the petroleum value chain. The 1.6 billion
USD lawsuit filed by Dynasty Petroleum at the UK Royal Courts of Justice on
14 August 2019 is a good illustration of the KRG modus operandi to stifle private competitors who do not abide by the rules of the game. The case alleges
a series of claims against the KRG and former MNR Minister Ashti Hawrami,
including “conspiracy to injure Dynasty by unlawful means, unlawful interference, unlawful intimidation, and inducement to breach contract” (Watkins,
2019). According to the documentation placed before the Court, the executive chairman of Dynasty Petroleum, Hiwa Awat Ali, suffered harassment and
systematic intimidations by the deputy PM Qubad Talabani and Minister Ashti
Hawrami after he refused to pay illegal sums of money. The Kurdish company
had begun negotiations with Spanish Repsol to acquire the latter’s assets in
Topkhana and Kurdamir fields. Dynasty Petroleum claims that Minister Hawrami conditioned KRG consent for the change of control transaction on a
bribe. Given the company’s refusal to accept, Hawrami allegedly asked Lahur
Talabani, then Head of PUK’s intelligence agency, to put pressure on Ali to call
off the sale and purchase agreement with Repsol, even by force. At the time of
writing, the trial has not started yet, but the corruption scandal sheds light on
a pattern that MNR insiders would seem to confirm. In fact, the accusation
does not stand alone. Embezzlement and pay-to-play bonuses were described
by my informants as regular practices.
Hence, not only are the lines between political and economic elites blurred,
but the same distinction between legal and illegal is seemingly evanescent as
well. To give another example, the large number of small-sized topping refineries throughout the region is evidence of poor law enforcement at the back
end of downstream business. When interviewed on this issue, MNR officials
did not hide frustration about connivance of private and party interests within
these murky bubbles of impunity (see also Othman, 2017). On a much larger
scale, the Kalak refinery was actually at the centre of legal issues.15 At least a
dozen of unlicensed plants can be found in the area surrounding Sulaymaniyah.
Despite the fact that the quantity of refined petroleum products is negligible,
illegal refineries are politically relevant in that they constitute a reward to cronies in order to obtain loyalty.
I visited one on the southern outskirts of the city, in a poor suburb nearby
the municipal dumpsite on the banks of the Tanjaro River, with a local environmental activist. We walked around the refinery from a distance. We could
see oil runoff spilling into irrigation canals nearby and seeping through blackened farmland, thus polluting waterways all the way down to the Darbandikhan Lake, which not by accident is heavily contaminated despite being
the main source of drinking water for some 500,000 people. We approached

138 A nation divided

two farmers who were ploughing bleak patches of land nearby. One of them
handed me a bunch of loquats, which looked beautiful but were too bitter to
be eaten. “Farmland has become unproductive because of the refinery, but
this piece of land is all I have.” The farmers also complained about pollution
and related health problems. The sub-urban area had suffered a disproportionate impact from industrial expansion. Uncollected piles of waste of all kinds,
inadequate sanitation, and lack of access to water sources portrayed a general
state of disrepair. We were told that the owners of all private companies in the
area were connected to PUK strongmen, thus preventing public intervention
and a collective mobilisation. Fear of repercussions was tangible. A local environmental NGO later confirmed not having access to most factories. Albeit
concerned, the farmers said that residents were unable to leave because of
economic hardship.
Besides refining, illegal oil trade is also worthy of attention. KDP and PUK
have exchanged allegations against each other of crude smuggling on many
occasions. In November 2017, PUK officials denounced that KDP authorities extracted crude in the Makhmour district, refined it at the Lanaz refinery,
and trucked it out into Turkey via the border crossing of Ibrahim Khalil. Vice
versa, the PUK was accused of facilitating Hashd al-Shaabi militias in sneaking
cargoes from Daquq, south of Kirkuk, to Iran (Kurdistan 24, 2018a). What
is certain is that intense oil trucking is in full view every day on both routes,
with the clear involvement of Peshmerga commanders. In September 2016,
the Head of the Committee of Natural Resources, Sherko Jawdat, alleged that
PUK-linked companies were involved in smuggling about 30,000 bpd from
Kirkuk to Iran and illegally refining an equal quantity of crude in Dukan,
with public revenue estimated in 60 million USD going into private pockets.
According to Jawdat, all this occurred unbeknown to the KRG yet with the
agreement of the Iraqi central government and the NOC (Rudaw, 2016).
These claims are unlikely to be completely baseless. In 2015, the Russian
Ministry of Defence released some documentation suggesting KDP’s complicity in ISIS oil sales on the black market. At the time, the offensive against the
Islamic Caliphate was in full swing. Allegations were rejected by the KRG.
Similar charges were brought against the PUK as a subsidiary of the Nokan
Group, Meer Soma, was rumoured to transport refined products from ISISheld refineries (Ahmed, 2015). There is no doubt that crude did not remain
stranded in the oilfields occupied by Islamist militants but found its way thanks
to a vast array of local middlemen along transit routes crossing the Anbar
desert towards the Syrian province of Deir ez-Zor (Solomon, Kwong, & Bernard, 2016) as well as KRG checkpoints on the Turkish and Iranian borders
(Hawramy, Mohammed, & Harding, 2014). It can be said that border control
turned out to be quite porous, to say the least. The involvement of party
members from both KDP and PUK was later determined by a KRG commission of inquiry, according to which the illegal trade with ISIS amounted to 1
million USD a day (Rudaw, 2015).

A nation divided 139
Fuelling the frontline

Despite revenue sharing, the fact that the lion’s share of KRG oil production
comes from fields located in the yellow zone and petrodollars flow through
KDP-held institutions strengthens an imbalance between ruling parties. The
Barzanis are in a position to exercise disproportionate bargaining power and
pick winners in the PUK ranks. Especially after Mam Jalal’s death, the party
has lagged behind the long-standing rival and has grown feeble with internal
spats. The recent crisis on Kirkuk exemplifies these aspects and connects them
both to oil issues.
A fascinating mosaic of cultures, Kirkuk, is home to Kurds, Turkmen, Arabs
(and other minorities) – all of whom see the city as a pillar of their ethnic
identity. The expression “Kurdish Jerusalem,” for instance, is commonly used
amongst Iraqi Kurds: for many, an autonomous Kurdish nation is unthinkable
without Kirkuk at its centre, despite the fact that the city has never been exclusively Kurdish. Beside multi-cultural richness, since ancient times Kirkuk has
been known to local inhabitants and foreign travellers for the many oil seeps
and bitumen accumulations that can be spotted in its environs. From 1931,
when the IPC headquartered its operations in Kirkuk, onwards, the petroleum
industry has driven urbanisation and modernisation trends of the city, to the
extent that the evolution of the urban landscape is considered a prominent
example of oil urbanism (Bet-Shlimon, 2012, 2013; Fuccaro, 2013). In parallel, however, the abundance of petroleum resources has also inflamed intercommunal tensions, leading the largest ethnic groups to compete with each
other over control on oilfields and distribution of profits. From this perspective,
oil is imbued with a powerful symbolic value upon which ethnic and religious
fault lines have coalesced. Despite internal infighting and pressure of external
actors, Kirkukis have nevertheless maintained a distinct urban identity alongside ethnic and party affiliations (Natali, 2008).
Not only the fuse of inter-ethnic rivalries, Kirkuk became the contested
frontline between Arabs and Kurds. Peshmerga were deployed in disputed territories from May 2003, when KDP and PUK signed with US commanders a
memorandum of understanding for the deployment of 6,000 Peshmerga outside the autonomous region (Crisis Group, 2009), until October 2017, when
the ISF took back control. Right after the downfall of Saddam Hussein’s regime
and the disbandment of the Iraqi Army, Peshmerga turned out to be very precious partners on the ground for US troops to counter the low-intensity insurgency gathering Ba’ath loyalists and a broad array of Salafi-jihadist militant
groups.16 When the US eventually withdrew from the country in 2011, Kurds
remained in contested areas and their military footprint went deeper to protect
local population against the escalation of sectarian violence, especially with the
rise of ISIS.
In June 2014, ISIS raided Baiji, the largest Iraqi refinery, and got entrenched
in the town of Hawija southwest of Kirkuk, from where they repeatedly

140 A nation divided

attacked oil wells in Khabbaz. Insurgents also took hold of the Qayyarah field
south of Mosul. The exploitation of energy facilities came to be the primary
source of income of the terrorist group. Albeit requested by the Iraqi central
government and endorsed by the international community, the security role
that Peshmerga performed against ISIS was poorly tolerated in Baghdad given
that it jeopardised federal authority over disputed territories and seemingly
legitimated the infringement of the Green Line. As a matter of fact, the KRG
began expanding its influence in all “Kurdistani” areas, not least by licensing
oil exploration blocks beyond the de jure border of the autonomous region.
Already in 2008 and 2009, occasional skirmishes with ISF had occurred along
the ill-defined borderlands of Ninewa and Diyala provinces.
The 2017 KRG referendum was a new peak. When the 12th Division fled
Kirkuk and Peshmerga took their place, President Barzani declared that the
Iraqi army would never again return, stressing that the city was soaked in the
blood of the Kurdish martyrs who had fallen against Daesh. As was to be
expected, however, with ISIS gradually falling apart, the stalemate on Kirkuk
was pushed again into the centre of the storm. In the run-up of the referendum, Barzani announced that the governorate would be granted a special status
within an independent Kurdistan. The Iraqi PM Haider al-Abadi was even
more resolute by issuing a 48-hour ultimatum for the restoration of federal
authority on October 12. Both sides entrenched in irreconcilable positions.
However, oil was a prime motive leading Peshmerga and ISF face to face.
KRG elites were mindful that without Kirkuk oilfields, economic independence from Baghdad was beyond reach. In fact, with the surrender, the KRG
lost about 27,500 square kilometres, 36 wells, and more than half of the total
oil production. The loss was catastrophic by all means: Kurdish flags were lowered across the governorate; Arab officials replaced Kurdish mayors in Kirkuk,
Daquq, Taz Khurmatu, and Sargaran; and the same happened with Kurdish
staff within NOC (Awene, 2017). Marginalisation in the decision-making
process was compounded by resurgence of Arabisation practices (Kurdistan
24, 2018c) and displacement of some 100,000 Kurdish residents (UNOCHA,
2017). On a more internal dimension, the old fracture between major Kurdish
parties flared up as Bafel Talabani ordered PUK Peshmerga to withdraw from
Kirkuk on the night of October 16 and Masoud Barzani accused the rivals of
backstabbing the nationalist cause.
A step back is needed to understand how the whole thing even got that
far. In the wake of the ISIS offensive, the unique opportunity to secure crude
exports from the oil-rich province led KDP and PUK to put in place new
arrangements. Although the Talabani family had a stronger following than any
other political faction in Kirkuk, the PUK could not cash in and get the most
benefit from the situation. Since crude had to be pumped anyway into the
KDP-controlled pipeline, cooperation with the rival party was in the order of
things. PUK Peshmerga clashed with ISIS militants in Jawlawla in the Diyala
Governorate. The KDP sat on the sidelines at first, but when the ISF withdrew
from Kirkuk, PM Nechirvan Barzani deployed his own forces in the western

A nation divided 141

part of the super-giant oilfield. Aso Almani, the Head of the local PUK branch,
subsequently deployed troops in the eastern part. In greater detail, KDP forces
occupied Bai Hassan and Avanah oilfields, where the KAR Group replaced
NOC, while PUK forces took hold of Khabbaz, Jambur, and Baba Gurgur,
though letting NOC run operations with the involvement of the Nokan Group.
Such deployments stabilised, but the military situation on the ground
remained fluid. Moreover, the events made it necessary to revisit thorny questions in a climate of distrust. A sense of threat grew on both sides. In March
2017, a PUK special police unit (known as “Black Force”) at Almani’s orders
occupied NOC headquarters and seized a pumping facility in the eastern side,
thus halting exports temporarily (Rudaw, 2017). The irruption was intended
to solicit the establishment of a refinery in Kirkuk, as long promised but not yet
delivered by the Iraqi central government. At the time, most of crude extracted
locally was diverted to the KAR-owned refinery in Kalak to the advantage of
KDP only. The Iraqi PM al-Abadi later defused the situation in a meeting with
PUK leaders in Sulaymaniyah. The episode, as well as the Jaguar vs. Sorgas
dispute discussed before, is emblematic in itself of PUK’s diminished leverage in
the decision-making process: instead of grand bargains negotiated on an equal
footing, the party’s action has seemed to be relegated to bursts of warlordism.
Besides inter-party feuding, oil has also inflamed the splintering of the PUK
into several wings vying for leadership. This became apparent when, in September 2016, Hero Ahmed sent a private letter to PM al-Abadi demanding
to block exports from Kirkuk and instead sell oil through Iran (Goudsouzian,
2016). Beyond lukewarm reactions in Baghdad, Hero’s initiative much angered
the then PUK’s deputies Barham Salih and Kosrat Rasul, who hurried in turn
to establish a decision-making body within the party to limit a “controlling
group” openly blamed for benefiting from oil bonuses dished out in Erbil
(Ekurd, 2016). The implicit reference was to Mam Jalal’s widow and heirs,
who have the support of the majority of Politburo members and are in control
of party finances. Compared to the KDP, the PUK has always been a more
decentralised and less cohesive organisation crossed by smouldering rivalries.
The split of Nawshirwan Mustafa’s group leading to the formation of Gorran
in 2007 was the first outcome of internal bickering. After the end of Jalal Talabani’s 41-year-long tenure at the head of PUK, factionalism has degenerated
into inconsistent policies and contradictory positions to the point of paralysing
the party’s functions (Hama, 2019). Despite Iranian mediation, such turbulent
in-house confrontation has remained latent and undermined PUK standing,
thus giving Masoud Barzani free rein.
The prologue to the independence referendum and its aftermath laid it
bare. Despite official support to Barzani’s decision to hold the referendum
on 25 September, the PUK leadership did not have a unitary stance: whilst
Kosrat Rasul, Mala Bakhtiar, and Qubad Talabani actively campaigned for it,
another group led by Bafel and Lahur Talabani attempted to postpone the vote
without success (ibidem). Most PUK members in Kirkuk were against taking
part in the referendum, banned by the central government as unconstitutional,

142 A nation divided

but Governor Najmiddin Karim brought the Provincial Council to adopt the
KRG line, while Kosrat Rasul deployed some 3,000 Peshmerga to strengthen
the resolve. The former head of Jalal Talabani’s medical staff, Najmiddin
Karim, had carved out a space of autonomy within the PUK during his term
as the governor. In late 2015, the Governor negotiated with PM Nechirvan Barzani a Turkish-brokered deal that allowed the KRG to independently
export and sell oil from the province through the Kirkuk–Ceyhan pipeline
in exchange for a 10 million USD monthly allowance (Iraqi Oil Report,
2015a; Iraqi Oil Report, 2015b). The allocation of petrodollars was meant to
close the fiscal gap caused by the suspension of federal payments. According
to a parliamentary investigation about 60 of 182 million USD poured by the
KRG would have been deposited to Karim’s personal account at the Kurdistan International Bank. Masoud Barzani never planned on formally annexing Kirkuk into the autonomous region, not least because the PUK leverage
across the province would have changed the balance of power between ruling parties. Najmiddin Karim’s enthusiasm for the independence referendum
demonstrated amicable relations with the KDP, which earned him in turn the
antipathies of the Talabani family. Not by chance, shortly after the removal
from office by the Iraqi Parliament, the former Governor fled to Erbil and the
PUK Politburo promptly revoked his party membership.
The escalation of events in response to the vote has to be placed within this
context. With the ISF at the gates of Kirkuk, the KRG had no choice but
to surrender and withdraw from the city, but the burden was borne by the
PUK due to its local clout. When the US gave Baghdad the green light to
the operation and Qasem Solaimani warned that the Islamic Revolutionary
Guard Corps would have sided with the Hashd al-Shaabi, the PUK realised
that they were outnumbered, outgunned, and isolated on all fronts. Under
these premises, picking up the fight against the Iraqi Army and allied militias would have been tantamount to a military and political annihilation. The
most influential PUK faction decided to hand over disputed territories, but
the lack of unified decision-making and military command within the party
made the capitulation ruinous, nor did it avoid bloodshed. Whilst loyalists to
Lahur and Bafel Talabani retreated, Kosrat Rasul’s brigade refused to withdraw
without fighting and suffered heavy casualties during clashes with Baghdad
forces. Although KDP units had not fired a shot to protect the city, Masoud
Barzani placed the blame for such bitter national humiliation on a deeply factionalised PUK, which was also wounded by the loss of one of its most important strongholds (Hama, 2019). The leaders of both parties had met in Dukan
just the day before without reaching a united stand, as further demonstration of mutual mistrust. Within PUK itself, even Commander Jaafar Sheikh
Mustafa later accused the Talabanis of treason. Hence, despite resigning from
the presidency, Barzani managed to capitalise on PUK internal fractures, and
his supremacy inside the autonomous region paradoxically emerged stronger
than ever.

A nation divided 143
Dissenting voices

In the green zone, the independence referendum was welcomed half-heartedly
and most people gave a lukewarm yes, mindful that after the expiration of the
presidential mandate, Masoud Barzani was planning on stirring up the ardent
struggle for self-determination to pursue a personal goal – namely, forging an oil
emirate based upon his leadership. Disdain against the political class as a whole
was reflective of a widespread malaise. Notwithstanding this, for many the referendum still represented a historic opportunity to speak up for Kurdish existence
and practice that right. Nonetheless, Kurds were less cohesive on independency
than one would expect. Whilst KDP officials drew on the ready-to-use patriotic arsenal and maintained that Baghdad had buried the spirit of the federal
constitution, the PUK conditioned its support to the re-activation of the KNA.
Minor parties were more vocal instead in condemning the KDP-inflected
political process. During my interviews with MPs from the oppositions, many
shared the fear that the referendum would pave the way to the balkanisation of the
region and interpreted the rush towards a non-binding declaration of independence as a means of diverting attention from the paralysis of the political system.
In this regard, many interviewees considered the shutdown of the Parliament
instrumental in halting the approval of the draft laws that would make parliamentary oversight on the oil and gas sector operational (especially through KODO).
Institutions are empty vessels. The KDP literally took over all the ministries and the MNR in particular. Without a watchdog or regulator, issues
of national security and national interest are monopolised by party politics.
I cannot emphasise enough how fundamental the Parliament is, because it
links everything we are talking about: oil, referendum, Constitution.
(Anonymous, interview #18)
Before any step towards political independence, it is of utmost necessity
to have economic capacity, infrastructures, and effective institutions. The
KRG has failed to use natural resources, and oil in particular, to serve
other economic sectors. In fact, just the opposite happened. This would
be wrong for any country; it is twice as wrong for Kurdistan because we
are landlocked.
(Anonymous, interview #25)
Barzani’s KDP never called for independence in history. Not even federalism, but self-autonomy. Barzani wants a kind of emirate on the model of
the Gulf monarchies. This is not about Kurds and Kurdish nationalism. It
is about getting more oil to exploit [in disputed areas].
(Anonymous, interview #34)
The oil sector affected negatively the democratization process. From the
beginning we had very poor performance in terms of transparency, with

144 A nation divided

systematic frauds. Problems have not been solved, and people lost trust
towards the government. The political battles out there look like covert
energy battles. Political parties should be kept far away from meddling in
the oil sector, which should be institutionally organised.
(Anonymous, interview #17)
Among opponents, therefore, frustration with the institutional deadlock is
inseparable from severe criticism of the landlord mentality within the KDP,
which is blamed for appropriating oil revenues for party interests, as was the
case in the past for custom duties. Given the balance of power, PUK is held
jointly responsible of the same policies and practices. Those views were much
in line with the public debate and did not really surprise me. Moreover, antiestablishment parties themselves have resorted to the same resource imaginary.
They consider the lack of institutional capacity in the oil and gas sector to be
the bottleneck of a corrupted economy in disarray, and blame the KDP–PUK
oligarchy for that but rarely question the idea of oil-driven national prosperity.
For instance, I was told several times that “oil assures that there is a place for us
in the future” or “supports our sovereignty,” thus using the same tropes of the
KRG official discourse. Therefore, despite political differences, oil nationalism
somewhat binds together all Kurdish parties.
On the contrary, conversations with KRG bureaucrats shined a light on some
less debated points, revealing quite a different viewpoint on independence.
In my personal view we cannot manage our natural resources without
Baghdad. We need Iraq, and Iraq needs us. We still are a federal region.
It is not economic independence to rely on less than 1 million bpd with
falling prices, with lack of transparency, with a huge budget constraint,
and with the lack of income-generating activities. You need reforms, and
a cut in the unlawful spending [of main parties]. The route for independence goes through Baghdad, not without it, nor through Teheran or
Ankara. . . . At the time of the Ba’ath Party we had one of the most
advanced Ministry of Planning in the Middle East, but warfare and ideology prevented Iraq from becoming a developed country. I am in favour of
coexistence, but some people here get chauvinist in being so nationalistic.
(Anonymous, interview #2)
Our region is small. And the market in our region is small as well. The natural
and bigger market for our products is the rest of Iraq. The rest of Iraq needs us
too. This relationship must continue because we depend on each other more
than we should depend on neighbouring countries. . . . Independence should
allow us to decide what is the best thing for our region, for our people – not
to be influenced and forced to accept solutions by anyone else, whether they
are neighbouring countries or Baghdad. Either way, we have a mutual interest
in making the country stronger, whether or not we are part of it.
(Anonymous, interview #9)

A nation divided 145

The line between bureaucrat and party member is muddled. As explained,
the KRG hinges on a blatant spoils system, for which political affiliation and
kinship are prerequisites to enter the administration, especially at the upper
levels. It is a matter of wasta.17 The first person interviewed professed to be
independent. I knew that the second person was close to the PUK instead.
Either way, not having to represent the party line, their views were based on
pragmatic considerations. Both made a case for coexistence within the federal
framework. When asked about the most sensitive issues (such as the status of
disputed areas), they stressed the need to provide first and foremost technical
solutions in order to then beget political results. Although functionalist thinking goes inert very quickly, and technical is anything but neutral, the careful
assessment of limits and potentials of federal cooperation gave depth to the
argument. Stepping outside the agitated state of Kurdish infighting allowed me
to see a different side of the matter.

Neo-patrimonialism and survival strategies
In Max Weber’s understanding, the ideal type of the modern state implies a
legal-rational authority, impersonal power, abstract norms, and neutral bureaucracies. These features set it apart from traditional patrimonial systems, which
are defined instead by personal rulership with no differentiation between public resources and private property of the leader. In the latter, civil servants are
selected on the basis of loyalty and the bureaucracy at large is an extension of
the ruler, whose legitimacy ensues from tradition. Recent literature has called
Weber’s paradigm into question by presenting evidence that patrimonialism
can be found in any modern society and political system (Erdmann & Engel,
2007). One example is Shefter’s (1977) seminal work on patronage politics. As
a result, scholars began using the notion of neo-patrimonialism to stress the
persistence of patrimonial practices within legal-rational bureaucratic orders in
which the line between public and private spheres does exist (Bratton & van
de Walle, 1997). Clapham aptly defines it as “a form of organisation in which
relationships of a broadly patrimonial type pervade a political and administrative system which is formally constructed on rational-legal lines” (1985: 48).
According to Erdmann and Engel (2007), neo-patrimonial relations describe a
type of political domination that latches onto institutionalised societal uncertainty. From their perspective, the distribution of favours to individuals (clientelism) or groups (patronage) for political support reduces insecurity “about the
behaviour and role of state institutions (and agents)” (ibidem: 105). This creates
room for the informal privatisation of formal structures and procedures. It is
worth noting that insecurity is designed by neo-patrimonial rule in order to
guarantee the elites’ survival.
This very mechanism explains the inner logic of the KDP–PUK duopoly.
The misappropriation of public funds and the distribution of prebends sustain the hold on power of Barzani and Talabani dynasties. Against the background of subordinate institutions to party agendas, such patron–client model

146 A nation divided

is reinforced by deep-rooted tribal mentality and constitutes an impediment to
democratic transition. Hassan distinguishes four pillars supporting a sultanistic
political regime:
crony capitalism that is the result of blurred boundaries between the ruling
party and the state, and between the public treasury and private wealth;
personalism and dynasticism, even though the regime is not necessarily
a monarchy; a kind of hypocrisy in which the constitution and laws are
manipulated in the interests of ruling parties; and a narrow social base that
means the ruling elite can exert its will independent of society.
(2015: 7)
Patronage is actually pervasive and institutionalised throughout Iraq, but what
is peculiar of the KRG case is that the quota-based allocation of state resources
and government positions (known as muhassassah system) is organised around
party interests and not ethno-sectarian divisions as in the rest of the country (Ali
Saleem & Skelton, 2019). Most importantly, the patronage system “is founded
upon a deprivation relationship” that has been tying Kurds to the domination
of two major parties that historically benefited from the institutional vacuum
to establish themselves as “the only institutions in the region with any measure
of consolidated resources” (ibidem). Besides conjunctural circumstances, the
tribal texture of social relations should also be taken into account. As suggested
by McDowall (2003), KDP and PUK remain tribal in essence: not in the sense
of tribal mores, pre-modern loyalties, or blood feuds (which nonetheless are
important), but rather in that party leaders act as chieftains exerting power on a
tight and territorialised support base. Leezenberg (2006) argues that traditional
loyalties in Iraq were transformed into patron–client relations because of state’s
active intervention during Ba’athism. Patronage is therefore neither the result
of a weak or absent state nor the remnant of a traditional society. In the context
of KDP–PUK competition, Leezenberg rather sees patron–client relations as
modern, informal, and unstable means of capital accumulation, which leave the
unequal relationship between patron and clients untouched. As illustrated with
the discussion on dynastic leadership and nepotism, a tribal mentality has survived to these days, albeit in disguise, and continues to be a key driver of social
stratification. It might be argued that neo-tribal allegiances are still effective in
incorporating population into patrimonial structures. Amongst other things, it
is interesting to note that such a feudal model is at odds with the free-market
principles that the KRG has displayed on the global stage.
How does the oil and gas sector relate with the survival strategies of the oligarchy? As seen, the industry has been a magnet to patrimonial relations by virtue of its enclave nature and unequalled profitability. Despite the centralisation
of MNR into KDP hands, the PUK has had access to revenue management.
The Barzani–Talabani agreement has pretty much survived on both sides. Notwithstanding distrustful relations, the yields of joint management have kept
the front united against external opponents and domestic winds of discontent.

A nation divided 147

This is not to say, however, that oil politics is neutral ground. The two rivals
have been fighting over and because of oil issues, as the escalation on Kirkuk
during Fall 2017 demonstrates in a most striking manner. Furthermore, rival
wings and free riders within each ruling party have pursued their own agendas
through murky sub-contracts, feats of strength, and a wide repertoire of illegal
activities including blackmailing private energy operators. The frantic race to
wealth accumulation is more intense within the PUK because of a decentralised
structure and factional struggles. For both ruling parties, the stability of their
hegemony depends on feeding concentric circles of mercenaries and clients. In
this context, black gold soon turned out to be the primary source of survival.
It other words, petroleum is the economic glue upon which the KDP–PUK
interdependency is based. If one expands their gaze, everyone wants a piece of
the oil pie in Baghdad too, and oil smuggling and party involvement in the oil
and gas sector are equally obvious in the southern oil-rich province of Basra
for instance, but no Iraqi party could ever get a similar territorial control or
influence on government affairs than that enjoyed by KDP and PUK within
the autonomous region.
Here lies both strength and weakness of the oligarchy, though. Ruling elites
appear to have nothing but oil to maintain power and crush reforms, which
makes them vulnerable in a twofold sense. In the first place, the oil-fuelled patrimonial economy is reliant on external conditions and actors (such as obligations with international traders and Turkish cooperation to get market access).
In second place, despite the closure of the political regime, economic differentiation is a necessity. In this sense, the protracted inability to pay the salaries
of civil servants was a serious blow to the elites-masses bond of dependence
and, in the medium term, may erode the structural foundation of neo-tribal
partisanship.

Notes
1 In disputed areas, which comprise a larger land area than the KRI, KDP is more popular
across the Ninewa plain northeast of Mosul, while PUK has long been the main party
in Kirkuk, which nevertheless lies at the centre of bitter competition.
2 See “Kurdistan Regional Government Unification Agreement,” 23 January 2006.
http://previous.cabinet.gov.krd/a/d.aspx?r=223&l=12&a=8891&s=02010100&s=
010000
3 Nawshirwan Mustafa died in May 2017 a few months before the passing of Jalal Talabani.
4 The KNA reopened in September 2017 at the request of PUK in order to give a parliamentary imprimatur to the KDP-led referendum process.
5 The Ministry of Peshmerga Affairs was established in 2011 and has an estimated force of
about 40,000 fighters organised in 14 Regional Guard Brigades, but the bulk of Peshmerga fall under direct control of the two major parties. The KDP’s 80th Brigade and
PUK’s 70th Brigade number 120,000 fighters in total (Van Wilgenburg & Fumerton,
2015). Furthermore, prominent leaders (such as Nechirvan Barzani, Kosrat Rasul, Hero
Talabani, and Bafel Talabani) have their personal security brigades.
6 I am indebted to Waziri (2018) for the title of this section. His article gives a first-hand
account of the crackdown of peaceful protests that broke out in Erbil in March 2018 and
in which the author was personally involved. In a comparative perspective, Waziri places

148 A nation divided

7
8
9

10
11
12

13

14
15

16
17

emphasis on the perilous drift towards a “republic of fear” whose autocratic tendency
brings back memories of the atrocious persecutions suffered under the Ba’athist rule.
The charge of oil robbery levied on the pockets of citizens was on the background of
protests.
Gorran tweeted: “You rig your side and we will rig ours” – the cheats are united on one
thing only – “dividing our oil, our region and now our votes.”
Amnesty International called on KRG authorities to investigate the killings of two journalists: Kawa Garmyani, shot dead outside his house in Kalar in 2013, and Wedat Hussein Ali, kidnapped and found lifeless in Duhok with marks of torture on his body in
2016. All the fixers and journalists I worked with had been threatened and intimidated
for political reasons. For further reference, see these reports released by Human Rights
Watch, “Iraqi Kurdistan: Free Speech under Attack,” 9 February 2013); “Iraqi Kurdistan:
Ruling Party Forces Fire on Protesters,” 21 October 2015; “Iraq/Kurdistan Region of
Iraq: Troops Shot at Protesters,” 30 March 2017; “Kurdistan Region of Iraq: Protesters,
Journalists Detained,” 28 February 2018; “Kurdistan Region of Iraq: Protesters Beaten,
Journalists Detained,” 15 April 2018; “Kurdistan Region of Iraq: Detained Children
Tortured,” 8 January 2019; “Kurdistan Region of Iraq: Media Offices Shut Down,” 6
October 2020.
In-person interview, June 2016.
The illegal cross-border trade of goods has historically been prosperous and still is one of
the main sources of income for local economies, particularly on the Iranian side where
thousands of cross-border porters (known as kolbar) rely on it.
An informant explained: “[KDP and PUK] leaders hand out money to smaller parties to
keep them quiet. If someone is moving up within the party, they will offer them a service
company. If a problem comes out, it is because someone wanted a bigger cut. And they
will receive more in the end. There is no difference between yellow and green zones, even
though the KDP avoid washing dirty laundry in public.” Reportedly, territorial projection
in the plain of Nineveh was also meant to please rival factions within KDP.
Most oilfields in both KDP and PUK areas are linked to high-ranking officials with
either direct or indirect investments, in complex but traceable ways. Occasionally,
intra-party divisions have had an effect on the development of extractive projects. For
instance, according to one of my sources, the commencement of production operations
in the Atrush block in the Dohuk Governorate was delayed for years due to frictions
between PM Nechirvan Barzani and MNR Minister Ashti Hawrami on the one side
and the main operator – Abu Dhabi National Energy Company (TAQA) – on the other
side. When Masrour Barzani succeeded his cousin Nechirvan, Atrush became one of
the most prioritised oilfields in the region with a record-high output of 50,000 bpd in
2019, reportedly because of Masrour’s good relations with the UAE-based company and
a consistent stake in the project.
Kurds employed at the managerial level are about 10% of the total (MNR, 2015).
The KAR-owned refinery was transferred under the authority of the KRG Investment
Commission in December 2015 and, consequently, was exempted from paying taxes for
10 years. According to the Oil and Gas Law, the refinery will be under control of the
MNR instead. Reportedly, a 2 million USD budget was approved for its construction
when the refinery was already in place.
Such as Tanzim Qaidat al-Jihad fi Bilad al-Rafidayn, founded by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi
and better known as the branch of al-Qaida in Iraq, from which ISIS later ensued.
In Arabic, wasta refers to one’s personal connections facilitating a favour or a service. Not
necessarily illegal, its ethical connotation is usually licit.

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5

No friends but the mountains
Extractivism and social control

We went up the Kanishok gorge along steep, rocky slopes spotted with white
and purple flowers. The mountain stream below us became clearer as we continued, in single file, the trek towards the small waterfalls where we would
encamp. Soran and I had decided to go on a last hike prior to my departure,
joined by three of his friends. I tried to keep up with the pace of these mountaineers who ascended with quick and steady steps over the rugged terrain.
They all had smiles on their faces and sang traditional Kurdish songs. Soran
turned to me and spread his arms out wide: “This is my mosque. It is the only
place where I feel spiritually connected.” Soran used to spend the whole day
by the river when he was a kid. He is now an environmental activist protecting endangered watercourses across the region. The sound of the waterfalls
got louder with every step and the narrow footpath opened into a riverbed
with many natural ponds. “I feel sometimes that I am not getting anywhere
with my work, but I cannot afford not to fight every single day because it is an
unequal fight. Nature is my therapist and my source of inspiration. When I go
to nature I find renewed motivation. It is what keeps me going.” Soran wanted
me to see first-hand what he is fighting for. After a three-hour walk, we sat in
silence under the shadow of a reddish rock face soaring above crystalline water.
I realised that his way of thinking and acting cannot be fully understood away
from such connectedness to nature.

Ethnic consciousness and environmental imaginaries
As a community, Kurds are a niche-oriented people. Their history and culture
are so intertwined with the mountains that the ethnic identity of a Kurd on the
plain becomes a contradiction in terms. Kurds themselves have a saying: “Level the
mounts, and in a day the Kurds would be no more.” . . . To a Kurd the mountain
is no less than the embodiment of the deity: mountain is his mother, his refuge,
his protector, his home, his farm, his market, his mate, and his only friend. This
intimate man-mountain relationship shapes the physical, cultural, and psychological
landscape of Kurdistan more than any other factor. Such a thorough attachment to
and indivisibility from their natural environment is the source of many folk beliefs
that all mountains are inhabited by the Kurds.
(Izady, 2015: 188)

DOI: 10.4324/9781003161103-6

No friends but the mountains 153

It is common knowledge that Kurds have always perceived themselves as people
belonging to the mountains. Topophilia towards their “forbidding mountains”
(van Bruinessen, 1992) is perhaps the most powerful marker of Kurdish identity (O’Shea, 2004). Poems and tales on the human–nature bond are pivotal
in the Kurdish mythology of the origins.1 Mountains are acknowledged as the
transcendent source of the ancestry. McDowall alludes to some of these stories:
The myth that the Kurds are descended from children hidden in the
mountains to escape Zahhak, a child-eating giant, links them mystically
with ‘the mountain’ and also implies, since the myth refers to children
rather than one couple, that they may not all be of one origin. A similar
story suggests that they are descended from the children of slave girls of
King Solomon, sired by a demon named Jasad, and driven by the angry
king into the mountains.
(2003: 4)
Historically, the rugged topography of their highlands protected Kurdish tribes
from hostile incursions. Peshmerga came to be known for mastering guerrilla
tactics in what were inaccessible terrains for the Iraqi army and that gave to the
Kurdish resistance the character of an indomitable spirit. Stories of Peshmerga
coming down from the mountains and attacking government outposts are
invested with an epic aura. The attempts of de-legitimisation by neighbouring
nation-states, which reduced Kurds to primitive nomads or lawless bandits living in remote areas and lacking a cultural specificity, somehow reinforced such
identification.2 “No friends but the mountains”3 is a widely used saying to
describe Kurdish misfortunes. The expression is not of Kurdish origin but has
entered the symbolic universe underpinning the Kurdish question, especially
in Bakur. Many proverbs, songs, and literary works indeed convey the vision
of the mountain as refuge.
Nowadays this protective bond is more ritualised than practiced. The mountain is no longer the shelter for freedom fighters or the primary economic
resource for tribesmen. It is not even the setting of social life for most Kurds,
who have predominantly moved to cities in the plains, and stargazing is no
longer social practice. Urbanisation has inevitably shifted the centre of gravity
of livelihoods. Although a physical connection went lost for most Iraqi Kurds,
who are not nomadic dwellers or guerrilla fighters hiding in the mountains
(with the notable exception of PKK fighters), the mountain imaginary remains
an extraordinary magnet for ethnic consciousness and the nationalist endeavour. In a nutshell, “the mountain image loses nothing of its potency, for nations
are built in the imagination before they are built on the ground” (ibidem: 3).
The nationalist liberation movement capitalised on such an idyllic landscape to
the extent that “much of the nationalist creation of Kurdistan depends on its
perceived topographical features rather than on its inhabitants, institutions or
other particularities” (O’Shea, 2004: 5). Notwithstanding this, the mountainous geography that is precious to every Kurd has actually obstructed territorial

154 No friends but the mountains

continuity across the Greater Kurdistan and prevented pan-Kurdish integration
to emerge. This fascinating paradox is pointed out well in the literature. To
quote Gunther among many, “their mountains and valleys have divided the
Kurds as much as they have ethnically stamped them” (Gunter, 2018: 4).
How does this image of nature relate with the transformation of the Kurdish
enclave into a resource environment? In order to answer this question, it should
be noted first that the foundation of the extractive regime has not happened
in isolation. Oil has been pivotal in the political economies of the Middle East
for almost a century, regardless of haves and have nots. The lure of petrodollars
has designed a predominant mode of communication with the outer world
and shaped internal mechanisms of rent circulation between “rich” and “barren” countries. Glass skyscrapers built on underground treasures, mighty tales
of oil kingdoms and oil sheiks, the web of energy hubs in the Persian Gulf at
the crossroads of global routes entered the imagination of modern Middle East,
giving it a peculiar geo-economic and also cultural connotation. When oil
talks belatedly hit the KRG in post 2003-Iraq, ruling elites drew on that same
vision. As the catch phrase “the Dubai dream” evokes, the nationalist discourse
attached prospects of economic prosperity and hopes for political independence
to resource governance. We have seen that the extractive imperative breathed
new meaning into nationhood and citizenship. Furthermore, the establishment
reinvented patrimonial geometries, symbolic repertoires, and relations between
economic and extra-economic realms in such a way to accommodate the landing of the petroleum industry. This is not to say, however, that Iraqi Kurds were
all in agreement, nor that the oil-dependent development model was the only
option available. In fact, the KRG oil policy relied upon a specific and contested resource imaginary.
An environmental imaginary is “a way of imagining nature, including visions
of those forms of social and individual practice which are ethically proper and
morally right with regard to nature” (Peet & Watts, 2004: 226). In short, it is
the discursive texture within which normative visions of nature organise social
relations with the natural world. Imaginaries are constructed through intersubjective processes of meaning-making: values, symbols, norms, and institutions are given a place in the image of a social whole. In my understanding and
in a more limited sense, a resource imaginary is situated knowledge about ethics, aesthetics, and teleology of resource use. In other words, resource imaginary concerns the ways in which the transformation of nature into resources is
thought and practiced by a group. It is worth remembering that material modes
of production and exchange are discursive at their roots. As Bridge points out,
“resources ‘become’ only through the triumph of one imaginary over others”
(2009: 1221). From a political ecology standpoint, what matters most is that a
political community never shares a single or unitary imaginary: just like “one
group’s natural resource can be another’s dispossession” (ivi), hegemonic views
go hand in hand with subordinate ones. This tension may engender resistance,
which is intended here as a “collective action directed at blocking further alienation, expropriation, and environmental degradation” that “represents a mass

No friends but the mountains 155

project of restitution and self-determination” for disadvantaged or affected
groups (Obi, 2010: 220).
Understood as a mode of accumulation based on the exploitation of primary
commodities to be exported on global markets with no local value-adding,
extractivism typically entails dispossession of local communities. The topdown enforcement of an extractive regime in Kurdistan is no exception, and it
is the lesser-known part of the story. Whilst oil disputes with Baghdad are all
over the news and accusations against political parties of pocketing petrodollars are common in the public debate, the socio-environmental impact of the
petroleum industry is often overlooked. On the surface of things, oil wealth
was translated into a sovereign property of the Kurdish nation and a symbol of
collective upheaval to redeem the plight of historical injustices. Underneath,
however, the oil economy serves as a tool of social control in the hands of
major parties. This last empirical chapter brings to light grassroots resistance
against the extractive imperative. Embracing a critical commitment to emancipation, during field research, I was attentive to the disproportionate exposure
to economic and environmental harm, and the mechanisms of social exclusion
related to it. I looked for silenced and marginalised voices to see what changes
a decade of hydrocarbons exploitation has had on Kurdish society and whether
alternative resource imaginaries have emerged.
Smoke and mirrors
They left us with nothing but smoke.
(Hassan, a farmer from Kirkuk, June 2017)
Kirkuk is unbearable. You cannot live there. Since oil was found the city has never
been pacified. It’s like a boulder on the shoulders of people. Erbil completely changed
in recent years. Before the oil boom, there was nothing there beyond the Citadel. It
was a piece of land in the middle of desert. Now, it’s better than Sulaymaniyah, but
they’ve been following this model of the Iraqi Dubai. I cannot understand what such a
model would be good for. Just think at all the Asian people enslaved in Dubai or Doha.
(Kani, undergraduate student, on a taxi ride near Koya, May 2018)

As described in the introduction, the perception of living in an oil country
is very much sensorial. The acute smell of refining was one of the first things
that caught my attention. Sometimes my interlocutors shared the same sense of
discomfort. “The air is so polluted. You feel that something must be wrong.”
Rebwar is a project manager of a local NGO. At the time we met, he was running an education programme in the IDP camp of Arbat. We were drinking tea
in an aseptic and lavish mall in Erbil. When I asked him what was wrong Rebwar described in detail how oil explorations had threatened rural villages lying
in geologically prospective areas. I heard the same story several other times
thereafter, and with the same sequence of phases: first, de-mining and seismic
acquisition in the license area; then, the setting-up of camps to accommodate

156 No friends but the mountains

working personnel, followed by enclosure and militarisation of exploration
sites; finally, initial testing and start of production, in parallel to construction of
processing and transportation facilities. In most cases, traditional means of subsistence were disrupted or damaged throughout the process: loss of farmland,
soil depletion, diversion and degradation of water resources,4 and restricted
freedom of movement due to road blockades and forbidden areas were typical collateral effects of extractive activities. IOCs were usually assisted by local
contractors (e.g. housing companies, mine action groups, and private security
firms), linked to influent party members, and escorted by KRG security forces.
I was surprised that the most vivid and recurrent image in Rebwar’s illustration
was the unpleasant odour of refining, as if that revealed the nefarious consequences of crude commodification.
When I visited some endangered sites few miles out of the town of Chamchamal with Ako, a young hydraulic engineer from Sulaymaniyah, I had a
similar experience. The area is known for substantial gas reserves managed by
the UAE-based Crescent Petroleum. Over time the lack of public monitoring
on extractive operations has exposed farmland and farmers to heavy pollutants.
One of these sites was a bizarre irrigation well with sulphurous water bubbling
on the surface. Water was mixed with high flames – an apparently contradictory phenomenon caused by combustion of hydrogen sulphide, a poisonous
asphyxiant that can be easily detected because of a poignant odour of rotten
eggs. For Ako, that sinister attraction at the edge of ploughed fields was evidence of neglect towards local inhabitants, abandoned to dangerous exhalations and a contaminated food chain. I had asked him how the oil boom had
changed the region. He brought me there so that I could see the answer with
my own eyes.
Obviously, the petroleum industry is not the sole determinant of the socioecological crisis unfolding in Iraq. The country has experienced at least three
decades of continuous warfare, and heavy metal poisoning due to war remnants is a dramatic indicator of a compromised environment. This comes on
top of persistent droughts, which have drained once fertile farmland along
the Mesopotamian floodplains at an increasing pace.5 The post-conflict environmental deterioration placed an extreme strain on local communities. The
toll of suffering reached a new peak on the heels of the ISIS insurgency given
that the Salafi-jihadist group made ruthless use of scorched-earth tactics by
“weaponising” water infrastructures (King, 2015) and setting oil wells on fire
(Zwijnenburg & Postma, 2017). It is undeniable that oil and gas exploitation
has operated as a threat multiplier to the livelihood of Iraqi people.
Such pressure on socio-ecological processes draws attention to the fact that
resource governance is mingled with issues of democratic participation and
economic inclusion. Writing that the oil economy is the upshot of the KDP–
PUK oligarchy is nothing new, but spotting the contours of the extractive
regime underneath is quite problematic. You can smell it, but it is much harder
to see it clearly. Political dynamics remains on the surface since the oppositions do not distance themselves from the tropes of the official discourse nor

No friends but the mountains 157

represent marginalised positions. Furthermore, when it comes to oil and gas
issues, the institutional level is unresponsive: just like regulatory and monitoring bodies are mostly inoperative or ineffective, bureaucrats and party members
are generally unwilling to go off script during interviews. Truth be told, most
MPs I talked with were not even knowledgeable on such issues. That was not
surprising: as illustrated in the previous chapter with the digression on affiliated
service companies, the energy business is more accurately the extension of a
tight oligarchy. Beyond centralisation of revenue distribution, the microcosm
of actors and makeshift deals appears untidy and liquid, and the suspension
of the rule of law makes it difficult to disaggregate the fluid relationships that
govern the sector.
To give one example, suffice it to mention crude smuggling into Iran via
the three border crossings of Bashmakh, Parwezkhan, and Haji Omaran:
although limited in terms of barrels exported daily, the cross-border traffic of
trucks is done in plain sight and reveals the politically dense involvement of
party militias, service companies, and politicians both in Erbil and in Baghdad.
The illegal trucking of unrefined crude and fuel was widespread in Iraq during the time of the Ba’ath autocracy and it is still common nowadays. It is no
secret that KRG officials made profits out of reselling some of the fuel purchased by the Iraqi central government (Muttitt, 2012). However, bribes and
military connections running through the commodity chain discouraged me
from investigating the blind spots of these criminal entanglements. The lack of
transparency of the industry is an additional hurdle: information on operators,
contractors, or sub-contractors from official sources is sparse. Approaching
the IOCs was even less successful. Informality was the only option, but I was
afraid of harming my collaborators and therefore I avoided sticking the nose
into murky affairs. On the other hand, I realised that people in urban environments were largely unaware of what happened or was ongoing in remote
mountainous areas just hours away from Erbil or Sulaymaniyah, or in the
opposite zone more generally. Therefore, my intention of mapping cases of
oil-led displacement across the region was unrealistic for a number of reasons
(not least, logistics and budget).
As a result, I felt like I was vacuum-sealed, unplugged, and clueless. I was
conducting fieldwork on almost virgin plots and without guidance. What was
truly discernible was the emotional and ideological gap between the political
class and the rest, with the former entrenched in the ivory tower and the latter
feeling betrayed and scammed by the leadership. Undoubtedly, the oil economy has widened the gap. For many Kurds, it brought down the alibis of ruling
parties. Corruption is the most popular word someone would hear when talking about politics, no matter if seated inside a shisha café or on a gold-striped
sofa inside the Council of Ministers, to the extent that any politician who is
known to have some sort of connection with the oil business is blamed even
in the absence of evidence. My interviewees oftentimes connected the protests
burning under the ashes of the oligarchy and the uneven distribution of oil
profits in quite explicit terms:

158 No friends but the mountains

Perhaps people from all over think about oil as a source of progress, but for
us it became a source of war and something for which we lost our rights.
I was born here and I can tell you that I wish we had no oil under our
land. We don’t know how to get benefits from it. We lost Kirkuk some
months ago because of oil. If we were like Djibouti, I think that we would
be independent now.
(Anonymous, interview #44)
I grew up as a refugee. Will my son be a refugee too? If so, oil would have
been useless. As a nation, we need stability. They told us that oil was meant
for building a state and giving everyone a salary. Unfortunately, what they
have done with oil in the last fifteen years was against us. We suddenly got
into a hole and nobody knows when we will get out.
(Anonymous, interview #33)
The priority was getting oil money, that’s it. They had no plans for building a nation. What they claim to be nation-building was just a change of
clothes.
(Anonymous, interview #37)
Contrary to the petro-nationalist narrative, these excerpts portray the KRG oil
policy as unhelpful for state-building aspirations and even harmful to national
solidarity. Despite widespread dissatisfaction, it was somewhat surprising to
notice that neither opposition parties nor the civil society at large had countered
the establishment with an alternative vision of resource governance. All the
attention was given to mismanagement and misappropriation by the elites. Only
small pockets of resistance put the dominant imaginary into question. A general
lack of ecological awareness is one reason for the absence of a large movement advocating for a more sustainable, more equitable, and more balanced
model of economic development. The patrimonial structure of Kurdish society
is a second and more stringent explanation though. As one of my informants
observed, “society is strangled by political parties.” That is not a hyperbole and
says more than repression. Similar to economic enterprises, for the most part,
civil society organisations are also aligned with the hegemonic party in each
zone, which amounts to saying that every issue passes through the close scrutiny of Barzani and Talabani families. Albeit on a much smaller scale and by less
coercive cliques, anti-establishment parties have similar fingerprints. Regardless
of colours or wings, this bond of vertical dependence expresses a strategy of
control by other means than brute force and ended up choking the channels
of social change. In a politicised context under tight surveillance, the overlap
between party politics and civil society has prevented popular mobilisation to
rise. This, in turn, made data collection even more difficult for my research.
Activism came to my aid. During my stay in Sulaymaniyah, I developed
relations of trust and collaboration with many environmental activists. These
were mainly university students, human rights advocates, NGO practitioners,
artists, or intellectuals; either middle-aged Kurds returned from some European

No friends but the mountains 159

country in the 2000s or youths born after 1991 with whom I shared professional interests and/or political views. In most cases, they were pushing ahead
solitary struggles, under the constant threat of heavy repercussions. I considered myself an activist, and my contribution to local campaigns went beyond
research purposes and has been ongoing even after my fieldwork. As already
mentioned, beyond the research fellowship at AUIS, I volunteered for the Save
the Tigris and Iraqi Marshes Campaign. Two of their partner organisations had
an office (UPP) and headquarter (Waterkeepers Iraq) in Sulaymaniyah, where
I lived. Joining them seemed natural to me. After all, I had decided to avoid
spending time with international expats working in the region in order not to
contaminate my ethnographic immersion and, therefore, that network of activists became my quite unique lens on Kurdish society. That lens was selective,
of course. As any act of translation tends to be partial, I am aware that some
things went inevitably lost in such a learning process. This was compounded
by the lack of well-organised social movements, which would have connected
scattered protests across the region into a unitary frame. However, notwithstanding these empirical and cultural limitations, that filter enabled me to grasp
some social realities that I would not have noticed or fully understood otherwise. Local activists acted as precious intermediaries to fill a knowledge gap. In
some cases, they became good friends as well. I gradually learned and further
reconstructed how oil-driven development had challenged customary claims
on land, exhausted rural ecologies, and bolstered up top-down mechanisms of
social control. Such reflexive and participatory methodology of knowledge coproduction eventually shined a light on collective instances of resistance and on
different imaginings of nature.
Protests in Shawre Valley and Khor Mor

Two case studies are contrasted in the following in order to shed light on
imaginaries of nature and resource usage through the stories of marginalised
and subaltern voices. From an environmental justice perspective, one could
describe them as a success story and a less fortunate one. In both cases, dispossession stemming from the appropriation of hydrocarbons led to expropriation
of rights and costs shifting on local communities. Although it would be implausible to cover all struggles over extractive sites, the comparison allows a general
reflection on the sub-regional contours of the extractive regime. The analysis
reveals under which circumstances collective action and resistance emerged and
in which circumstances it did not. Moreover, it gives an insight into the many
intersubjective “realities” in which oil-producing communities are embedded.
Sirwan was a key informant. We met in a teahouse I used to go to not far
from Azadi Park, in Sulaymaniyah. A long-time activist for women’s rights,
Sirwan, walked me through the general situation of human rights, gender
issues, and ethnic coexistence in the region. We talked about overt and covert
forms of oppression. After many years of activism in a closed society, Sirwan
dreamed of leaving the country and getting British citizenship. At some point,

160 No friends but the mountains

our conversation turned to oil politics. I shared my impression that the trail of
oil can be seen everywhere.
It is so. I am sure you have some background, but you need to know that
when the big companies started arriving after 2003 . . . It was a shock.
Especially for those who lived in rural villages and all of the sudden saw
the Asayish taking possession of lands where their ancestors had lived from
time immemorial. Media do not pay attention to the social impact of the
industry, how people were expropriated of the land that had nourished
them for centuries, and the environmental damage that ensued.
(Sirwan, interview #29)
Sirwan gave an overview on reactions against extractive projects. I learned that
requests of compensation had been common, and IOCs had allocated funds
for infrastructures and social services to somewhat redress land losses. Such
indemnities, however, were siphoned out by the KRG and never reached destination in most cases. All the more so after losing disputed areas, Sirwan commented that it was just a matter of time before the KRG would turn attention
to hydrocarbon deposits in unexplored areas in the region, such as Atroush
or Bazian. “There will be new abuses, but the future has yet to be written,”
he added with a hint of optimism. Unexpectedly, he went on talking about a
bunch of small villages that years before had sabotaged ExxonMobil explorations to the point of making it impossible for the energy titan to stay. That story
seemed to be close to what I was looking for. I asked him to tell me more and
facilitate meetings with the villagers. What I heard from Sirwan and the people
I met few weeks later is reported in what follows.
ExxonMobil started exploration and drilling activities in the Betwata exploration block in May 2013, following the PSA signed in October 2011. Whilst
protests against extractive projects had been mild or ineffective elsewhere, the
mobilisation against upstream operations in the Shawre Valley (which stretches
north of the town of Ranya in the Sulaymaniyah Governorate) was unprecedented in scale, coordination efforts, and outcome. To date, it is the only case
inside the region in which the refusal by local communities induced an IOC to
withdraw the investment. During the first half of 2013, ExxonMobil’s contractors began undertaking seismic explorations with the use of dynamite explosives
and conducted a geological survey. With KRG consent, the oil major expropriated about 18 hectares of orchards and vineyards in between the villages of Hajji
Ahmed and Sartka in the Shaqlawa district in order to build a 3,000-metre deep
oil well. These preliminary activities prompted concern throughout the valley,
where the sustenance of 5,000 people depends on agricultural yields. About 30
villages (Gullan, Daraban, Allawa, and Sorabani to mention a few) staged demonstrations to oppose land expropriations. Activists played a fundamental role in
raising public awareness and reached out to oil engineers to assess the effects of
oil drilling. An association (Assembly for the Protection of the Environment and
Public Rights) was formed to organise grievances and support local councils.

No friends but the mountains 161

In the meantime, ExxonMobil set up a camp to explore potential drilling
sites nearby and restricted access to farmland, as a consequence of which traditional livelihoods were disrupted. Locals documented a loss of annual harvest
and soil depletion. Degradation of groundwater quality and disappearance of
natural springs were the main sources of apprehension for farmers. Some campaign slogans from the protests included “We won’t exchange water for oil,”
“Our beautiful and abundant land is our wealth, not oil,” and “Do not destroy
our environment for the leaders’ pockets.” The fact that the company had hired
only KDP or PUK affiliates also stoked tensions. Meetings with ExxonMobil’s
representatives, who promised benefits to mukhtars,6 were not sufficient to
allay concerns. Many villagers refused money from the company, while others
did not receive adequate compensation. However, compensation for losses was
secondary to the demand to withdraw from explorations and any other future
development in the valley. As noted in a document prepared by the NGO
Christian Peacemaker Teams – Iraqi Kurdistan (CPT IK), which helped residents to voice their claims, requests included “the full consultation with, and
free and informed consent of, area residents as a precondition to KRG permits
for hydrocarbon exploration or development” (CPT IK, 2013). Some activists
were threatened and arrested. Even the Head of the Natural Resources Committee of the Kurdistan Parliament, Sherko Jawdat, was denied access to the
ExxonMobil’s site in March 2015.
Despite the deployment of security forces, villagers defied the KRG at their
own peril by organising protests to dissuade ExxonMobil from carrying out
further explorations. Shawre people are renowned for their tenacious temperament, which has its roots in a history of resistance. The revolt against Saddam
Hussein in March 1991 lit up in Ranya and spread from there across the entire
region. The town came to be known as the gateway of insurgency (darwaza-i
raparin). According to Sarwar, a villager from Gullan, the KRG refrained from
taking strong measures precisely due to that legacy: “They knew we were
ready to put our lives in danger to protect our valley.” Hence, security convoys did not intimidate dwellers. As protests against the company unfolded,
the KRG soon became the main target. The ruling elites were blamed for
being accomplices in the destruction of a delicate environment for easy profits.
On 15 August 2013, 80–120 protesters gathered in Daraban and blocked the
main road with wooden logs to interrupt the passage of ExxonMobil SUVs
and trucks. Kurdish media broadcast the collective action, which was reported
widely by local media (Iraqi Oil Report, 2013). Although acts of civil disobedience were nonviolent with no exceptions, protesters came to the point of
threatening the use of arms as a last resort, but the conflict did not escalate.
Amid heightened protests and non-prospective findings, ExxonMobil stopped
the project and eventually abandoned the Betwata block in late 2016.
Although unsatisfactory oil discoveries are one of the reasons for the relinquishment of the exploration block, locals consider, with much pride, the
withdrawal of ExxonMobil as the direct result of their steadfastness. What is
certain is that the resolute and coordinated mobilisation of villages across the

162 No friends but the mountains

valley was a significant factor. Moreover, the protest created awareness about
the dangers extractive industries may pose to farming practices and connectedness to ecological processes. Whereas there was no prior knowledge on
the matter, the involvement of NGOs and experts allowed villagers to raise
demands with greater effectiveness. Even more importantly, it led people to
interpret events in their area as consistent with an overall pattern unfolding
in many other places in the region and Iraq. For many, it became a moment
where things clicked – a milestone in the process of consciousness-building
towards the emergence of a counter-narrative. My interview with Sarwar was
enlightening on that point: “We realised that where there is an oil well, there
is pollution. We saw that in Kirkuk. We see it happening now in Basra. Once
you are drilling you cannot stop the consequences from happening.” The emotional attachment to the natural landscape was also crucial for the mobilisation
to grow and endure, despite power asymmetries. Affected communities internalised the message that “once you lose your land, you have already lost most
of your culture,” as put in to words by Ako, another villager. Figuratively speaking, the protests in Shawre Valley represent the symbiotic relationship between
Kurdishness and the mountainous environment discussed in the opening of
this chapter. This relationship lies at the heart of Kurdish collective memory
binding ethnic consciousness to a powerful sense of place. Besides that, from a
pragmatic point of view, the development of a grassroots network coordinating
sparse and relatively unconnected villages in a vast mountainous area was the
key to success.
The disavowal of a PSA signed with one of the biggest firms in the oil and
gas sector much embarrassed the KRG. Besides the reputational loss, officials
feared a domino effect in other blocks where oil exploration and drilling had
been approved. That has not occurred, however. The resolve exhibited in the
valley remains an isolate case. Where the four enabling factors weaving together
Shawre people – a culture of resistance, a sense of community given by belonging to a shared ecosystem, co-production of knowledge with experts, support
network of social activism – were not in place, similar concerns about IOCs’
activities did not arouse mobilisations of the same magnitude. Even when resignation to the circumstances was not the first option, collective actions were
short-lived and intermittent.
A good illustration of this is grievances around Khor Mor. Since 2007, the
UAE-based Crescent Petroleum and Dana Gas were given exclusive rights for
appraisal and development of the substantial gas reserves in the area upon signing of a service-type contract that extended also to the Chamchamal block
further north (Mills, 2016). In 2011, two European minority shareholders – the
Austrian OMV and the Hungarian MOL – joined the consortium, known as
Pearl Petroleum. Through a 180-kilometre-long pipeline completed in record
time in August 2008, the gas processing plant in Khor Mor supplies the two
major power stations in Bazian and Erbil, generating about 60% of electricity
used in the KRI. After settlement of a lengthy arbitration with the KRG, Pearl
Petroleum agreed to boost production on top of a total investment of USD
1.3 billion. Years later Dana Gas and Crescent Petroleum released a 92-page

No friends but the mountains 163

assessment report to highlight the socio-economic benefits of their operations.7
Nevertheless, there is counter-evidence that local communities suffered significant collateral damage. Since 2014, CPT IK was invited on multiple occasions
to Kormori Bchwk, a remote village of 22 families a three-hour drive south of
Sulaymaniyah in the middle of barren and earthy lands. Villagers showed them
that all the springs nearby had dried up for the water-intensive needs of the processing plant (CPT IK, 2016). Kormori Bchwk became dependent on a small
tanker provided by the company. The lowering of the underground water table
went hand in hand with degradation of water quality. CPT IK delegations were
told that Dana Gas had confiscated 400 hectares of land and closed the main
road to access the village. Moreover, despite provision of services, the company
did not hire workers in the area (except two) and did not offer adequate compensation. Poisoning from gas fumes was also reported. CPT IK documented a
peaceful blockade, as a result of which the leader of the village was arrested and
released on bail, though faced with a court summons. Protests did not undermine gas extraction in any way and complaints remained unheard.
Quite differently from the ExxonMobil case, the operations in the Khor
Mor plain were pushed forward by a flagship project for the expansion of the
still underdeveloped gas sector and affected a much smaller community. The
lack of employment opportunities outweighed environmental concerns, which
were present nonetheless. Any economic activity bears seeds of discord, and one
could argue that the energy-driven transformation of the whole region is worth
the sacrifice of a depressed and scarcely populated area. However, contamination
of water streams and air poisoning were not restricted to the few dwellers and
the bare hills of Kormori Bchwk. As confirmed by in situ visits, the toxic footprint is apparent in the entire agricultural area around the Chamchamal block.
Moreover, citizens and local administrations were neither consulted, let alone
involved, in planning the future of their territory, despite the negative impact
on their livelihoods. No wonder, hence, that distributional issues emerged
when people realised that households in the gas-rich district were delivered
with much less electricity supply than the cities of Erbil or Sulaymaniyah. After
vehement protests against power cuts in January 2017, rockets were fired at the
power plant in Chamchamal (Latif, 2017). The attack caused quite a stir and
met its target given that supply was immediately turned on and without interruptions. That was not a single incident. A year before a section of the Khor
Mor-Erbil gas pipeline had blown up near the village of Qadr Karam knocking
out power for hours (Iraqi Oil Report, 2016). The violent turn demonstrations
took illustrates dissatisfaction with the inequitable allocation of benefits, as well
as the latent potential for civil unrest against the KDP–PUK oligarchy.

Frontiers of accumulation and logics of expulsion
As already discussed in Chapter 1, the still influential paradigm of rentierism and the oil curse model are bounded to a narrow understanding of the
modus operandi of extractive regimes in relation to contexts other than the
state and properties other than the monetary rent. The conclusion that follows

164 No friends but the mountains

mainstream theoretical assumptions is that oil revenues are the reason why producing countries in undemocratic contexts plunge into chaos. Even when a
correlation between political instability and a rentier economy can be found,
such an explanation fails to see what lies in the shadows, especially that the
financial and military ramifications of transnational commercial ventures are
quite often the actual drivers of institutional weakness and armed conflict in
oil-producing areas. Furthermore, the violent transformation of territories into
extractive frontiers disappears from the scene.
Starting with the first point, the general dynamics of petro-capitalism need
to be taken into consideration. If on the one hand the alliance between foreign capital and the state begets a particular fiscal sociology that makes central
institutions dependent on whopping unearned income (the rentier aspect to
which the analyses on petro-states devotes much attention), on the other hand,
it must be emphasised that “the presence, and activities, of the oil companies
constitute a challenge to customary forms of community authority, inter-ethnic
relations, and local state institutions” (Watts, 2004: 54). In his ethnographic
reconstruction of the oil economy in the Niger Delta, Watts discovers that
the oil complex – understood as the dense institutional setting through which
oil concessions reconstitute local communities8 – interferes with the manufacturing of “governable spaces,” which is to say configurations of identities,
forms of rule, and territory. He illustrates in great detail the ways in which
the emergence of an extractive community has left a heavy footprint on the
various spaces of chieftainship, indigeneity, and nationalism. This turbulent
reorganisation of allegiances and hierarchies within a territory is conflictive
and contradictory. For one thing, albeit disguised as the engine of progress,
petro-capitalism has resulted in the expropriation of wealth and rights across
the delta, where insurgents and protesters against multinational oil operators
are just the tip of the iceberg of resistance against the dramatic reverberations
of extractivism, from near ecological collapse to ethnic marginalisation. Again
with reference to Nigeria, Obi corroborates Watt’s conceptualisation by stressing that the rapacious alliance of ruling elites and foreign investors has thrived
upon a multitude of excluded groups. In the context of a “privatised state”
aiming to secure a stream of profits by means of coercion, the removal of natural resources from sites of production and their transfer to sites of consumption
abroad has implied indeed land enclosure, appropriation of rights over nature,
and destruction of previous socio-cultural orders (Obi, 2010).
With due proportions, the same patterns can be found in most oil-producing
areas in the global South as extractive frontiers establish mutual relations
between capitalist cores and reservoirs of raw materials and cheap labour. How
such a pattern materialises across time and space is an empirical question. In
this sense, an impoverished yet oil-blessed region is anything but a paradox of
plenty. Just like the Niger Delta, it can be regarded instead as one of the many
offshoots of capitalist expansion at the confluence of the unbalanced commodity exchange binding dominant nodes of consumption to subordinate supply
zones at the fringes of the global economy.

No friends but the mountains 165

These pages are influenced by David Harvey’s writings. According to his
adjustment to the Marxist theory of primitive or original accumulation of
capital, accumulation by dispossession exemplifies the exit strategy to chronic
pressures of over-accumulation, which Marx identified as the internal contradiction crippling capitalistic systems on a cyclical basis. Based on Rosa Luxembourg’s insight that the occupation of non-capitalist formations is required
to confront periodic surpluses of capital, Harvey adds that capitalism craves
for lower input costs and new markets as a way out of the crisis tendency.
When a pre-existing “outside” is no longer available, capitalistic forces would
manufacture it by releasing or devaluing assets at a very low cost. According to
Harvey (2003), this is precisely what happened with the real estate bubble in
the US, which set the 2008 global financial crisis into motion. Dispossession is
therefore organic to the reproduction of capitalism. In the current phase, new
forms of exploitation have come to light, while conventional ones have been
stretched to extreme levels. Harvey takes as examples the rampant privatisation
of public utilities, the retreat of labour protection schemes, the depletion and
degradation of environmental commons.
The reinvention of mechanisms for primitive accumulation is equally central in Saskia Sassen’s reflection on the sheer and relentless growth of inequality worldwide. Sassen (2014) suggests that transaction chains of contemporary
advanced capitalism end in the brutal, large-scale, and acute expulsion of
growing masses of people from the core social and economic orders. The dismantling of welfare and health programs, increasing foreign acquisitions of
swathes of land, and the transformation of natural environments into “dead
land and dead water” by virtue of unrestrained resource extraction all share a
common pattern of expulsion – from the social contract underpinning liberal
democracies, from livelihoods and life projects, and even from the biosphere.
These “expanded modes of profit extraction” are far from being exceptional
or transitional. Rather, they indicate that a “systemic deepening of capitalist
relations” reflects the loss of value of the bourgeoisie for the reproduction of
the economic system and is executed through complex technologies or opaque
financial derivatives such as subprime mortgages and credit default swaps – to
mention two speculative tools that caused the aforementioned 2008 financial
crisis. The resulting extensive destitution runs counter to the belief (which
was widespread in early 1990s) that global imbalances and absolute poverty
were about to gradually diminish, if not disappear. On the contrary, the “radical reshuffling of capitalism” after the end of the Cold War led to unbridled
de-regulation policies on the one side and the repositioning of resource-rich
territories as sites of extraction on the other side.
Applied to the material realities engendered by petro-capitalism, the couple of concepts reviewed earlier (accumulation by dispossession and expulsion
from socio-economic cores) falsify international energy relations by showing
the structural inequalities beneath the circuits of capital. Under this premise,
social and environmental harm at the point of extraction comes into focus
as a transfer of production costs from centre to periphery, from producers to

166 No friends but the mountains

oil-producing communities. Already in 1953, Kapp signalled that capitalistic
systems rely on the possibility of shifting production costs to third parties, or
society at large. This book focuses on the channels through which such exogenous dynamics were inserted into a contentious environment, and with what
consequences.
My interpretation is that the KRG-corporate nexus is more than a rentseeking machinery dispensing profits and enabling violence. I argue, instead,
that the extractive regime acted as both an engine of social change and a device
for maintaining power. Harvey commented that the US-led military interventions in Iraq in 1991 and 2003 were imperialist wars par excellence dictated
by the goal of controlling the global oil spigot. Whatever the opinion one may
have, for the purpose of this analysis, suffice it to point out that KRG elites
were quick to jump on the bandwagon of the re-privatisation of the Iraqi
petroleum industry by offering remunerative PSAs to foreign wildcatters. The
injection of fresh crude into the global arteries bolstered up the request for a
major role in the federal re-composition of the country, but only the Kurdish
upper crust has benefited from inclusion into the sphere of interests of energy
traders. For everyone else extractivism is a synonym of social dismemberment
and a new geography of exclusion.
The conceptual toolbox from the Marxist tradition is helpful to ground the
study of extractive localities into the diagnosis of systemic contradictions of
capitalism, but it is insufficient to grasp the full variety of lived experiences
in affected communities. In other words, it risks fetishising the oil commodity chain at the macro-level as a global material network of production and
dispossession processes without looking into the functioning in context. A
political ecology approach has much to offer in this sense. Aside from capitalist expansion to generate and reinvest profits, such a lens draws attention to
the fact that extractive frontiers burst into local environmental histories with a
complex bearing on livelihoods, cultural norms, and social relations. Extractivism restructures socio-natures as a whole. Territorial transformations are one
pertinent example: although sites of extraction cover a much narrower area
than the one licensed once operations are underway, the existence of a concession entails a shift in land ownership and use, and with it also new perceptions
of risks, uncertainties, and opportunities (Bebbington, 2011). The commodification of the underground has a ripple effect on the economic prospects and
the ecology of an extractive territory. It is not hard to imagine that disruption
of agro-pastoral livelihoods or quick transition from a rural economy to make
room for the petroleum industry is destabilising by and large: in most cases,
displacement, eviction from survival systems, decay of traditional norms, and
deterioration of the ecosystem are just around the corner. Foreign land grabs
“transform sovereign territories into a far more elementary condition – land
for usufruct” (Sassen, 2014: 82). In this sense, it should also be noted that the
extraction of value goes hand in hand with a loss of rights. And what is worse,
that is not a one-off transaction but rather a long-term rearrangement forging
a stable, export-oriented regime. Even if the historical trend suggests adverse

No friends but the mountains 167

outcomes, the by-products of extractivism are not straightforward; otherwise,
we would embrace some sort of commodity determinism. Tensions inside
extractive communities are evidence of different “realities” resulting from open
and latent conflicts. When conducting fieldwork, these inconsistencies caught
my attention.
Divide and rule

The Kurdish experience re-illustrates some classic features of extractivism.
Understood as a mode of accumulation of primary commodities, it is neocolonial in essence. Petroleum and mining industries are not designed to create
value in the territories where they operate: the lion’s share of raw materials
appropriated by multinational enterprises is not processed for domestic consumption but exported hundreds of miles away. This circumstance leads to the
apparently anomalous situation for which oil-producing countries usually have
very limited refining capacities and are forced to import petroleum products.
The KRI does not set a departure from the general trend. What is left on the
ground are the social and environmental costs transferred to local communities
not benefiting from resource exploitation. These costs are sold as a necessary
sacrifice for the sake of progress and modernisation, but at a closer look, the
production of value from the commodification of nature entails the consumption of life and of the environment in extractive localities (Bebbington, 2011: 5).
From this viewpoint, the whole set of activities referred to as extractivism
resembles a “machinery of plunder.” Furthermore, extractive enclaves tend to
be cordoned off from the rest of the economy given that they are unable to
absorb unskilled labour or generate employment (Kohl & Farthing, 2012: 225).
Insularity is compounded by the overall distortion of the economic structure
and allocation of production factors (Acosta, 2013): the gargantuan influx of
cash via royalty payments accrues to the top, while standards of living fall to
the bottom. In the absence of fair redistribution, the scale of extractive activities is such that the concentration of wealth in a few pockets translates to the
impoverishment of large fractions of the population. Typically, highly productive systems and subsistence-based systems are on different tracks, engendering
a mirrored contrast between a greater sense of affluence spurring a consumerist boom and widespread backwardness aggravated by disruption of livelihood
strategies.
It is worth emphasising that these processes are inflicted by the welding of
private or privatised interests with little or no civil oversight, hence, the spiralling of social tensions. In the Kurdish case, distributional disputes and lack of
deliberation show that the pact between the KRG and IOCs was insensitive
to local rights or claims. The latter were disregarded and emptied into a development model whose agents are foreign corporate actors that are not socially
accountable to the citizenry, and in which distribution mechanisms rely on
patrimonial transfers through the coffers of ruling parties. There is a sad irony
that IOCs were held responsible for addressing and relieving social pressures,

168 No friends but the mountains

whereas the KRG acted merely as a security provider. Despite the nationalist
frame, a national policy is barely recognisable. Even more so, a striking paradox
is there: the oil nationalist discourse mobilised by the establishment critically
depends, in practice, on transnational capital and foreign acquisitions of public
assets. Since PSAs are awarded by bilateral negotiations behind the scenes and
not by public auctions, as noted in the previous chapter, institutional control
is out of question.
However, local claims for the reassertion of land ownership have opened loci
of contestation. In the Shawre Valley, participation in the process of knowledge production made villagers conscious of their agency. Though that is not
the same as deliberation, confrontation with the corporate-government nexus
allowed a counter-discourse to gradually emerge. The human–nature mythology and the longing for rural self-sufficiency were opposed against the extractive imperative backed by nationalist propaganda. Preservation of natural beauty
and traditional customs overrode the tempting prospect of oil windfalls. The
presence of those themes in the Kurdish collective memory made the appeal
effective and sustained collective action. Walking backwards into the future,
Shawre people appealed that they belonged to the valley where their ancestors had settled in the mists of time, thus claiming to protect the real backbone
of Kurdishness. Nevertheless, Kurds’ attitudes towards extractive activities are
mixed. In fact, occupational and economic concerns were indeed predominant
in Khor Mor and Chamchamal. Moreover, the tangible effects of the oil and
gas industry are unseen in urban settings.
The urban–rural divide tells more than the passing of time. “Kurdish parties completed what Saddam Hussein had started,” Sirwan told me. He meant
that the action of major parties is consistent, paradoxically, with the Ba’athist
resettlement policy in that it has continued to divide the social texture and create forms of economic dependency:
Working for the KRG is the only source of income for some 1.5 million
people, out of a total population of 5–6 million. That’s a form of social
control. Households are not autonomous. My family, on the foothills of
the Halgurd, is perhaps an exception. They produce what they eat, except
for rice and tea. If you control the economy, you make people dependent.
Capitalism, of which the petroleum industry is one aspect, destroyed the
economic independence of Kurdish society.
(Sirwan, interview #29)
His biographical account summarises many points already discussed throughout the book, most notably KDP–PUK patrimonial features and the consumerist boom that has gripped the region on the heels of the oil bonanza. It also
suggests, however, some other elements that further clarify the link through
which the commodification chain allows room for strategies of social control.
To generalise from this insight, urbanisation and rural decline may be interpreted as illustrative of a “peripherisation” process (Fischer-Tahir, 2010) that

No friends but the mountains 169

follows from the KRG development policies and contributes to disconnection
and othering of rural areas.
Living on the margins

Fischer-Tahir shows that technocratic, academic, and political representations
of the district of Qaradagh, southwest of Sulaymaniyah, is an example of a
policy discourse making rural areas dependent on cities in terms of “income,
food supply, and political decision-making” (2010: 2). Such discourse, which
favours the urban cores in the three Kurdish governorates, is coupled by a
pair of tendencies that have hit the region since the mid-1990s: the decline of
agriculture as a result of lack of public planning and, relatedly, the exodus of
workforce from the countryside into cities to earn state salaries, either as civil
servants or members of the security forces. Once in the middle of pasture lands,
villages in Qaradagh are no longer self-sufficient in terms of food and goods
production, and also marginalised in terms of political representation with
respect to the dominance of urban-based party bureaus. Fischer-Tahir’s focus
on centre–periphery relations is innovative since research along these lines has
mostly focused on treating the Kurdish north as a peripheral region vis-à-vis
the Iraqi state without entering sub-state dynamics. The peripherisation thesis,
instead, offers a complementary angle to read economic imbalances inside the
KRI. Until the development of the petroleum industry, the rain-fed highlands
of Kurdistan were the granary of the country, accounting for about 70% of
the total wheat production in early 1950s (Natali, 2010: 3). Despite isolation
and underdevelopment, the region not only supplied the domestic market but
also exported cereals to neighbours and Europe. In addition, agriculture was
the most important tax base, providing one-third of the national income (ivi).
However, the petrolisation of Iraq quickly undermined the agricultural sector:
already in late 1950s, Iraq was a food importer for over two-thirds of its needs.
This had repercussions on the agrarian economy of Kurdistan as well. When
the KRG itself undertook the development of the geological potential, the
decay of the agrarian society continued unabated.
One may wonder why has the KRG set foot on the same dysfunctional path
of the Iraqi petro-state? At the time of regime change in Baghdad, oil and gas
exploitation was an intention at best. The region still was predominantly rural
and almost self-sufficient in terms of local products, though in a general condition of poverty. Within a few years, the KRG embarked, instead, on a radical
transformation towards an oil-based rentier economy. One answer could be
that path-dependency was due to a general lack of administrative expertise
and experience. To put it bluntly, Kurdish leaders were unprepared to run a
government: from professional state-destroyers and guerrilla specialists, who
had fought for their entire lives up the mountains, all of a sudden they came
to be improvised state-builders, confronted with a region in ruins and enticed
by multi-millionaire oil deals. The elites found themselves under enormous
pressure and looked up to the example of the parent state in order to expedite

170 No friends but the mountains

the state-building process. After all, the new class of senior KRG bureaucrats
had been trained in Baghdad in no small part. Despite its defects, in a hundreddollar oil world, Iraq was still the model to follow. In addition, the friendly
support of energy-hungry Western powers was not secondary: a neo-liberal
extractive economy promised to be the most valuable asset for securing international recognition and achieving greater autonomy.
This is part of the explanation, but there appear to be stronger reasons in
my view. Under the Ba’ath Party, the country as a whole was a centralised and
socialist state providing health care, education, and employment in the public
sector, with the bulk of state revenues being generated through oil production.
That aura of prosperity concealed a number of negative consequences such
as the outsized growth of military expenditure and the institutionalisation of
patronage networks deep inside the Iraqi state, but welfare and social mobility counterbalanced the most brutal aspects of autocratic rule (Marr, 2012).
Quite differently, Kurdistan lagged behind the rest of the country as historically
penalised in terms of infrastructures, social services, and professional opportunities. The regime used segregation and backwardness to weaken Kurds, thus
impeding local political claims to get strength. Given this legacy of resentment,
the KRG was expected by local population to subsidise the same level of wellbeing and fund payrolls independently of Baghdad once the golden valve of oil
exports was opened.
In fact, a rentier mentality had been in existence well before the first barrel of crude was actually sold. Since the Oil-for-Food Programme in the early
1990s, the KRG has relied upon money injections from the outside – be it
international aid, federal allocations from central government, or petrodollars from IOCs and traders. The primary source of income has always been
external. Taken to an extreme, this means that the KRG is bankrupt by design
given that, with numbers at hand, it has never been able to afford payrolls for
its own. Rentierism is well rooted in the political culture of the region in
that it has shaped behaviour patterns between rulers and their constituencies.
Undoubtedly, the emergence of the oil and gas sector, which contributes little
to other sectors and absorbs about 1% of the labour force (World Bank, 2016),
and the characterisation of economic independence as a springboard for the
state-building project have made the rentier model stronger than ever before.
What happened next is known. Expectations of living on oil were not realistic, but generous foreign capital loans pumped up government spending at
unsustainable pace, with the salaries of civil servants draining over 60% of the
budget. The vicious circle of centralisation, neo-tribal patrimonialism, and
rent-seeking behaviour “made economic reform unsuccessful and accelerated
economic crisis” (Noori, 2018: 2). As seen, price fluctuations, unsolved federal disputes on revenue sharing, and armed conflict with ISIS added to the
crisis. Despite massive public investments in education, the expansion of the
construction sector, and buoyant economic growth between 2007 and 2013,
the boom-bust business cycle resulted in a non-productive economy, stuck in
a debt trap and exposed to market volatility. Many Kurds have experienced a

No friends but the mountains 171

worsening of living conditions. As mentioned, food insecurity is a theme. Heshmati notes that the “region has never been more dependent on import of
human resources and imported goods previously produced locally” (2008: 12).
Although this is typical for rentier states, economic and fiscal dependency on oil
turns out to be heavier in the KRG than in Saudi Arabia or other oil-producing
countries in the Middle East (World Bank, 2016). And what is worse, the oil
boom left better-educated new generations with slim employment opportunities.
The KRG has proved unable so far to address these structural issues by
reforming the economy through a more diversified and sustainable income
base. However, this is not solely the unintended outcome of a widespread
rentier mentality, inherited from the past and endorsed with indolence by those
in power. As demonstrated by the fact that a handful of people within ruling
parties reserved the oil dossier to themselves, the leadership has been in the
driving seat throughout the journey. In other words, it can be argued that the
extractive regime was designed to suit the KDP and PUK power systems. From
this perspective, even prior to becoming the backbone of state institutions, the
development of the petroleum industry was the ultimate strategy of social control to keep the reins of the region.
A standard definition of the concept from any textbook would place emphasis on the socialisation of norms that discipline behaviour by drawing the line
between what is (culturally) considered to be acceptable and what is not, or
between the normal and the pathological as Foucault would say. In these
pages, instead, social control is used with a slightly different connotation as
it focuses on the regulation of political orders through top-down practices
of dominance.9 For all the forms of power, social control is exerted through
normation and normalisation. As seen, the enforcement of a legal framework
for the concession of exploration rights and the subsequent creation of an
extractive milieu rearrange hierarchies and functions within a given territory.
Overall, the restructuring of the KRG as a de facto petro-state put a glove on
society through three mechanisms: i) repression – bankrolling of party militias
to reduce mobilisation and opposition against the establishment; ii) cronyism –
distribution of monetary rewards to party affiliates as the main form of income;
and iii) dispossession – displacement of traditional rural livelihoods and discouragement of productive activities.
Taken together, these mechanisms offer a larger picture than that of rentierism. The outcome of such a strategy is unequivocal, in my view: the foundation
of a consumer society on the payroll of the oligarchy. No longer productive
inhabitants of a self-sufficient region that used to be the breadbasket for the
whole Iraq, Kurds got flattened into a horizontal society based on a single commodity economy, within which survival strategies depend on monetary allocations falling from the top, while any social grouping other than the party is
hindered. As noted by Noori, “political parties lobbied for controlling people
through the labour market” (2018: 18). Quite explicitly he adds that “transferring employees from other sectors to the public sector was inspired by the
desire for absolute power” (ivi).

172 No friends but the mountains

Extractivism is then part and parcel of the peripherisation process mentioned before. The petrolisation of the region reflects the parallel decay of the
traditional agrarian society. Presented as the inevitable relapse of modernisation, in fact, exploitation of hydrocarbons has ensured the means for greater
social control. It is no doubt that the enclave nature of the petroleum industry
was an asset: ruling parties had the chance of outsourcing upstream activities to foreign investors and simultaneously occupying midstream and downstream services from refining to transportation with their affiliated companies.
Therefore, besides petrodollars channelled through party coffers, party leaders
got a grip on the entire commodity chain. Needless to say that at the official
level, the KRG has kept glorifying the image of a petro-state with nationalistic fervour. As economic growth came to a halt, that discourse began to lose
credibility.
When the short-circuit of increasing public spending and dwindling fiscal
resources became unsustainable, KDP and PUK found themselves unable to
comply with the exchange of bread for consent upon which the pact between
authority and the citizenry had been made. As the distributive system ran out
of cash due to price swings and federal budget cuts, cracks in the power bases
of Barzani and Talabani clans became noticeable as well. After the drop in oil
prices, many Kurds realised that the path of a single-commodity exporter is
not as rosy as depicted. Popular dissatisfaction and disenchantment have dwelt
on the oil curse ever since. Despite living at the margins of the oil value chain,
most Kurds have fallen in a state of apathy. To date, resistance has been limited
to few and unconnected instances. “A producer is granted rights, a consumer
is fed by government subsidies – that is why people do not revolt,” one of
my interviewees explained. According to this interpretation, the poorest and
marginalised strata of society were made powerless by a predatory political
class. When I crossed paths with Hassan, an old farmer living at the outskirts of Kirkuk, on a scorcher day, he wearily pointed the finger at the dark
clouds cresting over gas flares of oil facilities in the distance: “they left us with
nothing but smoke.” A striking metaphor of what the oil dream has brought
to Kurds.

Notes
1 “My name is a dream, I am from the land of magic, my father is the mountain, and my
mother the mist, I was born in a year whose month was murdered, a month whose week
was murdered, a day whose hours were murdered.” (Sherko Bekas, The Cross, the Snake,
the Diary of a Poet)
2 In Turkey, Kemalists banned the words “Kurds” and “Kurdistan” and after Ataturk’s death
in 1938, they began to designate Kurds as “mountain Turks” to deny them as a distinct
ethnic group (McDowall, 2003: 210; Gunter, 2018: 215). Iranian policies followed suit
(Strohmeier, 2003: 139).
3 Most probably an Arabic proverb – ‫ﻻ ﺃﺻﺪﻗﺎء ﺳﻮﻯ ﺍﻟﺠﺒﺎﻝ‬, it has been used profusely to
name books (i.e. Bulloch & Morris, 1992), articles, and documentaries on Kurds – and
this chapter as well.
4 I came to know later that in certain sites (i.e. Qara Dagh), the extraction of one barrel of
oil requires the consumption of three-four barrels of water.

No friends but the mountains 173
5 With regard to the KRI see UNDP (2010, 2015).
6 In many Arab countries, the mukthar is the head of a village or a district.
7 Dana Gas and Crescent Petroleum (2015). The report can be accessed at the following
link: www.kurdistangasproject.com/.
8 In the Nigerian case, the oil complex is the sum of: “(1) a statutory monopoly over mineral exploitation . . .; (2) a nationalized oil company operating through joint ventures with
oil majors who are granted territorial concessions (blocs); (3) the security apparatuses
of the state (working synergistically with those of the companies themselves) protecting
costly investments and ensuring the continual flow of oil; and (4) an institutional mechanism . . . by which federal oil revenues are distributed to the states and producing communities, and not least the oil-producing communities themselves” (Watts, 2004: 60).
9 Many political ecologists, Watts included, have adopted the concept of governmentality.
According to Foucault, the art of government is the right disposition of things. More
than sovereignty, which defines and is exercised upon territory, governmentality means
shaping and managing a population. However, in my view, the extensive application of
the concept can be problematic. Foucault’s excellent critique of liberal democracies and
their microphysics of power are rooted in Western tradition and a landscape of nationstates. It is specific in time and space. Even though it is impossible to decolonise one’s
way of thinking and representing social reality, caution must be taken. Once in Kurdistan
I realized that the lines of separation between private and public spaces, tribal allegiances
and citizenship, land and territory may be seen and practiced in quite different terms
compared to the cultural background I was accustomed to. For this reason, I preferred to
refrain from using governmentality here as analytical shortcut and adopting, instead, the
more general concept of social control.

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Conclusions
The making of oil environments

Poetry and oral literature have a prominent position in Kurdish culture. I often
introduced previous chapters with a few lines of famous poems to convey the
emotional and symbolic baggage that permeates the liberation struggle more
directly than my fleeting interpretation of it. A quite popular poem circulating also in some KRG documents (its author and origin are unknown to me,
though) describes the troubled history of Kurds as “one of a thousand sighs,
a thousand tears, a thousand revolts and a thousand hopes.”1 Etched and seared
into collective memory, it might be said that the sufferings of the past still
reverberate through the present and foreshadow an everlasting battle to attain
self-determination in a divided homeland. Kurdish identity is firmly anchored
to this narrative: whatever the personal beliefs or political visions, such inheritance mediates a powerful sense of belonging that is common to any Kurd,
dare I say.
This book endeavoured to journey into the mythology of Kurdistan as practiced in the Iraqi side, in particular, through an unusual route. Most IR scholars
would not look at resource politics as constitutive of political communities,
if not in the terms of strategic commodities to be secured or as the financial
basis for power consolidation. In line with an interdisciplinary and interpretive approach, I instead lay the proposition that oil environments ought to be
framed as socially constituted fields of power within which the struggles over
the commodification of nature intersect with the constant remaking of collective identities. Starting the journey from here implied exploring the role
resource governance has in the spatialisation of rule and identity.
The opening up of a frontier of accumulation across the beloved mountains of Kurdistan and the exploitation via transnational capital relations of the
abundant fossil fuels buried underground have had a bearing on feelings of
national belonging, inter-ethnic competition, forms of authority, and mechanisms of enclosure and dispossession. Although not the foundation of the
state-building process, initially driven by international aid during the 1990s
when Iraqi Kurds made the first tentative steps towards self-rule, the creation
of an extractive economy nonetheless became essential to the consolidation of
autonomy within the federal framework. Neo-tribal politics and patrimonial
ties were transformed as well. While the accumulation of revenues has mainly
DOI: 10.4324/9781003161103-7

176

Conclusions

rewarded cronies and clients of ruling parties, internal feuding and impoverishment of large sections of the population have broken up the national body
along old and new lines. In parallel, energy issues put Erbil-Baghdad already
long-standing tensions on a collision course all the more, thus contributing to
the near collapse of Iraqi federalism. After the central government reasserted
control over disputed areas (and disputed oilfields), half of the KRG oil output vanished overnight and the ambition to realise full autonomy upon crude
exports began to crumble. The political setback was painfully compounded by
the ongoing financial crisis, as a consequence of which the resource nationalist
narrative is growing weaker, while opposite beliefs framing oil as constraint to
economic and political independence have come to light.
What does the Kurdish case teach us? A general point can be made. Oil environments are not merely descriptive or regulative of politics, they themselves
are productive of political communities. The argument begs for explanation.
According to ecological economics, in contemporary fossil-fuelled industrial
societies, the accumulation of capital is inseparable from the entropic growth of
energy consumption. The assumption does not imply that energy shapes social
life; rather, it tells us that social life happens through an energy dimension at
the metabolic interface between nature and society. The lengthy discussion
on natural resources laid down in Chapter 1 conjures up the image of the
“second-nature” Neil Smith reflects on. In the Marxist view, the commodification of nature into resources through labour and technology extracts exchange
value out of the environment. As such, the production (or construction, from
the epistemological viewpoint of social constructionism) of nature is as much
material as ideological. Throughout the book, I tried to go one step further
to demonstrate that extractive regimes aimed at capital accumulation are also
implicated, to paraphrase Jasanoff (2004), in ordering social worlds.
The petroleum industry is not a tool of power as is generally intended in
a rather minimal sense, though it can certainly be a source of authority. In a
more relevant way, oil environments articulate a space of relations that interact
with the political community along multiple axes: through the re-negotiation
of political hierarchies, juridical norms, and ideological values; the modes of
production and the related economic structure; social stratification and socioeconomic inequalities; down to the ecological relations that place a population
within the ecosystem. As Rasmussen and Lund (2018) insightfully pointed out,
frontier dynamics destroy and reorder space anew. These changes do not happen in isolation and, moreover, may involve the deployment of physical and/or
symbolic violence (Peluso & Watts, 2001). Hence, oil environments turn out
to be conflict-torn spaces. In brief, the processes stemming from the appropriation of nature tend to be all encompassing in that they dismantle and rearrange
political, economic, social, and ecological orders.
Conceptually, order is wider than regime or system, yet more specific than
society or community: it gives an idea of regularity in the disposition of things
and patterns that organise social life. Put differently, an order is an arrangement
of principles, norms, and rules that is crystallised in institutions and everyday

Conclusions 177

practices. The adjectives used here (political, economic, social, and ecological)
define which sphere of relations any particular order refers to. Although it builds
on the empirical analysis, the proposition that oil environments are productive
of orders may sound obscure and be of little benefit without reference to the
overall purpose of this work: namely, understanding how the governance of
natural resources and the constant remaking of collective identities are tethered
to each other. In the Kurdish enclave, the establishment of the extractive regime
reoriented the whole set of material incentives, values, and imaginaries within
which the bonds of loyalty (to the Kurdish nation, the party, the tribe, the city
or village, and the Iraqi federal constitution) are being made. As a result of the
importance extractivism gained as the accepted basis for the reorganisation of
the political economy underpinning Kurdish society, the criteria of belonging
and alterity were forged again in the furnace of the petroleum industry, adding
new meanings and implications to an already dense alloy. Political disputes were
remodelled by and through resource politics. A prime example is the contradictory influence the oil economy has had on the political regime: whilst on the
one hand it certainly strengthened the hegemony of the ruling class, on the
other hand, it also undermined the legitimacy of major parties. In a manner of
speaking, the reliance on the extractive imperative hardened the KDP–PUK
duopoly to such an extent of cracking the social base underneath. The outcome
on identity formation remains open-ended: ideologically and politically, extractivism is resisted by those social groupings that bore the brunt of dispossession
and displacement. This is a further demonstration of how oil environments may
be terrains for contestation around the core values of a given community.
By grouping together material and discursive entanglements between ecologies and power, this book highlights the co-production of the many dimensions mentioned earlier. What are the pathways through which these processes
take place? To answer this question and substantiate the argument further, the
empirical findings illustrated in previous chapters are commented with more
theoretical breadth in what follows.

Seven propositions
Extractive regimes contribute to the territorialisation of authority

The foundation of an energy landscape in the Kurdish enclave was pivotal in
the re-territorialisation of the KRG jurisdiction in northern Iraq, most notably
through oil concessions and an export pipeline to trade crude independently
via Turkey. Assertion and expansion of control over hydrocarbons proved to be
fundamental to fix authority in space, both by legal means (e.g. PSCs, institutional bodies, and a separate legislation to regulate the oil and gas sector)
and by military practices (e.g. checkpoints and deployments in disputed areas),
which sedimented into de facto boundaries challenging the Green Line. This
territorial function had real consequences even before that crude was effectively pumped up to surface. Rasmussen and Lund (2018) already noted that

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Conclusions

commodity frontiers erase previous borders and institutions. The case at hand
is all the more interesting when one considers that the territorialising actors
are sub-state entities, namely, the two main Kurdish political parties and the
KRG as a sum of both. KDP and PUK are distinguished from the regional
administration as a whole to highlight that resource control does not set the
frontline against the central government only but also extends into the internal
boundaries between KDP- and PUK-held spheres of influence. However, the
emergence of the extractive regime came with a paradox insofar as it provided incentives for the de-territorialisation of economic activities, or rather
the recomposition of the bulk of the economy at the scale of foreign energy
operators, which are notably entrenched into enclaves detached from the local
economy. From here, private gains depart from the purported public goal of
oil-based national development. Given that collective identity is socialised
through spatial categories, as Walker (1993) and Campbell (1992) elucidate,
territorialisation practices are worthy of note, especially in view of unsolved
territorial disputes arising from competition among ethnic and party groupings. So far, however, this perspective has been marginal in the literature on
extractivism.
The opposite logics of capitalism and territorialism coexist

The petroleum industry is possibly the best exemplification of the interplay
between the opposite logics of capitalism and territorialism (Arrighi, 1994).
Although antithetical in terms of pursuit (capital accumulation vs. consolidation of sovereignty), spatiality (continuous flows of capital circulation vs. discrete territories), and social constituency (private investors vs. groups defined
along citizenship, privilege, class, or kinship lines), these modes of power are
not incompatible but rather intertwined (Harvey, 2003). The “slick alliance”
(Watts, 2003) of corporate agents and territorial rulers reveals continuity of
interests between energy operators, financial traders, and foreign states on the
one hand, and the ensemble of ruling parties, local militias, and patronage networks on the other hand.
The two logics are not in disagreement, I argue, precisely because they operate on different scales, albeit interrelated. On the side of the KRG, resource
nationalism supports the claim for the regional management of the oil and gas
industry. The portfolio of investors is pitted against vetoes in Baghdad. On the
side of foreign actors, instead, the neo-colonial inclusion of the autonomous
region into global energy relations pleads in favour of the privatisation of an
unexploited resource frontier. That would seem a win–win solution. Some
incongruities are in plain sight, nonetheless: even if the extractive regime is
the most solid keystone for the KDP–PUK duopoly, the sheer dependency on
crude exports and capital inflows run against the touted isomorphism between
national and resource imaginaries. Inasmuch as self-determination is built upon
ancestral belonging to the mountainous homeland, the nationalist discourse
that postulates the exploitation of natural endowments as an intrinsic national

Conclusions 179

right goes towards, in fact, the sale of national assets, the uprooting of citizens
from land, and dislocation from livelihoods. Despite the potency of the symbolic apparatus mobilised by the KRG, this tension has eroded social cohesion,
let alone the KDP–PUK legitimacy. In this sense, it brings to mind the contradictory dialectic that Watts ascribes to petro-capitalism.2 The performativity of
scalar processes (Alatout, 2008; Harris & Alatout, 2010) appears to be a promising avenue to further analyse the divergent tendencies and spaces articulated by
capital and territorial logics.
Oil environments cannot be reduced to state-centric frameworks

Oil is a highly concentrated and usually state-owned resource, “inseparable
from the largest forms of transnational capital” (Watts, 2001: 191). The juxtaposition of territorial attributes and financial rewards at different geographical
scales suggests some of the tensions intrinsic to the industry: while embedded
in a web of capitals and infrastructures to market and move petroleum products globally, upstream activities for the extraction of hydrocarbons refer to a
“punctuated and discontinuous” landscape of subterranean sites and surface
points (wells, rigs, pumping stations, terminals, refineries, petrochemical plants,
etc.). Often organised in militarised enclaves, this spatial configuration does not
conform to the contiguous territorial logic of national development or expansion (Bridge, 2010: 319). The commodification of crude requires advanced
technologies, large investments, and commercial concessions involving state–
private joint ventures to translate a diffuse and viscous raw material buried
deep underground into what is idealised as black gold – a “bulk commodity”
(Wallerstein, 1989) that is among the hard currencies of power politics.
Moreover, the appropriation of petroleum would be barren if not integrated
into a global network of tankers, trucks, pipelines, and trunk routes connecting points of production to storage deposits and consumers downstream – let
alone financial markets and brokers managing the black box of oil transactions. Overall, these material processes articulate a tri-dimensional (vertical and
horizontal) space that does not fit the flat map of nation-state boundaries.
The oil commodity chain, hence, is good evidence for Agnew’s territorial trap
argument (1994): even though they intersect each other across a thin membrane, from a spatial perspective territory and capital are defined by different
structures of relations for which domestic and foreign dimensions are, in fact,
tangled. Moreover, the state neither overlaps nor is the “container” of society.
Commodification is not a state prerogative. It is for this reason that Michael
Watts (2004) speaks appropriately of an oil complex,3 which he defines as a
massive assemblage populated by various actors, agents, and processes all thriving upon the breeding ground of petro-capitalism.
The configuration delineated earlier shows the limits of state-centred reductions of oil environments. This stands as a methodological corollary of the two
arguments mentioned earlier. From the oil rig to the pump (that is to say from
the site of extraction to the point of consumption), the uneven, discontinuous,

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Conclusions

and untidy geography of oil production does not match the narrow conceptual
boundaries of the petro-state nor fit into the framing of inter-state geopolitical scrambles for energy supplies. Following the trail of oil along production
networks and transit routes, from hand to hand, shows that state actors are
quite often less significant than non-state ones (such as energy operators, brokers, contractors, smugglers, political parties, and armed groups). Furthermore,
value creation is not limited to the price tag traded on the energy markets
insofar as resource materialities are equally imbued with moral and aesthetic
attributes, which infuse imaginaries on resource use and recommend a broader
outlook than that commonly used in IR.
Resource imaginaries provide a discursive space for the re-negotiation
of collective identities

The matrix of conflicts inside and beyond the KRI bears witness to the imprint
of the extractive regime on the mechanisms of identity formation, as an emergent discursive space within which collective groupings re-align perceptions,
goals, and visions upon a changed material context. KRG elites incorporated
the extractive imperative into the weft of the nationalist narrative to find a
political outlet for the historical plea for self-determination, as well as to maintain a grip on power. The dominant discourse strives for naturalising an organic
unity between the exploitation of hydrocarbons and the national self-image.
As Gellner (1983) suggested, nationalist frames seek to achieve political legitimacy. However, the fragile construct of the oil nation thins out when viewing
the nation-building projects undertaken by KDP and PUK leaderships. In this
respect, the extractive regime acts like a double-edged sword: it was a persuasive impulse for the strategic rapprochement between KDP and PUK after the
civil war and the subsequent creation of the KRG to maximise profits but also
became the source of inter-party competition and intra-party fragmentation,
also resulting in divergent alliances with external powers.
After all, national identity shares the stage with complementary or even contrasting identities. Assuming that nationalism occupies a preordained space would
be a normative stretch (Hobsbawm, 1990): the Kurdish case clearly shows that
other criteria of social identification based on tribal allegiances, social stratification, or the rural-urban divide are by no means residual. From this perspective,
social divisions already cracking the political community were amplified by the
inception of the oil economy. In some cases, alternative resource imaginaries
coming from the grassroots of society supported local claims against the establishment, with environmental activists and rural communities emphasising the
life function of the ecosystem (in place of the productive function of extraction). As said, the natural environment is perceived as integral to Kurdish ethnic
consciousness. Therefore, oil environments enter a broad universe of meaning
and relate with social practices of signification drawing in-group and out-group
identities. Resting upon human–nature relations, resource imaginaries are inevitably conflictive and expressive of selective representations of political subjectivity.

Conclusions 181
Extractivism is deployed to exert social control locally within
a global chain of dispossession

Petro-capitalism is only one dimension of global capitalist relations. For
instance, Manuel Castells (2011) discussed rise and consequences of the information technology revolution, which is another side of the coin. Nevertheless, fossil fuels determine the pace and the extent of the entropic metabolism
of capitalism, being the basic input for contemporary modes of production,
mobility infrastructures, and consumerism. On this account, the illustration
of the case study sheds light on the Janus-faced nature of petro-capitalism,
which mirrors the dialectic between local enclaves and the global economy.
The material infrastructure of the oil value chain keeps together a dispersed
geography of power, from local to global. Key nodes within such networks
may provide some actors (e.g. oil firms, economic elites, or even insurgent
armies) with sufficient leverage to exert significant control over the entire
chain (Le Billon, 2001: 575–576). Violent struggles typically revolve around
these junctures between producing enclaves and world markets (Watts, 2004:
53). James Ferguson (2006) gave a striking description of these connections4
spanning the globe without covering it – by which he meant that extractive
peripheries are “perversely” globalised in “highly selective and spatially encapsulated forms.”
It is in this sense that the petroleum industry resembles a global chain of
dispossession: enclosure and appropriation of raw materials goes hand in hand
with destitution and eviction in extractive localities, hence, the discrepancy
between resource domains and rights domains (Feitelson & Fischhendler, 2009;
Boelens, Getches, & Guevara-Gil, 2010). The petrolisation of society inside
Kurdistan validates the pattern. Oil indeed widened the gap between predatory
elites on the one side and masses of expelled on the other side. The copious
revenue stream accruing from transnational investments flowed into ruling parties’ coffers and financed disproportionate social payments rather than development programmes, consistently with the survival strategies of neo-tribal
political organisations that keep the region under their hegemony.
Political ecology is an interdisciplinary glue for inquiries
on society–nature relations

It is worth recalling that a political ecology agenda offers a way out of the
environmental determinism that has plagued the literature on resource conflicts in IR. Political ecologists reject apolitical discourses on environmental
triggers or stressors on the basis of the mutual constitution of natural and social
orders. Against the background of the oil curse thesis that still features high
despite lack of robust evidence and similar models reproducing natural realism,
the merits of historicising and contextualising the politics of nature have been
stressed more than once. Political ecology re-politicises the environment and,
in so doing, discloses the agency of those involved in the purposive transformation of it. It is also worth noting that attentiveness to the context does not

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Conclusions

overemphasise locality at the expense of broader trends. As seen in Chapter 3,
the KRG extractive enclave is situated within the patterns of the global oil
economy, of which it represents a specific frontier. In other words, the case
study is relevant to understanding extractivism in general, though findings cannot be generalised automatically sight unseen. As ethnographies unfolds over
a double hermeneutic – i) the actors’ interpretations of their lived experiences
and ii) the researcher’s interpretation “of situational actors’ interpretations as
we participate with them, talk with them, interact with and observe them,
and read (literally or figuratively) their documents and other research-relevant
artefacts” (Yanow, 2009: 278) – it is in the reader’s capacity to extend the results
of this study to other contexts.
The Middle East as a regional space mediating situated understandings
of environmental governance

Originally, I was interested in making a comparison between resource ecologies
in Iraqi (Bashur) and Syrian (Rojava) Kurdistan. That proved to be unfeasible
in view of on-going instability in northern Syria, though, and the comparison
became a single-case study. However, the original idea was justified by what
seemed to me to be the polarisation of glaringly opposite resource imaginaries across two axes of the Greater Kurdistan. Both in Bashur and in Rojava,
discourses on resource use are merged with the nationalist narrative, but in fundamentally different ways: whilst the KRG resembles a free market-oriented
and rentier economy, which extracts wealth and legitimacy from crude exports,
the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria leans on a communal and ruralbased economy, which programmatically refrains from the commodification of
nature. Social ecology is indeed one of the main principles behind the revolution defended in Rojava. Such contrast points out the complex re-imaginings
of the Kurdish question through different ideologies of nature, which in turn
are tied to fairly distant types of political communities: a de facto petro-state
in Bashur, democratic confederalism in Rojava. Geographical contiguity and
political connections between the two sides make the comparison even more
interesting. In more general terms, the intersection of environmental governance and political subjectivity would reinforce the argument that political
communities may assert collective identity also through contingent visions of
resource ownership and use. This might suggest rethinking the Middle East as a
whole as a regional space crossed by various images of nature and accompanying models of development and governance. Inter alia, this would be helpful for
decolonising the exceptionalist theses resonating in Western-centric accounts
on the region allowing one to refocus on local epistemologies.

Continuity and change in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq
All in all, the seven considerations summarised here spell out the constitutive
role of oil environments in the (re)-making of political communities. This is

Conclusions 183

not to say that oil moulds or seduces politics; rather, it recognises the centrality
of oil as a material and discursive setting through which politics is played out.
It is said that in 1956 King Idris of Libya when speaking to a US diplomat,
who had just notified him of new oil discoveries within the kingdom, replied:
“I wish your people had discovered water. Water makes men work. Oil makes
men dream.” After the end of the Ba’athist autocracy, Kurds dreamed of independence and peace. However, the Dubai model has not brought them prosperity nor have warfare and infighting ceased. The petroleum industry greased
the wheels of the strategic agreement signed in 2006 by the two single-party
administrations in Erbil and Sulaymaniyah. Since then, only a few elites within
the oligarchy have been able to live off oil by scamming dividends and sharing
benefits under the ceiling of the KRG, which appears to be a system for the
allocation of public resources to party clients. In the absence of civilian control
on the military and parliamentary oversight on the executive, with contracting
and revenue management highly centralised in the MNR and the Regional
Council for the Oil and Gas Affairs, extractivism has exacerbated the authoritarian and violent lineages of a neo-tribal political system, which is blatantly
tied to the fortunes of the Barzani and Talabani families. It has also reinforced
the division of the region along partisan lines and encouraged the interference
of foreign powers that breathe down the neck of Kurdish leadership.
The KDP has cemented primacy thanks to the occupation of the MNR
and the inauguration of the Khurmala–Fish Kabur conduit running through
the yellow zone, which made Turkey the immediate interlocutor of KRG
exports at the expense of PUK’s close relationship with Iran, but the Talabanis have managed to tap into the stream of revenue anyway. Beyond divergent alignments with antagonistic patrons, the energy battle between the two
major parties found expression in the disputed areas even more. The escalation
on Kirkuk is quite explicative. Despite territorial and economic losses after
the referendum, the hold of dominant families on society is still significant.
Masoud Barzani recently passed the torch to his son, Masrour, but he never
actually stepped down from power. Although senior party leaders are regularly
engulfed in corruption scandals, the judiciary appears too weak to be effective, while representative institutions are paralysed by the KDP–PUK 50–50
policy, which seriously undercuts any transfer of power from former Peshmerga leaders who still embody the nationalist cause and carry on the idea of
personal rule. In a context of general impunity, the party-state system generates massive incentives for patronage politics. The corporatism of traditional
elites regulates the economy, which remains non-productive beyond the veil
of a free market – oriented legislation. Under these premises, much like Iraq
in its entirety (Leezenberg, 2006), the economic dependency on oil exports
and the corresponding lack of diversified sources of public funding cannot be
attributed to external factors only, but it is rather part of a deliberate strategy
of the oligarchy.
Within a federal framework that is still undergoing an overlong adjustment
period, riddled with aftershocks and setbacks, oil therefore comes with many

184

Conclusions

faces for Iraqi Kurds. This book was an attempt to depict some of them by
illustrating the complexities of the emotional and political geographies of a
historically oppressed people in a country in turmoil. However, oppression
comes with many forms as well. Nowadays, Kurds are confronted with a sultanistic political regime that keeps Kurdish society under martial law through
the privatisation of security apparatuses and by co-optation of social segments
into patrimonial dependencies. As said, the party-state model undermines the
autonomy of institutions and, instead, remunerates loyalty to traditional power
holders. Indeed, party membership “[plays] a significant role in determining
employment and promotions in government, civil service, universities, and
other public and many private institutions” (Watts, 2014: 145–146). This is in
stark contrast to the rhetoric of the KRG as a thriving democracy or “the shining star of the Middle East and the vanguard of the fight against terrorism,” as
Bafel Talabani reminded the international community in a televised speech on
12 October 2017 in an effort to placate the winds of war blowing on Kirkuk
and also gather a disunited PUK together behind “the Mam Jalal’s way.”
The domination of the twin dynasties is not going to end anytime soon.
However, leadership in the yellow and green zones are right in front of a generational turnover. Broken dreams, ruinous policies, and growing arrears on
the government’s payroll have made ever-increasing demands for democratic
reforms more pressing. These are long overdue, and hopes for change are there.
Despite financial duress and the toughness of ruling elites, Kurdish society has
proven to be capable of raising its head and staging nonviolent protests on
several occasions. Disaffection against cronyism and corruption runs through
KDP and PUK lower ranks as well. Economic diversification beyond the dysfunctional rentier model may hopefully open a breach into the crony capitalism
upon which the oligarchs desperately rely. It behoves us all to remember the
significant progress that has been made with the emergence of a more varied
political landscape, which created space for oppositions and debate. There is
growing awareness on fundamental rights and freedoms to be respected. Enjoying those rights fully is what Kurds today strive for and deserve.

Notes
1 See, for instance, KRG (2008: 38).
2 “Petro-capitalism, contains a double movement, a contradictory unity of capitalism and
modernity. On the one hand oil is a centralizing force, one that rendered the state more
visible (and globalized), and permitted, that is to say financially underwrote, a process
of secular nationalism and state building. On the other, centralized oil revenues flowing
into weak institutions and a charged, volatile federal system produced an undisciplined,
corrupt and flabby oil-led development that was to fragment, pulverize, disintegrate and
discredit the state and its forms of governance. It produced conditions, which challenged
and undermined the very tenets of the modern nation-state.” (Watts, 2004: 61)
3 “this is obviously the IOCs, the NOCs and the service companies and the massive oil
infrastructure but also the petro-states, the massive engineering companies and financial groups, the shadow economies (theft, money laundering, drugs, organized crime),
the rafts of NGO’s (human rights organizations, monitoring agencies, corporate social

Conclusions 185
responsibility groups, voluntary regulatory agencies), the research institutes and lobbying
groups, the landscape of oil consumption (from SUV’s [to] pharmaceuticals), and not
least the oil communities, the military and paramilitary groups, and the social movements
which surround the operations of, and shape the functioning of, the oil industry narrowly
construed” (Watts, 2009: 8–9).
4 “But it is worth noting how such enclaves participate not only in the destruction of
national economic spaces but also in the construction of ‘global’ ones. For just as enclaves
of, say, mining production are often fenced off (literally and metaphorically) from their
surrounding societies, they are at the same time linked up, with a ‘flexibility’ that is exemplary of the most up-to-date, ‘post-Fordist’ neoliberalism, both with giant transnational
corporations and with net-works of small contractors and subcontractors that span thousands of miles and link nodes across multiple continents” (Ferguson, 2006: 13–14).

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Appendix

Figure 1 A back of a napkin sketch of pipeline networks, output levels, and distribution grids
in the Kirkuk province by an interviewee.

Index

Ahmed: Hero 128, 141; Ibrahim 55, 122,
128
al-Abadi, Haider 59, 140
al-Anfal campaign 57, 89–90
al-Bazzaz’s declaration 70
Algiers Agreement 56–57
al-Luaibi, Jabar 110
al-Maliki, Nouri 95
al-Shahristani, Husain 92
Ankara 69, 95, 111–112, 144
Arabisation 56, 70, 77, 86–87, 140
Arab nationalism 69–70
Ba’ath: Party 56–57, 69, 74, 77, 139, 144,
170; regime 2, 17, 57–58, 70, 74–75,
127, 157, 168, 183
Bakhtiyar, Mala 128, 141
Barzani: Aram 129; Mansour 128; Masoud
1, 41, 75, 89, 96, 103, 111–112,
122–124, 128–129, 131–132, 140–143,
183; Masrour 128–129, 183; Mustafa
55–57, 89; Nechirvan 75, 98, 106, 111,
130, 133, 140, 142; Sirwan 129
Barzanji, Sheikh Mahmud 54–55
Basra 2, 53, 73–74, 77, 147, 162
Churchill, Winston 53, 72
commodification 99, 100, 166–167
democratic confederalism 5, 182
diaspora 34, 39, 87, 89
disputed territories 1–2, 7, 41, 59,
77–78, 86, 88, 93, 96–97, 106, 130,
133, 139–140, 142–143, 145, 160,
176–177, 183
Erbil 3, 57–58, 77–78, 87, 92–93, 95, 97,
106–107, 110–112, 121, 123–125, 129,

133–134, 141–142, 155, 157, 162–163,
176, 183
Erdoğan, Recep Tayyip 111–112
extractivism 5, 7, 36, 101, 130, 155, 164,
166–167, 172, 177–178, 181–183
ExxonMobil 78, 93, 109, 112, 160–161,
163
Faisal, Emir 54, 69, 72
Gorran Party 123–125, 127, 132, 141
Greater Kurdistan (Kurdistan Mezin) 6, 34,
61–63, 68, 105, 154, 182
Green Line 58, 93, 140, 177
Gulf War 2, 6, 17, 57, 122
Halabja: demonstrations 124; massacre 57
Hashd al-Shaabi 138, 142
Hawrami, Ashti 92–93, 107–109, 111, 131,
136–137
Hussein, Saddam 2, 6, 21, 56–58, 70,
75–76, 86, 89, 91, 106–108, 111, 123,
131, 139, 161, 168
Iran 17, 20, 37, 53, 55–56, 59, 61–64, 69,
75, 87, 91, 94–95, 107, 112, 131, 138,
141, 157, 183
Iraqi constitution 58–59, 76–77, 93, 96–97,
124, 143, 146, 177
ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) 1, 3,
5, 27, 41, 59, 62, 78, 88, 95–97, 110,
124, 132–133, 138–140, 156, 170
Israel 109
KAR Group 129, 133, 141
Karim, Najmiddin 142
KDP 7, 41, 55–59, 67, 77, 88, 98, 101,
106, 109, 111, 121–134, 136, 138–147,

Index
156, 161, 163, 168, 171–172, 177–180,
183–184
Khanaqin 56, 75, 88
Khurmala: -Fish Khabur pipeline 7, 95,
110, 112, 183; oilfield 77, 95, 133
Kirkuk 1–2, 5, 7, 40–41, 52, 56, 59,
69, 72–75, 77–78, 86–87, 90–91, 93,
95, 97, 109–110, 112, 129–130, 133,
138–142, 147, 155, 158, 162, 172,
183–184
Kobanî 62
Kurdish civil war 57–58, 121–123, 180
Kurdish nationalism (kurdayetî) 54–55,
63–65, 67–69, 71, 90, 121, 143
Kurdishness 65, 67–68, 162, 168
Kurdish Spring 126
Lakhani, Murtaza 108
Lausanne, Treaty of 54, 59, 62
League of Nations 54, 73
Mahabad, Republic of 55, 61
March Manifesto 56
martyrdom 1, 89–90, 102, 121, 140
Massum, Fuad 59
Mesopotamia 53–54, 69, 72
Mosul 1, 41, 53–54, 73, 75, 87–88, 93–96,
140
mountains, connectedness to 7, 63, 101,
152–154, 162
Mustafa, Nawshirwan 57, 123, 125, 141
nationalisation of the petroleum industry 2,
22, 35, 56, 73–75, 92, 97
nationalism 33–35, 64–65; see also Kurdish
nationalism (kurdayetî)
Nokan Group 128–129, 133–134, 138, 141
Öcalan, Abdullah 5
Oil and Gas Law (Law n. 22/2007) 78,
92–93, 102, 106, 131, 134–135
oil curse theory 4, 10, 20–22, 27, 30, 163,
172, 181
Oil-for-Food Programme 58, 108, 170
OPEC 35, 56, 73–75, 104
Ottoman Empire 53, 61–62, 66–67, 69–70,
72–73
Pahlavi, Mohammed Reza 56
patrimonalism 7, 101, 111, 124,
127–128, 145–147, 158, 167–168,
170, 175, 184

189

patronage 2, 7, 20, 71, 127–128, 133, 136,
145–146, 170, 178, 183
petro-capitalism 14, 22, 164–165, 179, 181
petro-state 20, 36, 71, 101, 104, 164, 169,
171–172, 180, 182
populism 100, 102–105
PKK 5, 55, 90, 111, 153
PUK 7, 41, 57–59, 67, 77, 88, 109,
112, 121–134, 136, 138–147, 156,
161, 163, 168, 171–172, 177–180,
183–184
PYD 5
Qasim, Abd al-Karim 55–56, 70, 74–75
Ranya 124, 160–161
Rasol, Kosrat 141–142
Red Line Agreement 73
referendum 1, 5, 39, 41, 59, 69, 86, 100,
107, 109–111, 124, 140–143, 183
Regional Council for the Oil and Gas
Affairs 131, 135, 182
rentierism 20–21, 74, 101, 163–164,
169–171, 182, 184
resource: frontier 28, 93, 97–100, 176, 178,
182; imaginary 36, 144, 154; nationalism
22, 31, 34–37, 97, 106, 178
Rojava (Syrian Kurdistan) 5, 62, 182
Rosneft 3, 108, 110, 133
Russia 110–111, 138
Sadiq, Yousif Mohammed 124, 128
Salih, Barham 59, 125, 128, 131, 141
San Remo conference 72
Save the Tigris and Iraqi Marshes
Campaign 159
Sèvres, Treaty of 53–54
Solaimani, Qasem 142
Soviet Union 17, 55–56, 74
Sulaymaniyah 1, 41, 54, 57, 87–89, 121,
123–126, 129, 131, 133–134, 137, 141,
155–160, 163, 169, 183
Sykes-Picot Agreement 53, 64, 72
Syrian civil war 5, 94, 110–111
Talabani: Bafel 128, 140–142, 184; Jalal
55, 59, 75, 77, 89, 103, 122–123, 128,
131–132, 139, 141–142, 147, 184; Lahur
125, 128, 137, 141–142; Qubad 128,
134, 137, 141
Taq Taq 77–78, 95, 110, 131
Tawke 95, 131

190 Index
Teheran 69, 112, 144
territorialisation 5, 37, 93, 177–178
trading houses 93, 95, 107–109, 111, 133,
136, 147
Turkey 5, 37, 54–55, 59, 63–64, 66, 69,
73, 94–95, 98, 111–112, 131, 138, 177,
183

United Nations 57–58, 108, 122
United States 2, 16–18, 21–22, 57, 71–73,
78, 94, 96, 105, 123, 129, 131, 135, 139,
142, 165–166
vilayet 53–54, 69
Washington Agreement 123, 134