Iraq F-16 Purchase Roils Relations with Kurds

Informed Comment
Juan Cole
http://www.juancole.com/

Al-Hayat reports in Arabic that a big dispute has broken out between the three largest blocs in parliament. The government has so far been characterized by an alliance of the Shiite Iraqi Accord Front with the Kurdistan Alliance. But now the Shiites want to equip the Iraqi military with F-16s.

The day before yesterday, the Kurdish speaker of parliament demanded that any such purchase be attendant on a pledge by the Iraqi government never to use the planes against the Kurdish people.

Jalaluddin Saghir, popular Shiite preacher and a member of parliament, said that it is impossible to compare situation in the late zeroes to that of the of the former regime, and that the current, representative government would never persecute the Kurdish people. He said that the arms purchases were necessary to defend the country after the foreign troops withdrew. He insisted that this move was a clear prerogative of the central government. He observed that the current government in Iraq poses no threat to its neighbors.

MP Abdul Karim al-Samarra'i, who serves on the Security and Defense Committee, represents the Sunni Iraqi Accord Front; he called the Kurdish demands "unacceptable" and impossible to implement. He said there had to be a broad agreement on the need to equip the Iraqi military.

Among the more dangerous political developments in Iraq could be a collapse of the Shiite-Kurdish alliance, followed by a joint Sunni-Shiite Arab alliance against the Kurds.