The ongoing US-Iranian strife threatens to deepen a split between Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds in Iraq since all the three major groups have already taken different sides in this conflict, Khoshavi Babakr, a representative of the Iraqi Kurdistan Democratic Party in Russia, told Sputnik on Wednesday
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 08th January, 2020) The ongoing US-Iranian strife threatens to deepen a split between Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds in Iraq since all the three major groups have already taken different sides in this conflict, Khoshavi Babakr, a representative of the Iraqi Kurdistan Democratic Party in Russia, told Sputnik on Wednesday.
Iraqi soil has become a battleground for the US-Iran conflict after a targeted US strike in Baghdad killed top Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani and a deputy head of Iraq's Tehran-backed Shiite Hashd al-Shaabi militias, whom Washington had blamed for attacks on Americans. In the early hours of Wednesday, Iran fired missiles at two US bases in Iraq in act of revenge for the Soleimani killing.
According to Babakr, prospects for Iraq are "not very bright," with its fate fully dependent on how Iran-US relations would develop. He said that Hashd al-Shaabi militias - formed in 2014 to help Baghdad fight the Islamic State terror group (outlawed in Russia) - are "completely subordinate to Iran and will act in its interests."
"This [US-Iran conflict] will split Iraq into Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish parts, creating a confederation of three or two (Shiite and Sunni-Kurdish) parts. The US is already withdrawing its forces from the Shiite part, where it is unsafe, and Kurds and Sunnis have refused to participate in a parliament meeting on the withdrawal of US troops. The edges of this split are already obvious to the naked eye, it is becoming increasingly difficult to manage an entire Iraq," Babakr said.
He added that Kurdistan did not want to be a party to this conflict, but "is forced to be its victim."
According to the politician, Iraq has "failed" as a federation, and "it is necessary to try to create a confederation, i.e. to give more rights to its components."
"Otherwise, this eternal game between Sunnis and Shiites ... will never end. And the Kurds will have to wait for their Arab neighbors to agree," he said.
The problems related to the Iraqi Shiites' "dependence" on neighboring Iran's ambitions and oil income sharing among the three groups are also to be resolved, which will likely require international participation, according to Babakr.
