Kurds in Iraq alarmed by deadly inter-Shiite violence

 The country's Kurds have taken on the role of peacemakers in response to the deadly protests that have pitted Iraq's two main Shiite factions against one another, a precarious balancing act that appears increasingly difficult to maintain in light of Iraq's ongoing dysfunction.

When prominent Iraqi Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr declared he was "retiring" from politics on Monday, violence broke out. This led to a brutal clash between his followers who attacked the presidential palace and Iraqi security forces, including members of the Popular Mobilization Units supported by Iran. There were at least 23 fatalities from the conflict.

As Sadr urged his supporters to leave the Green Zone today, the crisis—some claimed the nation was on the verge of another full-fledged civil war—showed signs of easing. However, as the nation attempts to create a new administration over a year after elections were held, rising tensions between Sadr, whose coalition received the most votes in last October's polls, and the Iran-backed Coordination Framework alliance are unlikely to abate.

The leader of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, Nechirvan Barzani, praised Sadr for taking a "responsible" stance in dispersing the demonstrators and reiterated his offer to convene the political parties of Iraq in Erbil to settle their differences and begin "a serious dialogue to resolve the current complicated situation in the country."

In a phone chat today with Mustafa al-Kadhimi, the prime minister of Iraq, Masrour Barzani, stated that he was "very disturbed by the current cycle of violence in Iraq."

According to Barzani, his administration is prepared to assist in bringing security and peace back to Iraq.

"By extending an invitation to Sadr and his opponents from the Shiite Coordination Framework to Erbil for peace negotiations, the Kurdistan Region—and the KDP in particular—has thus far played a positive role. According to Ranj Alaaldin, a senior fellow at the Middle East Council on Global Affairs and non-resident fellow at the Brookings Institution, this fits within a long-standing pattern of Kurdish involvement in intra-Shiite conflicts meant to control discord within the dominant Shiite political class.

Alaaldin told Al-Monitor that the incident "highlights the delicate juggling act the Kurds must perform between challenging the political authority in Baghdad and the necessity of preventing any significant blowback for Kurdistan."

After the elections, the KDP allied itself with Sadr and the Turkish-supported Arab Sunni group headed by Speaker of the Parliament Mohammed al-Halbusi. They believed that, particularly in the continuing debates over the national budget and oil income, this would strengthen the Kurdistan Regional Government's (KRG) position in Baghdad. The partnership also aimed to defeat the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, the KDP's competitor, in the race for the Iraqi presidency by gaining support for the KDP's own candidate (PUK). The PUK favors Barham Salih's continuation as the present official.

According to Alaaldin, the choice to support Sadr "reflect[ed] the split within the Shiite political class and Sadr's electoral supremacy."

Sadr continues to be the Kurds' least-bad alternative, especially in light of the coercive and punishing actions that the Shiite Coordination Framework and the [Iran-supported] Popular Mobilization Units have taken against the Kurdistan Region over the past year, according to Alaaddin.

He was alluding to the militias supported by Iran's ongoing use of drones and rockets to strike Kurdish territory. They are believed to convey Tehran's annoyance at the KDP's interference in internal Shiite affairs.

"The Iranians repeatedly cautioned them in no uncertain terms that by siding with Sadr against the groups they supported, they were playing a risky game. The Shia bloc would have been a minority in the "largest bloc" that forms the government for the first time in Iraq's post-2003 history if the tripartite alliance had succeeded, Khoei pointed out. In other words, it would have been dominated by Sunni Arabs and by Sunni Kurds.

"This was perceived as a national security danger to Iran, and as a result, Iran delivered repeated messages earlier this year in the form of missiles," Khoei added.

All of this will simply strengthen Turkey's position as the only country standing in the Kurdistan Region against Iran. In order to advance its military campaign against the Kurdistan Workers Party in Kurdish-controlled areas and in Yazidi-dominated Sinjar, Ankara is likely to take advantage of the disarray in Baghdad, which will only increase instability and the number of civilian deaths. The Islamic State's efforts to reorganize the region can be compared to this.

However, the insurmountable dysfunction in Iraq will have once more supported Massoud Barzani, the president of the KDP and the most prominent Kurd in Iraq, in his efforts to secede and form an independent state. The 2017 referendum on Kurdish independence was designed by Barzani Sr.