In October 2017 Iraqi forces took the city of Kirkuk and its surrounding oil installations from Kurdish peshmerga rebels. The citizens of this highly strategic city in northern Iraq came out in force to show their jubilation.
On September 25, 2017, after yet another week of pro-Kurd propaganda in the Western media, Masoud Barzani – self-proclaimed President of the Kurdistan Regional Government – got his referendum vote on establishing a separate country of Kurdistan in the oil-rich region. Not surprisingly, the result was a landslide, with 93% of Kurds voting for independence from the Baghdad government.
Iraq, Iran, Turkey and Russia were among the nations strongly opposed to the referendum. The Kurds, despite being portrayed for decades as persecuted and downtrodden, are actually much better off than Iraq’s Arab population. A big part of the reason for this is that the right-leaning Kurds have proven reliable partners for the CIA and Mossad in destabilizing the region on behalf of Big Oil.
Barzani’s father Mustafa had led the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) in its decade-long battle against a succession of progressive left-leaning Iraqi governments. A 1958 Iraqi coup deposed US puppet General Nuri es-Said and gave rise to a succession of nationalist leaders starting with Kareem Abdul Qassim.
In the late 1960’s the Shah of Iran began to funnel arms to Barzani’s KDP peshmerga rebels on behalf of the US and Israel. Iraq made peace with the Kurds in 1970, but by 1972 Henry Kissinger and John Connelly were on their way back to Tehran to enlist the Shah’s support in destroying the truce. Colonel Richard Kennedy, a Kissinger aid, met with Mustafa Barzani’s son Masoud to deliver $16 million in CIA military aid.
In 1972 Iraq had troops fighting in Syria. By arming the Kurds the US was able to open a second front in its covert war against the leftist al-Bakr government in Baghdad, which had been calling for Arab unity as the solution for getting a fair price when selling oil to the Four Horsemen - Exxon Mobil, Royal Dutch Shell, Chevron Texaco & BP Amoco. Libyan President Muammar Qaddafi and Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser had made similar statements and were also targets of CIA shenanigans.
On October 3, 2017 Barzani’s long-time Kurdish rival Jalal Talabani died in Berlin. Talabani had founded the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) as a progressive alternative to Barzani’s reactionary KDP. He served as President of Iraq from 2005-2014, stressing unity with between Kurds and Arabs. With Talabani died a voice of reason, which makes the timing of his death mysterious at best.
The real issue in northern Iraq is twofold – oil and water. Trump Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had overseen negotiations between his company Exxon Mobil and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki regarding the rich Kirkuk oilfields. When al-Malaki, who the US had installed after invading and occupying Iraq, refused to play the puppet role they had thought he would, giving away the Kirkuk oilfield to ExxonMobil and the Ramallah oilfield to BP, ISIS was turned loose against him in the Northern Iraq Offensive, and the US insisted that al-Maliki step down. On August 14, 2014 he announced his resignation.
But instead of getting a new puppet to run their oil fiefdom from Baghdad, they got Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi. The wealthy al-Abadi had returned from exile in London, just as al-Malaki had, after the US invasion of Iraq, but became disillusioned with the way Kissinger Associates insider Paul Bremer was running the Coalition Provisional Authority (not so subtle acronym CPA).
In 2010 he was one of many Iraqi politicians to support a lawsuit against Blackwater mercenaries, who committed many war crimes in Iraq. He stressed unity among all Iraqis, balancing the increasing Shia influence which has marked post-invasion Iraq by appointing prominent Sunni leader Khaled al-Obaidi as Defense Minister and by brokering a deal with Barzani’s KDP to give Kurds one-half of all oil revenue from Kirkuk.
But unity is not what either Exxon Mobil or Israel want in Iraq. Israel covets the water resources of northern Iraqi Kurdistan and envisions a day when the region becomes part of a Greater Israel, giving them both oil and water security.
Al-Abadi became increasing critical of the Obama Administration’s tacit support of ISIS, and of the training and arming of Barzani’s Kurdish peshmerga forces by the US & Israel. Because of this, Iraq has pivoted to closer ties with Russia and Iran.
With ISIS nearly defeated in both Syria and Iraq due to the forces of Russia, Iran and Hezbollah, did the CIA/Mossad boys think they could count on their well-armed and trained Kurdish peshmerga fighters to continue stealing oil from Kirkuk on behalf of the Four Horsemen, a function which ISIS had served so well?
With calls throughout the Iraqi government for corruption charges to be brought against Masoud Barzani for just that crime, and with throngs of citizens showing up yesterday in the streets of Kirkuk to cheer the arrival of Iraqi armed forces to liberate their city, the history-starved illiterates who run those two cesspools must be again scratching their bald little heads.
Dean Henderson is the author of seven books, including, Big Oil & Their Bankers in the Persian Gulf, Illuminati Agenda 21, Nephilim Crown 5G Apocalypse and Royal Bloodline Wetiko & The Great Remembering. Subscribe free to his Left Hook column at deanhenderson.substack.com
Thanks for the restacks Mark, Julia, Tracy & Moonshine!
I like the fact that the men they introduced to play ball didn't but rather wanted unity. Those are details I never knew and always wondered about. Plus the pitying of the Kurds who it turns out are more wealthy per capita than Iraqis. Blood is thicker than water - and oil, so it seems.
Thank you so much, Dean.