A Dangerous Rivalry for the Kurds
▻http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/17/opinion/a-dangerous-rivalry-for-the-kurds.html
... the Kurds’ security is in jeopardy again — this time because of internal divisions. The historic rivalry between the region’s two ruling parties, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, or P.U.K., and the Kurdistan Democratic Party, or K.D.P., has revived since August.
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The fall of Sinjar to the Islamic State changed the situation. It was pesh merga units affiliated with the K.D.P. who were forced to withdraw. Seeing this as an opportunity to reverse its decline, the P.U.K. capitalized on the retreat by calling it a capitulation and pointing out that P.U.K.-aligned forces had suffered no such defeats.
Most Kurds in the region have adopted this perspective. The P.U.K. succeeded in undermining the narrative that the K.D.P. ran the more effective organization.
Then followed the siege of the town of Kobani, close to the Turkish border in Syrian Kurdistan. Once again, the P.U.K. saw a chance to seize the initiative, by suggesting that it, rather than the Kurdistan regional government or the K.D.P., was providing weapons and supplies to the Syrian Kurdish fighters, who belong to a party that has historically been at odds with the K.D.P.
These events dramatically raised tensions between the two Iraqi Kurdish parties. Although K.D.P. officials hold key positions in the regional government of Iraqi Kurdistan, including the posts of both prime minister and president, the pesh merga forces of each party have operational autonomy. Despite more than two decades of self-rule and nation-building, there is no unified military command.
The fact that pesh merga units often act according to political objectives determined by party cliques is clearly a danger to the security of the region. As a senior official in Erbil told me last month, “We talk about independence, but talk counts for little when our pesh merga are more loyal to party than nation.”.
