ANALYSIS: The post-IS war will be between regional powers’ control of resources
Iraqis and Kurds are fighting for their futures, not on battle fields, but around oil fields
Dubai — The latest battle for Iraq’s future is unfolding around the country’s oldest oil field. Federal government troops and forces from the semi-autonomous Kurdish region are facing off in Kirkuk province in northern Iraq. Baghdad wants to get control of the area’s oil deposits back from Kurdish forces, who seized the long-disputed area to ward off Islamic State (IS) militants in 2014. The Kurds, who overwhelmingly voted for independence in a referendum last month, see the resources as a financial lifeline for a future state. Kirkuk’s oil, discovered by the forebears of BP and Total in 1927, lies in one of the Middle East’s great fields. It’s long anticline — the bump in the Earth that trapped the crude accumulation — can be easily seen from the air, running straight through the disputed city of almost a million people. Crude flowed from Kirkuk 10 years before Saudi Arabia struck oil and two decades before the kingdom found the giant Ghawar field. While the area around Kirkuk now ...
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