Baghdad and Erbil have reached a temporary accomodation. Erbil will turn over 550,000 barrels per day to the Iraqi central government. In return, it will receive the 17% of federal revenues due it under the 2007 revenue-sharing deal (never-ratifed), plus an addition $1 billion to pay the peshmerga.
If this happens, it would be a big win for Kurdistan. Under article 4 of the revenue-sharing deal, the federal government could deduct all “sovereign expenditures of the federal government and strategic projects ofbenefit to all to be agreed with the governments of the regions and provinces.” The federal government never consulted the Kurds about said expenditures, of course. (After all, the law was never ratified!) Rather it just made unilateral deductions. As a result, the 2014 budget allocated only 9.9% of projected revenues to Kurdistan.
If Baghdad follows through, then Kurdistan will stay in the federation until Baghdad gets annoyed that the place is independently exporting production above 550,000 bpd. At that point, independence.
Or Baghdad will cheat. At which point once the Islamic State is safely contained, independence.
I am not saying that this is not good news; it is. I am saying that it is just a temporary stopgap, even if it holds.
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