By Tahseen Wsu Abdullah
Throughout the history of Iraq, military rule has always been seen as a real threat to the political process and various communities. This has led to military tyranny being seen as a fundamental feature of the system in Iraq. Although Iraq is known in the region as a military coup state because no changes and turning points in Iraq have been excluded from military coups and the role of the army.
As one of the main communities in Iraq, the main problem with the Baghdad government since the establishment of the state in 1921 has been how to end oppression, whether military or other. The Kurdish history in Iraq with the army is an irregular history. The Iraqi army has never been a safe place for the Kurds but has always looked at them with suspicion. Although the Kurds have not stopped, they have always been ready to stand up to the oppressive army that successive governments in Iraq have used against the Kurds.
Since the fall of the Ba’ath regime and its army in 2003, the Iraqi government has constantly tried to prevent the Kurdistan Region through the army and military threats. After the Kurdistan Region did not submit to the oppressive will of the Iraqi government militarily, Baghdad adopted another oppressive mechanism that was a return to the Ba’ath regime, the judicial oppression, which is followed against the Kurdistan Region through the Supreme Constitutional Court.
Judicial dictatorship in Iraq is seen as an alternative to military dictatorship in order to shape the Kurdistan Region to submit to Baghdad’s will. In a judicial dictatorship, unlike a military dictatorship, measures ensure easy and low-cost mechanisms. When the state or a force can impose itself through judicial dictatorship, it does not think about the problems of military dictatorship. However, Iraq is moving very quickly to develop not only the army forces, but also the expansion of the Hashd al-Shaabi, which has a religious identity. These forces are basically established by a religious fatwa, and with each fatwa they can oppose the will of the majority or the political will of a group and counter the opponents very strongly.
It is not easy to take over and completely blockade the Kurdistan Region by military means. Military occupations cause deep concern and protest. Occupation in its violent form enhances the opportunities for resistance and the sense of defensiveness in the occupied community. Realizing this fact, the Iraqi authorities are turning their military attacks into judicial attacks. It pursues a soft policy, instead of appearing as a dictatorship and violation of the sovereignty of the Kurdish people, it is read as protecting the law, the constitution and democracy. That soft policy can change the image of the oppressor; From dictatorship to democracy, from oppression to justice, from invader to savior!
The decisions of the Federal Supreme Court against the Kurdistan Region remind us of the attitude of the Supreme Revolutionary Court towards the Kurds during the Ba’ath Party regime.
Over the years, a series of decisions have been issued against the Kurdistan Region by the Federal Court and other Iraqi courts. These include preventing and refusing to establish a special court for the genocide of the Yezidis, illegally establishing the work of a number of companies employed in the Kurdistan oil and gas sector, preventing the remittance of some of Kurdistan’s financial entitlements Kurdistan, finally the unconstitutionality of extending the term of the Kurdistan Parliament and suspending its work Activities of provincial councils in the Kurdistan Region.