By Tahseen Wsu Abdullah
In the rebuilding of the new Iraqi state, after the disappearance of the oppressive Ba’ath regime (in 2003), the Kurds played an important role as a major community political process. Compared to other communities, they were most concerned about the form and basis of the state.
At the beginning of the state rebuilding stage in Iraq, the Kurds used all their weight to restructure the state on the basis of a federal system, and eventually succeeded in this attempt and the state was established on the basis of a federal system.
This vision was fully established in the constitution and the state was based on three new principles: balance, partnership and compromise. However, after the political balance in the political process in Iraq changed, these principles were violated by the ruling elite.
The Kurdistan Region was recognized as a region within the federal state under the 2005 constitution, which won the approval of a majority of Iraqi citizens in a referendum. This put an end to all the arbitrary attitudes and mentality towards the Kurds, which for more than eighty years had been used to oppress the Kurds.
Although the Kurds and the leadership of the Kurdish national movement in Iraq as a community in the pre-2003 period did not have problems with the government and central authorities in Baghdad on the basis of citizenship issues.
In other words, the Kurdish problem in Iraq was a collective problem, not an individual one, and on this basis it entered into negotiations, wars and confrontations with successive governments. The Iraqi authorities have always imagined that the Kurds have the right to have their own position and role in the state institutions, but the Kurdish national movement has rejected that the Kurdish conflict with Baghdad is not reduced to the individual level.
In the new Iraq, after establishing the foundations of their power and hegemony, the Shiite Arab rulers began to abandon the basic principles that had been agreed upon and on which the foundations of the state were built.
The current strategy of the ruling mentality in Baghdad towards the Kurds as a community has been reduced to demanding citizenship and ensuring individual rights within Iraq. The Iraqi constitution has ended this issue, and after 2005, the Kurds will act with Baghdad within the framework of a federal entity, not on the basis of citizenship.
If the mechanism of behavior between the Kurdistan Region and the Iraqi Federal Government is based on citizenship, then it is a violation of constitutional and legal agreements and principles This is an attack on the legal, constitutional and real structure of the Kurdistan Region, which existed before the establishment of the new Iraqi state and had international and domestic legitimacy.
Therefore, what is very important about the Kurdistan Region, which must continue to emphasize with the federal government is that it must not be subjected to the direction that the Baghdad authorities intend to impose on the Kurdistan Region.