Looming Independence Referendum in Kurdistan Reminds Why You Need Gold

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Last Updated on: 19th September 2017, 10:17 am

There are too many reasons among the geopolitical fires raging in the world today to have grave concerns for the future of your investment and retirement portfolios. One of these is an upcoming independence movement referendum slated to be held in September in Iraq. Specifically, it is the Iraqi autonomous region of Kurdistan that is attempting to break with Baghdad.

This is a serious concern for the region and the world as the national government is violently opposed to this independence movement and any talk about independence referendums. Iraq has threatened to stop secession by any means necessary, including violence if required.

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Kuridstan Referendum Threatens Iraq's Oil Revenues and Global Oil Prices

The most serious challenge to global financial markets (from upcoming independence referendums) proves to be the Kurdistan referendum regarding their future in Iraq. The reason this is so critically important is because Kurdistan encompasses the oil-rich region of Kirkuk in the north of the nation.

In fact, the Kurdish military has completely controlled this crucial province and other disputed northern Iraqi territories since the summer of 2014 when they became cutoff from the rest of the country by the rise of the Islamic State.

To their credit, the Kurds liberated the region and ensured its protection from ISIS since then. Yet the Kurds have also long considered this territory to be an integral part of their anticipated homeland state which they have been seeking to establish in their millennial home of the Kurdish people.

Since at least the end of World War I and the collapse of the ruling Ottoman Empire, the Kurds have been desperate to reclaim a sovereign land for themselves. Their hopes of achieving such a step took a giant leap forward in the wake of the American-led overthrow of brutal dictator Saddam Hussein's government back in 2003.

Now that ISIS is all but vanquished in Iraq, the Kurdish forces have sharpened their demands for independence and for keeping the oil land spoils of Kirkuk. Next week's September 25th referendum is virulently opposed by the government in Baghdad. In fact, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has recently called this vote both “unconstitutional and illegitimate.” The threats have only increased since then.

Last Tuesday, the central government gave the prime minister full authority to “take all measures” in order to preserve the fraying unity of the post-Islamic State country. Yet the Iraqi Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani is having none of it. Director for Middle East and North Africa Ayham Kamel of the Eurasia Group consulting firm warned:

“In Kirkuk especially, Baghdad will not accept a scenario in which all of the territories are annexed.”

Fully 20 percent of the entire Iraqi population (around six million Kurds) live in Iraq. As the overwhelming majority of them are located in the landlocked northern areas, it makes their impassioned appeals for their own state all the more potent. The five million Kurds allowed to vote are united as one in their longing for their own sovereign nation. There can be little doubt on the ultimate outcome of this referendum.

This is their first realistic hope that they may finally achieve their ultimate aims since the British and other colonial European powers took out pencils and drew literal national borders on the maps of the Middle East. For some inexplicable reasons, they left the Kurds divided into the competing nations of Iraq, Turkey, Iran, and northeastern Syria in the process.

Kurdish European and American Allies Against Dividing Iraq

Unfortunately for the freedom-loving Kurds, their allies in America and Western Europe are not in favor of their long-stymied dreams for their own independent homeland. Germany, Britain, France, and the U.S. all are vocally against the referendum as well.

The great powers argue that such a vote will only divide the allied forces in their ongoing efforts against uprooting the remainder of ISIS, escalating already-exacerbated tensions with the national government. Israel is a lone supporter, as it much prefers the Kurds as neighbors to Iraq and the Arab countries.

More importantly on the ground, the neighboring nations of Iran, Turkey, and Syria are all violently against any referendum that may encourage their own native Kurdish populations to demand similar referendums for independence.

Research Fellow Michael Stephens from the Royal United Services Institute think tank warns about the likely outcome of such a scenario as the regional neighboring powers becoming involved to stop the Kurds and quash their dreams: