Maliki attempts to blockade Kurdistan international flights

In an intimidation move reminiscent of the communist blockade of Berlin in the early '60s, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has warned international airlines to cease their flights in and out of Iraqi Kurdistan, according to a July 10, 2014 article by Bestun Kakayi of BasNews, writing from Baghdad.

Writes Kakayi: "According to local Iraqi reports, the government in Baghdad has called on International Airlines like Emirates, Turkish Airlines and Qatar Airways to stop their flights to Kurdistan region as tensions between Baghdad and Erbil mounts due to the current Iraqi crisis."

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Former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton

In another July 10, 2014 article at BasNews, from Washington, Former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in an interview last Saturday with CSPAN, is cited as saying she thought the Kurds were rightly concerned about Iraqi PM Nouri al-Maliki's policies and failure to form an inclusive government.

"(Maliki) postpone(d) and fail(ed) to come up with the agreement about the allocation of oil revenues, something the Kurds were rightly concerned about," she is quoted as saying, and, according to the article, his failures contributed to the breakdown in dialogue and mistrust between the central Iraqi government and the Kurds of the autonomous Kurdistan region.

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Amazingly, rather than focusing his attention on countering the insurgency in his own region, al-Maliki is lashing out at his fellow nationals to the north, the Kurds of Kurdistan region, ensuring the collapse of his tenuous hold on Iraq unity.

This helps to set up the scenario of armed conflict between the two regions, as described by Jeremiah the hebrew prophet. The "spirit of the kings of the Medes", the leadership of the Kurds, will rise to lead the nations of "Ararat, Minni and Ashkenaz" -- the three regional factions of the Kurds, Syrian/Turk, Iraqi and Iranian -- into battle with the "land of the Chaldeans", modern-day Iraq.

Whether that battle is between Kurdistan and al-Maliki's government, or between Kurdistan and a re-constituted Iraq under ISIS, remains to be seen. Either way, the "Medes" invade, soundly defeat and plunder the treasures of the land of Babylon, if the fulfillment of Jeremiah's prophecy is coming true here in our time.

Kurds strengthen their positions as ISIS advances on Baghdad

theguardian.com  Thursday 26 June 2014
Martin Chulov in Baghdad, and Fazel Hawramy in Irbil

As Iraq's government teeters before Isis insurgents, the Kurds now control the oil hub of Kirkuk – and have national ambitions

Tensions are high in Kirkuk after control of the historic Iraqi city was taken over by the Kurds after the Iraqi army abandoned its positions. Photograph: Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Iraqis in Baghdad and the country's south are already calling the events of the past two weeks "the catastrophe". Not so inhabitants of the would-be Iraqi Kurdish capital of Irbil, where joy is unrestrained and a long-held sense of destiny is ever closer to being realised.

As the central government teeters under the insurgent onslaught, the fate of Irbil appears more assured than ever. Kurdish politicians, in the past not shy to criticise Arab Iraqi leaders, but coy about their national ambitions, are now openly touting "a new reality".

To Kurdish officials and locals alike, a tectonic shift in the balance of power between Iraq's two power bases, and peoples, has taken place. And Kirkuk, the bitterly contested oil hub, is at the epicentre.

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Safeen Dizayee, Kurdish regional government (KRG) spokesman, was at pains on Wednesday to highlight the region's resources. "In the governorates under KRG administration, vast quantities of natural resources have been discovered over the last few years – estimates point to more than 45bn barrels of oil and significant quantities of natural gas.

The Kurdistan region has already landed on the global energy map. Regarding the so-called disputed territories, Peshmerga forces have entered these areas after the Iraqi army abandoned their positions. The KRG had and still has an obligation to protect civilians in these areas and to ensure that army bases, cities, and land areas do not fall into the hands of terrorists.

Aref Maroof, 52, a Kirkuk school inspector, said: "I think 85-90% of Kurds want independence. Kurdistan has two options; one is to declare independence without 'separated territories' [disputed territories] in which case it will fail, or to declare independence by including the 'separated territories' in which case the Kurds will face a war with [Nouri al-]Maliki.

"It is in the interest of Kurds (to do so) if the central government and its army is weak. (But) If the KRG assists Iraq ... to rebuild their army, it is like committing suicide."

In Baghdad, a sense of gloom pervades many in government who see little chance of shifting the Kurds from Kirkuk, or even defending their interests while an insurgency and political crisis rages.

"They are getting what they want," said one minister. "While Baghdad burns, and while we all sit back and watch the fire."

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Jeremiah predicted the cities of Babylon would burn, the reconstructionists would abandon the land, and then war would break out between the Chaldeans -- the Arab Iraqis -- and the Medes -- the modern-day Kurds. "While Baghdad burns." That may happen most literally. Once it does, the One who has tried to "heal" Babylon will announce he is abandoning her, leaving her to her judgment. Then comes the war, defeat and plunder at the hands of the "kings of the Medes" -- the Kurds. Then a catastrophic flood, drought, and eventual "perpetual desolation."

It is a judgment from God. Flee from the midst of Babylon, so as to escape the coming calamity.

Dismemberment of Iraq gives Kurds hope of independence

Excerpts from article by Margaret Evans, CBC News Jun 25, 2014
at CBCnews | World www.cbc.ca/news/world/

The Kurdish Peshmerga forces have been able to keep ISIS at bay while Iraqi forces melted away in the face of the militant group's advance (Margaret Evans/CBC)

Baghdad's increasing ire over Kurdish plans to export its oil and gas abroad directly led the central government to suspend the Kurdish share of Iraq's national budget in 2013.

It would be an understatement to call it bad timing for Iraq's beleaguered Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to be on the outs with the Kurds given they control the only truly cohesive fighting force in Iraq, the renowned Peshmerga.

At first glance, there would seem to be little incentive for the Kurds to prop up a central government under al-Maliki's control.

The chaos in Iraq and the potential for its dismemberment has opened up a crack through which the Kurds can clearly see their long cherished dream glistening in the distance -- that of an independent Kurdistan.

Said Gareth Stansfield, a professor of Middle East politics at England's University of Exeter, "The Kurdish leaders... (are) being very quiet and they're waiting for everything to fall around them."

Kirkuk is key to the notion of Kurdish independence. The city would give the Kurds the economic independence that they need to pursue their own course.

Last year, Kurdish and Iraqi government troops came close to open clashes after Baghdad moved a special army unit up to Kirkuk. But that unit is no more. Its commanders and soldiers simply melted away two weeks ago like other Iraqi troops in the north when faced with the potential threat of the group calling itself the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) coming their way.

The Kurds, would-be claimants to the throne of Kirkuk, simply slipped in and took over their abandoned positions.

Kurdish troops have also moved in to other mixed or disputed cities in Iraq proper since the advance of ISIS. The Kurds have taken advantage of the chaos in the rest of the country to expand their borders.

Said Stansfield, "If ISIS and [its allies] are successful (the Kurds) will be facing an enemy that will turn its attentions north very quickly."

"We often hear how good the Kurdistan army is, that they're willing to defend Kurdistan to the death," said Stansfield. "But we haven't seen them fully deployed. We haven't seen them face an opponent as brutal, as well organized, as well funded as ISIS and their (allies) that we see here."

READ MORE HERE...

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Now we see the battle lines drawing between the "kings of the Medes" -- the leadership of the modern day Kurds -- and a re-constituted and extremely militant Iraq -- the land of the Chaldeans, the Babylon of Jeremiah's prophecy:

"Behold, I am going to  arouse and bring up against Babylon a horde of great nations from the land of the north, and they will draw up their battle lines against her; from there she will be taken captive... Chaldea will become plunder... Because you are glad, because you are jubilant, O you who pillage my heritage, because you skip about like a threshing heifer and neigh like stallions, your mother will be greatly ashamed, she who gave you birth will be humiliated. Behold, she will be the least of the nations, a wilderness, a parched land and a desert..." Jer 50:9-12

Nouri al-Maliki rejects John Kerry's call for unity government

nbcnews.com June 25, 2014

Iraq's Shiite prime minister appeared Wednesday to reject John Kerry’s call for an emergency unity government to help tackle the Sunni insurgency that has overrun key cities. Nouri al-Maliki rejected forming a "national salvation" government, which he said would go against the results of parliamentary elections held on April 30 in which his coalition won the most seats, The Associated Press reported.

Kerry met Maliki on Iraq on Monday, calling on him to form a “broad-based inclusive government” in exchange for American help in the fight against Sunni militants from the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS). However, Maliki on Wednesday said such calls represented a "coup against the constitution and an attempt to end the democratic experience,” the BBC reported.

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By insisting the Kurds stay in a "unity" government of Iraq to fight the insurgency, Kerry is ensuring the Kurds will stay out of the fight to protect Iraq from a takeover by the Sunni ISIS militia. Once Maliki's government is overwhelmed, and Baghdad falls, the Kurds will have every right to declare independence, as the old Iraq will cease to exist.

Had Kerry and the US acknowledged Kurdistan's right to self-determination and independent statehood, the Kurds would have had negotiating power with Maliki's government to enter the fray and help prop up what is left of the Iraq nation under Shia Muslim rule.

Now, they will simply sit back and watch the demise of Iraq, and declare independence completely free of the constraints of the existing constitution.

All oil fields and production facilities currently under the KRG protection and control, and right to export and keep all its own oil revenues, and the establishment of new, broader borders, will be the windfall from the ISIS revolution.

Kurdistan is about to become a major power in the middle east, and a force to be reckoned with, just as predicted by Jeremiah's prophecy of 2,600 years ago -- "Sharpen the arrows, fill the quivers! the LORD has aroused the spirit of the kings of the Medes [Kurds], because his purpose is against Babylon to destroy it, for it is the vengeance of the LORD..." Jer 51:11

Why now? Because Israel is back in the land. It is a prophecy for the end times, following the third in-gathering of the Jews to the Promised Land. It is the time for the fulfillment of the prophecy --

"In those days and at that time... the sons of Israel will come, both they and the sons of Judah as well; they will go along weeping as they go... They will ask for the way to Zion, turning their faces in its direction; they will come that they may join themselves to the LORD in the everlasting covenant that will not be forgotten... Wander away from the midst of Babylon, and go forth from the land of the Chaldeans... For behold, I am going to arouse and bring up against Babylon a horde of great nations from the land of the north, and they will draw up their battle lines against her, from there she will be taken captive... (and) Chaldea will become plunder..." Jer 50:4-10.

Kurds take control of Kirkuk as Sunni militants surge toward Baghdad

www.reuters.com

BY AHMED RASHEED AND ISABEL COLES

BAGHDAD/ARBIL Iraq Thu Jun 12, 2014 12:03pm EDT

(Reuters) - Iraqi Kurdish forces took control of the northern oil city of Kirkuk on Thursday, after government troops abandoned their posts in the face of a triumphant Sunni Islamist rebel march towards Baghdad that threatens Iraq's future as a unified state.

In Mosul, Sunni militants of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant staged a parade of American Humvee patrol cars seized from a collapsing Iraqi army in the two days since ISIL fighters drove out of the desert and overran the northern metropolis. At Baiji, near Kirkuk, they surrounded Iraq's largest oil refinery.

At Mosul, which had a population close to two million before the weeks events forced hundreds of thousands to flee, witnesses saw ISIL fly two helicopters over the parade, apparently the first time the militant group has obtained aircraft in years of waging insurgency on both sides of the Iraqi-Syrian frontier.

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Once the militants have taken over control of the Iraqi government, there will be no reason for the Kurdistan Regional Government not to declare independence, which will set up a scenario for conflict between the two forces. Jeremiah prophesies that after the cities of Iraq burn (Judgment 4), and the reconstructionists abandon their efforts and leave Iraq to face its future alone (Judgment 5), the nation will be invaded by armies from the north, led by the "kings of the Medes", today known as the Kurds of Kurdistan (Judgment 6). The Chaldeans (Iraqis) will be defeated by the Medes (Kurds), who will then plunder the "treasures" of Iraq (Judgment 7). A catastrophic flood event will wipe out the cities of Iraq (Judgment 8), and then severe drought sets in (Judgment 9) to render the nation desolate and uninhabitable (Final Outcome).

If the cities of Iraq go up in flames soon, the Judgments will have resumed in sequential order to the above.  

Salon: American reconstruction fails

IN a Thursday, August 16, 2012 editorial appearing at salon.com, Peter Van Buren, a 24-year veteran Foreign Service Officer, writes, "I spent a year with the Department of State helping squander some of the $44 billion American taxpayers put up to 'reconstruct' (Iraq)... To this day I'm left pondering...,: Why has the United States spent so much money and time so disastrously trying to rebuild (this nation)...?"

Van Buren, author of the 2010 book "We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People", continues -- "Now, it's definitive. Reconstruction in Iraq has failed. Dismally... The accounts of that failure still pour out. Choose your favorites... (From) a $200 million year-long State Department police training program (that has) shown no results (none, nada),... (to) a long official list of major reconstruction projects uncompleted, with billions of taxpayer dollars wasted, all carefully catalogued by the now-defunct Special Inspector for Iraq Reconstruction."

When Van Buren does media interviews now, only two years later, the question of the day is not "Did we succeed in Iraq?" or "Will reconstruction pay off?", but "Why did we fail?"

READ MORE HERE...

Jeremiah the hebrew prophet presages Van Buren's lament over latter day Mesopotamia's demise: "Babylon has fallen and been broken; Wail over her! Bring balm for her pain; perhaps she may be healed. 'We applied healing to Babylon, but she was not healed; forsake her and let us each go to his own country, for her judgment has reached to heaven and towers up to the very skies." (Jer 51:8-9)

And so, with reconstruction having failed, miserably, the reconstructionists shall abandon her, each returning to his own country, and she shall fall into the remaining judgments alone and without hope.

Invasion by "a great nation and many kings" (Jer 50:41), humiliating capture and occupation (Jer 50:46, 51:14) and execution of her "arrogant" ruler (Jer 50:31-32) has already occurred. The burning of the cities (Jer 50:32, 51:58) and subsequent abandonment by the reconstructionists (Jer 51:8-9, 58) comes next.

Then her "judgment" really begins: war with and defeat by a horde "from the land to the north" (Jer 50:9), the "Medes" (Jer 51:11,28,48) -- the modern-day Kurds of Kurdistan -- who then "plunder" her "treasures" (Jer 50:10,37), a catastrophic flood event (Jer 51:42) and finally a drought (Jer 50:38-40, 51:43) so severe it renders the land "an object of horror, and there will be no inhabitant in it" (Jer 50:3), so that "she will be completely desolate; everyone who passes by Babylon will be horrified..." (Jer 50:13).

Will the fires that precipitate the final abandonment be lit soon? Will judgments 4 and 5 occur in 2012?

Clashes fuel debate over US plan to leave Iraq

From The New York Times by Tim Arango Published March 28, 2011

Writes Arango from Kirkuk, Iraq: "Many in this divided city want American troops to stay longer than the Obama administration has said they will..." A Kurdish peshmerga troop presence on the outskirts of Kirkuk has worried Arab lawmakers and Iraqi government officials, and prompted the deployment of American troops to the area.

Kurdish leaders say the peshmerga deployment was necessary to protect peaceful demonstrators from Sunni Arab insurgents.

Sheik Burhan Mizher, an Arab member of the provincial government expressed worry about the prospect of civil war after the Americans leave. Many among the diplomatic and military ranks of both countries argue for a continued American military presence beyond this year, citing Kirkuk as the centerpiece of their case, according to Arango's article.

As Arango writes, "Perhaps the greatest unfinished chapter of America's war in Iraq will be the status of Kirkuk, an ancient city that today is fought over by its three main ethnic groups, Kurds, Arabs and Turkmens, each making historical claims to the land and the oil that flows beneath."

The Kurds are the modern-day manifestation of the ancient Medes, the invaders from the north prophesied by Jeremiah in his two chapters of doom upon the land of Babylon, modern-day Iraq -- "For a nation has come up against her out of the north; it will make her land an object of horror, and there will be no inhabitant in it... The LORD has aroused the spirit of the kings of the Medes, because his purpose is against Babylon to destroy it... Summon against her the kingdoms of Ararat, Minni and Ashkenaz... the kings of the Medes..." (Jer 50:3; 51:11, 27-28).

This defeat of Babylon by the Medes includes the plundering of her treasures -- "Chaldea will become plunder; all who plunder her will have enough... A sword against her treasures, and they will be plundered... " (Jer 50:10, 37).

It seems from this article in The New York Times that the American presence is a deterrent to all out war between Iraq and the Kurds. But Jeremiah prophesies that the occupiers will abandon Chaldea, opening the way for further conflict -- "We applied healing to Babylon, but she was not healed; forsake her and let us each go to his own country, for her judgment has reached to heaven and towers up to the very skies..." (Jer 51:9).

And what seems to precipitate this abandonment is the burning of the cities -- "so the peoples will toil for nothing, and the nations become exhausted (because of the) fire" (Jer 51:58).

The fires, the abandonment, the defeat in civil war, the plundering... and then it gets really bad.

Referendum to annex oil-rich Kirkuk by Kurdistan delayed yet again

From day one the new Iraqi constitution required local border regions to hold referendums defining whether they were to be part of Iraq proper, or whether they were to be consolidated into the autonomous Kurdistan region, which has its own regional government and security forces. The deadline for holding the referendum has passed without the oil-rich Kirkuk region deciding its own allegiance, blocked by the Iraqi parliament in violation of the constitutional requirement, over concern the vote would favor joining Kirkuk to Kurdistan, thereby stripping Iraq of direct control over its vast oil reserves.

Last month, according to an article published today (July 14, 2009) at radiofranceinternationale (rfi.fr), the Kurdistan regional assembly passed the text of the draft constitution which would officially join Kirkuk and other parts of Nineveh and Divala provinces into Kurdish territory.

Once again, the Iraqi parliament, which must approve a regional vote on the measure, is expected to delay the procedure, according to Mahmud Othman, a Kurdish parliamentarian. According to the rfi.fr article, on July 6th Iraq's electoral commission "ruled out holding the referendum on the same day as parliamentary and presidential polls" that are to take place July 25th, 2009.

In response to the draft constitution, "Turkmen residents of Kirkuk are now seeking the right to arm themselves in self-defence", implying the results of such a vote would spark violence between the Kurds and Turkmen, as well as Arabs, living in the region located to the north of Iraq proper.

Certainly such a conflict is inevitable, as foreseen by the prophet Jeremiah -- "I am going to arouse and bring up against Babylon a horde of great nations from the land of the north, and they will draw up their battle lines against her; from there she will be taken captive... And Chaldea will become plunder; all who plunder her will have enough... A sword against her treasures, and they will be plundered... The LORD has aroused the spirit of the kings of the Medes, because his purpose is against Babylon to destroy it" (Jer. 50:9-10,37; 51:11).

The Kurds live in a mountainous region once populated by the ancient peoples known as the Medes, and may even claim direct descendancy from them. The treasures of Babylon -- the rich oil fields of Kirkuk -- are becoming a flash point for conflict between them and the Chaldeans, the present-day arab Iraqis.