Where Iraq Works

Like residents of Berlin during the airlift, inhabitants of Erbil—the capital of the Kurdish enclave in northern Iraq—get a little flutter in their hearts when they see planes coming in to land. Built after the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime, Erbil's international airport is a symbol to Kurds that their years of isolation as an oppressed ethnic minority are over, and that the Kurdish region, unlike the rest of Iraq, is open for business. Passengers flying into Baghdad have to endure a corkscrew landing to avoid possible surface-to-air-missiles. But a trip to Erbil is so safe that I was the only passenger on my flight packing body armor. Upon arrival, my biggest problem was the $50 fare charged for a 10-minute cab ride by the drivers of Hello Taxi, and finding a reservation at one of the city's packed hotels.

Such is life in Kurdistan, the last beacon of stability amid the wreckage of the U.S. enterprise in Iraq. But even there, stability is a relative term. True, the airport is putting in a runway long enough to accommodate jumbo jets, but for now it will be used mainly for U.S. military flights. That's because only one Western carrier—Austrian Airlines—is brave enough to land there. Other flights are run by off-brand charters with names such as Flying Carpet and Middle Eastern carriers such as Iraqi Airways. And even those are unreliable. Many of the officials at Iraqi Airways are former Baathists who try to gum up the works. Flights from Turkey often get canceled when there's a public dispute between Kurdish and Turkish politicians. And all flights in and out of Kurdish Iraq still have to receive clearance from both the civil aviation authority in Baghdad and the American air base in Qatar.

Iraqi Kurds have been in control of their own region since 1991, when, with the help of the American-enforced no-fly zone, they drove Saddam's forces out of northern Iraq. But now, four years after the liberation of the rest of the country, Kurdish Iraq is undergoing an identity crisis. On the one hand it is a rare American success story in the Middle East, a stable territory run by a secular leadership committed to economic and political reform and sitting on a huge pool of oil. On the other hand, it is a tiny landlocked region, uncomfortably attached to a war-ravaged nation, and surrounded by unfriendly neighbors. Despite its outward signs of tranquility, the fate of Kurdistan—whether it will continue as an inspiring example of what the rest of Iraq could look like, or become engulfed by the country's violence—remains unresolved, dependent as much on what happens to the barely functioning Iraqi state as on the Kurds themselves.

The central question, of course, is how long the Kurds intend to remain a part of Iraq—and what will happen if they make moves toward secession. The overwhelming majority of Kurds would like to break free of Iraq and form an independent nation. So far, Kurdish leaders have been a constructive force in holding Iraq together, helping to write and pass a national constitution, which, though it devolved great powers to the regions, has kept Iraq intact as a federal state. Kurds are serving at the highest levels of the Iraqi government, including as President, Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister.

But that spirit of cooperation won't last forever. The further that Iraq slides into civil war, the more the Kurds will want to insulate themselves from it, by carving out more political and economic autonomy for themselves. Though Kurds have thus far accommodated themselves to the American policy for a unified Iraq, that spirit of cooperation won't last forever. Even if they stop short of outright secession, the Kurds could still open up new conflicts in Iraq, if their impatience with the fecklessness of the Baghdad government prompts them to take action on their own—especially in determining the future status of Kirkuk, the disputed oil-rich city that the Kurds lay claim to. Said Iraq's Kurdish President, Massoud Barzani, during the farewell visit of departing U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad: "Our patience is not unlimited."