Beltway Confidential

As chaos develops, what went wrong in Kirkuk, Iraq?

By Michael Rubin
Published October 15, 2017 5:12pm ET
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As chaos develops, what went wrong in Kirkuk, Iraq?
Barriers with defaced Kurdish flags are seen outside of an evacuated checkpoint in the village of Bashir, south of Kirkuk, Iraq, Friday, Oct. 13, 2017. Kurdish forces have withdrawn from the edges of a disputed region in northern Iraq, a commander said Friday, amid tensions with Iraq's central government over the administration of the oil-rich city of Kirkuk. The sentence on the barrier in Arabic reads: "down the traitor Massoud." (AP Photo/Emad Matti) | Emad Matti

BAGHDAD — Kirkuk is on war footing as the Kurdish peshmerga on one hand and a combination of Iraqi army units and Shiite militias on the other face off over the disputed, oil-rich city. The fighting, should the skirmishes around the city’s outskirts escalate into something more, will be a catastrophe for Kirkuk and, more broadly, Iraqi Kurdistan.

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