scuraistan [Adare mer] Iraq's seizure of Kirkuk is part ofa much bigger story The contagion of Kurdish separatism is uniting the Middle East's contending powers 66 David Gardner wv fF i = FR & | savetomyer ‘The Kurdish dream of an independent state in northern Traa, which took wing with overwhelming support in a referendum on September 25, crashed to earth three weeks later, as Iran-backed Iraqi forces on Monday seized back Kirkuls, the oil-rich area contested betw n Kurds and for another war within the many wars tearing apart the rabs, which could now become a new frontline Middle Bast. Yet Kirkuk should also be seen as part of the geopolitical contest between Iran and the US, after President Donald ‘Trump last week refused to certify that Tehran is compl: in 2015. Mr1 cose but vague threats; Iran is taking action across a number of fronts, obviously prepared well in advance. But first, Kirkuk. ng with the nuclear deal it reached with world pow made bel When Masoud Barzani, president of the autonomous Kur Government in northe stan Regional n Iraq, decided to press ahead with a plebiscite on secession, it was always clear that his inclusion in the vote of Kirkuk and other disputed areas outside the KRG's recognised border would be inflammatory.‘To be clear: not just the Iraqi central government in Baghdad, but all the KRG’s neighbours with Kurdish minorities issued threatening warnings against holding a vote on independence. Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria, which house the region’s, estimated 30m Kurds, were able, despite their manifold differences, to unite against the threat that Mr Barzani’s ambition would speed up the contagion of Kurdish separatism already raging inside their frontiers. ‘The future of Iraq and Syria as unitary states is already in doubt. The federal compact that followed the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, which was supposed to share power between the Shia majority and Sunni Arab and Kurdish minorities, never really survived the ethno-sectarian carnage unleashed by the occupation. Six years of, civil war in Syria have fragmented the country, leaving the Kurdish Democratic Union party (PYD) and its potent militia in possession of huge swaths of territory just below Turkey's border. ‘The PYD is the Syrian sister party of the Kurdistan Workers’ party (PKK), with which Ankara resumed a 30-year struggle in 2015 after a brief lull. Turkey has thus moved from backing Islamist rebels against the Iran-supported Assad regime to preventing the PYD consolidating its position on the Syrian side of Turkey’s border and linking up with the PKK. Tehran, for its part, sees the KRG vote as a plot by the US, which plans to use Iran’s Sunni Kurd minority as a fifth column against its Shia Islamist regime. Kirkuk itself is a complex issue. Its future was to have been settled by a referendum in 2007 that was never held. KRG peshmerga forces over-ran it in 2014, when the Iraqi army melted before the onslaught of Isis. The Kurds revere Kirkuk as a sort of Jerusalem, the heart of their yearned-for homeland. They point to Saddam Hussein's ethnic cleansing of Kurds that changed the demography of Kirkuk in favour of Arabs and Turkmen. The city and its province, moreover, are a valuable asset, accounting for at least half the KRG's oil and gas exports. But right now Kirkuk is the pretext uniting Baghdad, Ankara and — above all — Tehran, which is the prime mover for reasons that go beyond Iraqi territorial disputes. At the heart of the Iraqi offensive against the KRG is the Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF), the Iraqi Shia militia coalition ultimately under the sway of Tehran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its Quds Force expeditionary commander Qassem Soleimani. Kirkuk — creating a stand-off with US-backed peshmerga — is but one of Iran's moves.It is also behind the Assad forces offensive up the Euphrates valley towards Isis- controlled Deir Ezzor, just over the Iraqi border in Syria, spearheaded by Lebanon's Hizbollah, the IRGC’s most accomplished ally — creating a stand-off with US-backed Syrian Kurdish militia of the PYD. Already last Friday the Iran-backed forces seized nearby Mayadin, a staging post in the Shia Arab corridor they are Duilding from Tehran to the Mediterranean. Even though the US is allied with Iraqi and Syrian Kurdish fighters, itis Iran that has its fingers on the fissile pressure points of Iraqi Kurd politics. Gen Soleimani has been spending time not just in Shia-dominated Baghdad recently, but in Sulaimaniya, the stronghold of the Tehran-allied Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), the historic rival to President Barzani headed by the recently deceased Jalal Talabani and his family. It looks like the PUK is splitting; it is certain that peshmerga loyal to the PUK stood aside to let the [raqi strike force into Kirkuk. Tran has also drawn Nato ally Turkey into its anti-Kurdish embrace. President Recep ‘Tayyip Erdogan and his army chief of staff were in Tehran this month, lending their voices to Tehran's denunciation of Mr Barzani, hitherto an Erdogan ally, as a traitor. After Kirkuk, the Iraqi Shia PMF militia on Tuesday pressed into Sinjar, heartland of the Yazidi minority Isis tried to exterminate, where the PKK has established its westernmost bridgehead. Iran and Turkey — in the middle of its worst spat with the US for decades — are almost in lockstep. Kirkuk and Kurdistan are incendiary issues. As Iran deals with them in its own interest and with its habitual dispatch, its broader purpose is to make the US — despite President Trump's heat-seeking bluster — look like a hapless bystander. david gardner @ft.com