What the fight over Kirkuk means for Iraq's future

Worldly

Vox Media Podcast Network

News Commentary, Politics, News

4.4 • 1.8K Ratings

🗓️ 19 October 2017

⏱️ 48 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Yochi, Jenn, and Zack look at why Washington’s two biggest allies in the fight against ISIS are squaring off over the future of Kirkuk, an oil-rich city in northern Iraq. Kurdish fighters took control of Kirkuk three years ago and have held it ever since — until this week, when the Iraqi central government sent troops to take the city back. Now the question is what comes next for both Kirkuk and Iraq as a whole. On Elsewhere, they look at Sebastian Kurz, the 31-year-old Austrian politician who is to become his country’s next chancellor — and the youngest leader in the world. The most interesting thing about Kurz isn’t his age; it’s that he will likely lead a coalition that also includes a far-right party known for its harshly anti-immigration and anti-Muslim policies. That leads to a debate over Zack’s theory that successful political movements require young, attractive leaders — and whether Kurz looks more like one of the Trump children or a character on Mr. Robot. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Worldly, Fox's Weekly Guide for the Most Important Stories in the world, part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
0:14.4	It's Yolke here with Jen and Zach. And we're going to start this week in Northern Iraq,
0:20.3	or where the people who are fighting in Northern Iraq might think of it as South Kurdistan.
0:25.0	And that's because there are two US allies who are almost literally going to war against each other.
0:30.0	The Iraqi army that the US has helped rebuild after its fight against ISIS
0:34.0	and the Kurdish Peshmerga who have been US allies going back way over a decade
0:38.4	and they're fighting on the streets of a city called Kirkuk
0:41.5	it's one of the wealthiest cities in Iraq in theory because it sits on
0:44.6	a lot of oil. It's a city that the Kurds referred to as their Jerusalem. It's a city that the
0:49.6	Iraqi government does not want to give up. We're going to start with how soldiers who
0:53.8	have fought in Kirkukuk have reacted to the fact that the Iraqi army has just
0:57.6	reconquered Kirkukkuk. Yesterday I cried because they sell my city to the Iraqi. I am not Iraqi, I am Kurdish.
1:07.6	And I feel like that's kind of the core of it, is that somebody fighting who in a technical
1:12.0	sense is Iraqi in no way sees himself is a rocky
1:13.4	rocky in no way sees himself as a rocky.
1:16.0	And maybe let's start there, like why would Kircouke be the flashpoint
1:19.6	and also why would two parts of the same country see each other so differently and went to go to war because of it.
1:24.8	Yeah, it's worth taking a step back here to understand the role of the Kurds in Iraq.
1:30.0	So Kurds are an ethnic minority.
1:32.4	We typically talk about Iraq in terms of divisions
1:34.9	between Sunni Arabs and Shia Arabs, but Kurds are Sunni but not aligned with the Sunni Arab minority in Iraq.
1:43.9	The government is controlled by the Shia majority.
	...

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