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The debate on Kurdish options in Iraq was aired twice last week in the Commons with a substantial evidence session at the Foreign Affairs Committee and in a wider debate on the Middle East, which was inevitably dominated by the conflict between Hamas and Israel.
The Committee heard from the KRG's High Representative, Bayan Sami Abdul Rahman who explained that federalism would only work if Baghdad changed. The former Iraqi minister, Dr Allawi advocated confederation. His heart didn't seem to be in it because he accepted that the likely course of events is an uneasy stand-off between the three parts of Iraq.
Peter Galbraith, a long-term Kurdophile and former US Ambassador to Croatia, was uninhibited in advocating Kurdish independence. He has seen for himself the consequences of trying to hold countries together when nations inside want to leave. He said that the big mistake in Yugoslavia was trying to keep it intact when the Croatians and Slovenians wanted out. The west should have concentrated on preventing war rather than a false or forced territorial integrity.
He also reminded us that George Bush senior even thought that the priority was to keep the Soviet Union in one piece, regardless of what the Estonians, Latvians or Lithuanians wanted. It didn't last, another example of Churchill's dictum, which Qubad Talabani quoted our recent delegation, that: "You can depend upon the Americans to do the right thing. But only after they have exhausted every other possibility.”
Galbraith's bravura performance will have made Committee members re-examine carefully any preferences for a one-Iraq policy beyond its sell by date. What was very recently seen as impractical has so far become part of the most likely practical solution.
The Chairman asked whether the British Government should follow the example of the Parliament and formally recognise the genocide against the Iraqi Kurds. He summarised the Government's argument as "if we recognise that as genocide, there will be lots of other incidents that the Government will feel obliged to recognise?" Rahman's response was trenchant: "And what is wrong with that? If they are genocide, why not recognise them? " You could hear the penny drop and my hope is that support for formal recognition is the least the Committee can recommend.
In the wider Commons debate, there were strong interventions from all-party group stalwarts, the British-Kurdish MP Nadhim Zahawi and Robert Halfon, who made a major speech in which he argued that: "Instead of trying to keep together an artificial and broken Iraq, the UK, the United States and their allies should be doing everything possible to help the Kurdistan region to become independent, and to ensure that that part of the middle east remains free and democratic."
A very careful stance was struck by the former Middle East Minister, Alistair Burt, who agreed that "ultimately, the independence of the Kurdish people it is a matter of self-determination," that, given all the Kurds had suffered, people should listen to them, and it should not be dealt with suddenly but be worked through with neighbours and friends and the surrounding territories.
It is significant that some are beginning to think about what a Kurdish Republic would need. Yes, the essential priority now is self-defence, medicines and aid for the refugees but an independent Kurdistan would need the accoutrements of a sovereign state, including and maybe especially an air force.
Having said all that, these are early days. It may now seem absolutely impossible that a new federal Iraq can be put in place. Maliki is the best recruiting sergeant for independence. At this stage, it would require a minor miracle for federalism to be credible. Confederation would require Baghdad to recognise that it no longer rules the roost and moderate Sunnis to overthrow extremists.
Without such change, British policy-makers will have to think long and hard about their position. They may be sympathetic given the warm relations that have been built since the no-fly zone in the 1990s, the support of a significant cadre of parliamentarians and their appreciation of the importance of Kurdistan to Europe's need for diverse and secure energy supplies.
My hope is that the UK can persuade the Americans to finesse their foreign policy and that should start with endorsing energy exports and allowing the KRG to turn the tankers into reliable cash.
Parliament is about to take a summer break. Who knows what Iraq and Kurdistan will look like when it returns in September and then the political party conferences at which the Kurdish question may be a hot issue.
Gary Kent is the director of All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG). He writes this column for Rudaw in a personal capacity.
* The address for the all-party group is appgkurdistan@gmail.com
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