Everything you think you know about Kurdistan is probably wrong!

From the children's web site, Vox;

But it wasn't until they encroached into semi-autonomous Kurdish territory and near the Kurdish capital of Erbil — an oil boomtown full of Western companies like Chevron and Exxon Mobil — that the Obama administration decided to authorize air strikes against ISIS.
That rather felicitous timing has already led a few commentators to suggest that the current US intervention is all about oil. That's probably overstating things — the US intervention seems to have a variety of goals here, like protecting the Kurds more generally and preventing ISIS from massacring Iraq's Yazidis. But it'd also be wrong to pretend that oil is totally irrelevant to the larger crisis in Iraq.

We heard this before. It's always about the oil. Yes, oil is all important from the Iraqi point of view. That's how its population eats but the suggestion that the profit motive drives U.S. military policy in the middle east is overworked and overstated. Were it not for the internecine blood lust exhibited by both Sunni and Shia alike they would be eating pretty well.
While researching the impact of oil production in Iraq I stumbled across what must be the best kept secret in the American media. As far as the semi-autonomous Kurdistan is concerned the Iraq War was a stunning success. While Baghdad and the southern two thirds of the nations are ravaged by mass executions and suicide bombers the third leading cause of death in Kurdistan is automobile accidents. With a population of 5 million Kurdistan has 1.1 million automobiles or about one car for every four and a half Kurds. With its abundance of oil and small population Kurdistan is being compared to Kuwait and Dubai. Erbil is, as Vox termed it, an oil boomtown full of Western companies but think along the lines of cosmopolitan Dallas, Texas not some muddy shanty town from Oklahoma Crude.
Note: Because of the space limitations of this blog format each photograph is linked to the original. Right click to see it in full size. The prosperity, or better, the opulence of Erbil must be seen to be believed. None of this existed before Saddam Hussein was deposed.
Does your hometown airport look this modern?
Then there are vocational schools such as the Lukoil Training Center where the oil industry schools its workforce. Eat your heart out Texas A&M!
The Divan Erbil Hotel looks comfy!
The Kurds are the quintessential moderate Muslims. They are pragmatic and forgiving or devious and opportunistic depending on who is doing the evaluation but they have put aside past border skirmishes with Turkey and built an oil pipeline to Turkey's Mediterranean port of Ceyhan thereby cementing a working relationship with an old enemy, cutting the central government of Baghdad out of the action, and avoiding a potential choke point in the Strait of Hormuz in one fell swoop. Eventually the pipeline may carry as much as 250,000 barrels per day.
Readers may wonder who made all of this possible. The answer is President George W. Bush.
Ray Hunt of Hunt Oil is one of those outsized personalities cast in the mold of T. Boone Pickens or our personal favorite Aubrey McClendon. Hunt, like every other Texas oilman is always described in the liberal press as a close confidant of President Bush. In 2007 when the central government of Iraq could not pass legislation as to how oil revenues would be divvied up Hunt used his phone and his pen. He contacted the Kurdistan regional government and signed an oil exploration contract leading the way that 7 other American oil companies followed. This was de facto independence for Kurdistan. The popular press howled cronyism and Congressman Henry Waxman, who chaired the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform held hearings but in the end it was an unmitigated victory for the Kurdish people. Yes, to the Kurds it is all about the oil. They sit on an estimated 45 billion barrels. The remainder of Iraq could enjoy much of the same were it not for religious intolerance. Kurdish tolerance and moderation have made them receptive to Western Thinking and while they meet the west on their own terms this flash dance in a palatial shopping mall is strong evidence of an affinity to Western Culture.


These two videos from Jewish News One document Kurdistan's success and present graphic evidence of Kurdish prosperity.





Lastly, this video offers a quick tour of Erbil and northern Iraq.