The Barzanis Day Has Come.

In the summer of 2014 the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) invaded northern Iraq. This included seizing control of Mosul - the region's largest city.

In October 2016 an operation was launched to liberate Mosul. This was completed on July 9th 2017 (9/7/17).

On August 20th (20/8/17) an operation was launched to liberate the town of Tal Afar. This sits around 80km (48 miles) west of Mosul. The liberation of Tal Afar on August 28th (28/8/17) marked the complete liberation of northern Iraq from ISIL.

The obvious thing to do next would be to press ahead and oust ISIL from their last area of control in Iraq. This is sometimes referred to as; "The Hawija Triangle."

Centred around the town of Hawija this is around 140km (85 miles) south-east of Mosul. The three points of the triangle are made up of the city of Kirkuk to the north-east, Baiji to the west and Tikrit to the south-west.

Unfortunately the President of Iraq's Kurdish Region Masoud Barzani and his Prime Minister son Nechirvan Barzani have forced everyone to stop the fight against ISIL.

Since the fight against ISIL began the Barzanis have clung on to this mad plan. They think that if they can seize control of the Kirkuk oil fields they can then sell that oil through Turkey. The revenue from those oil sales will allow them to unilaterally declare Iraq's Kurdish Region to be an independent state.

The madness of this plan is that Turkey is currently under the control of Recep Tayyip Erdogan. He is a neo-Ottoman meaning he wants to re-establish the Ottoman Empire which included not only Iraq's Kurdish Region but all of Iraq.

Erdogan has made no secret of his desire to invade and then occupy northern Iraq. In the run-up to the Mosul operation the Erdogan supporting Turkish press and public declared that the cities of Mosul, Erbil and Kirkuk were rightfully parts of Turkey.

The Mosul operation itself was significantly hampered by Erdogan.

The liberation of Tal Afar was delayed by Erdogan's decision to mass troops on the Turkey/Iraq border and threat to invade should Tal Afar be liberated from ISIL. So although anti-ISIL forces arrived at Tal Afar in November 2016 it was a further 9 months before they could move to liberate the town itself.

In December 2015 Erdogan desperately wanted to invade and occupy Kurdish areas in northern Syria. To test the waters for this effort he sent Turkish forces to establish a base in Bashiqa in northern Iraq. At the time Bashiqa was on the ISIL side of the frontline east of Mosul.

While the bulk of Erdogan's forces were withdrawn by the start of 2016 they continue to occupy the Bashiqa base. This is despite being repeatedly asked to leave by the Iraqi government.

Erdogan also continues to conduct airstrikes against Iraq's Kurdish Region on an almost daily basis. Just last Tuesday (19/9/17) seven Kurdish civilians were murdered in one of Erdogan's airstrikes close to Dohuk.

Therefore it should be obvious to all that Erdogan is no friend of the Kurdish people.

So if the Barzanis do rely on Erdogan to help them establish Iraq's Kurdish Region as an independent state it should be equally obvious what is going to happen.

Erdogan is going to block the sale of Kirkuk's oil through Turkey. Or as is more likely he will simply keep the revenues from those oil sales for himself effectively stealing them from Iraq's Kurds. This will cause a collapse in the economy of Iraq's Kurdish Region.

With the economy of Iraq's Kurdish Region in collapse Erdogan will then send troops to annex the area on the pre-text of protecting Turkey from instability on its border.

Despite all this the Barzanis have pressed ahead with their mad plan. They've unilaterally declared that today there will be a referendum on declaring Iraq's Kurdish Region to be an independent state. Presumably one known as; "Barzanistan."

This referendum is wholly illegal.

The 1933 Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States makes quite clear that a nation state cannot be created within the borders of another nation state without the consent of the existing state. The Montevideo Convention has been adopted as part of the Charter of the United Nations.

In 2015 Scotland held a referendum on declaring independence from the UK. Although this was done at the request of the Scottish Parliament and only Scottish residents were allowed to vote this referendum was actually called and organised by the British government.

The Iraqi government has most certainly not given its consent from today's vote and has taken legal steps to block it. Therefore whatever the result this simply cannot be considered a referendum in any legal sense of the word.

Not only have the Barzani's failed to follow Iraqi and international law in calling today's vote they've actually disregarded Iraq's Kurdish Regions own rules.

It almost goes without saying that before Iraq's Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) can take an action of this magnitude it must secure a majority within the Parliament of the KRG.

The KRG Parliament has been suspended since 2015. It was only reopened for a single session on September 15th (15/9/17) long after the referendum was called. That single Parliamentary session was only allowed to take place on condition that all those attending voiced support for Barzani's referendum.

This complete disregard for any form of governmental process means that today's vote is not only wholly illegal it is also completely undemocratic.

The vote is being conducted during a time of war.

This means that there are troops on the streets manning checkpoints and otherwise restricting the movements of voters. The vote is not only being carried out in Iraq's Kurdish Region but also in areas such as Sinjar/Shingal which the KRG's Peshmerga force has seized militarily.

That Peshmerga force has made it quite clear that it will only tolerate support for independence from voters.

If the threat from men with guns was not enough the Barzanis have also tried to rig the outcome through the question people are being asked to vote on. They are being asked simply whether they want to be an independent Kurdistan; Yes or No.

The notion of an independent nation of Kurdistan is a powerful and longstanding one. There was originally a Kurdish nation detailed in the Sykes-Picot negotiations of 1915. The discovery of oil reserves though led to it being taken out of the final agreement of 1916.

However Iraq's Kurdish Region represents barely a fifth of what would normally be considered the nation of Kurdistan.

Therefore it is highly questionable whether the Barzani's should be able to invoke the evocative name "Kurdistan" to gain support for something that will fall far short of what is generally considered to be the Kurdish nation.

Also people much prefer saying; "Yes" then they like saying; "No." It is literally a positive versus a negative. For example when a man asks a woman to marry him if she says Yes its a cause for celebration but if she says No it's a cause for sadness.

Therefore democratic referendums do not use "Yes" and "No" as their options. Instead they use more neutral terms.

For example in 2016 the UK held a referendum on leaving the European Union (EU). There the options were not; "Do you wish to leave the EU; Yes or No" but; "Do you wish to Leave the EU?" or "Do you wish to Remain within the EU?"

If the Barzani's vote were a democratic referendum it would not have a Yes/No question. Instead it would have two options along the lines of; "Do you wish to Leave a Federal Iraq" or "Do you wish to Remain part of a Federal Iraq?"

Within the Kurdish Region a campaign opposed to leaving Iraq has been formed under the slogan. "No For Now." However the only news worthy event they have been involved in is that a broadcaster supporting them had their offices attacked and set on fire by Barzani supporters.

That is not how you conduct a referendum or any other sort of democratic poll.

In an effort to generate support for their mad plan the Barzanis have compared their vote to similar independence campaigns in Europe. Specially the 2017 call for another Scottish independence referendum and the Catalan vote being held on October 3rd (3/10/17).

The Scottish National Party's (SNP) call on March 13th (13/3/17) was actually an example of them being made to look foolish by the Conservative Party.

In the weeks leading up to the SNP announcement the Conservatives put around lots of rumours that they would formally trigger Britain's withdrawal from the EU on that date. This prompted the SNP to make their announcement to steal attention from the Conservatives. When no EU announcement came the SNP were left looking extremely foolish.

On June 8th (8/6/17) the UK held a General Election. At that election the SNP lost 21 seats and while the Conservatives won 12. This brought the Conservatives total up to 13 seats and ended decades of people saying the Conservatives can't win in Scotland.

The SNP has since quietly withdrawn their demands for an independence referendum.

Although I don't want to belittle anyone so close to polling day Catalan Independence votes are something of a national pastime within Spanish politics.

Following the 1936-1939 Civil War Spain was under the dictatorship of Franco until his death in 1975. So Spain has only really existed in its modern form since 1978.

In that time they've held four referendums on Catalan independence. Three of those referendums have been held in the last eleven years. Or one every 43 months.

The 1978 referendum held by the Spanish government endorsed what became the 1979 Statute of Autonomy. This granted Catalonia its own Parliament, the right to raise some of its own taxes and legal recognition of and protection for the Catalan language amongst other things.

The 2006 referendum which was also held by the Spanish government endorsed what became the 2006 Statute of Autonomy. This granted Catalonia even more autonomy than the 1979 statute.

In 2010 many of Spain's other regions launched a legal challenge to the 2006 Statute. Their main objection was that it allowed Catalonia to keep too much of its wealth rather than sharing it out across all of Spain. This led to the 2006 statute being overturned.

In 2015 the Catalans held a unilateral and therefore illegal referendum on Catalan independence. As with the equally illegal upcoming vote the objective was not to actually become independent.

Instead it was to establish a negotiation with the Spanish government over restoring elements of the 2006 Statute. Particularly in the areas of policing and public financing.

Last Wednesday (20/9/17) the Spanish government took over control of policing and public finances in Catalonia. This means that in the event of a Yes vote in the referendum the Catalans will first have to negotiate their way back to their starting point before attempting to secure further concessions.

So although at times it might get theatrical the Catalan referendum actually relies on maintaining good relations between the Catalonia and the Spanish government as a basis for negotiations.

The Barzani's have utterly trashed the Kurdish Region's relationship with the Iraqi government making negotiations unlikely.

Due to the undemocratic way it has been conducted the result Barzanis vote isn't really in doubt. It will be a win for "Yes." However due to the Barzani's undemocratic methods even with a near 100% turnout it will have not political legitimacy.

Due to the way it has been carried out in defiance of local, national and international law whatever the result it will not be recognised by any nation.

The worry then is how the Barzanis are going to react to the outcome.

The hope is they will do the decent thing and quietly resign as the people who blew the chances of an independent Kurdistan and wrecked the Kurdish Region's relationship with the Iraqi government and the international community.

The worry though is that the Barzani's will go down in flames. This would involve them sending the Peshmerga to attempt to seize the Kirkuk oil fields by force.

In preparation for this on Thursday (21/9/17) the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) backed by the US-led coalition Combined Joint Task Force: Operation Inherent Resolve (CJTFOIR) announced the start of an operation to liberate Hawija.

What they've actually done is bring in troops to establish a stop-line south of Kirkuk. Should the Barzanis go crazy or worse Erdogan launches an invasion. 

Sadly though that means they literally have to turn their backs on ISIL.

16:55 on 25/9/17 (UK date).