Analysis of Israel ' s Foreign Policy Concerning Iraqi ' s Kurdistan ( 2003-2015 )

Analysis of the Israel's Foreign Policy is one of the important issues concerned by the researchers of the international and regional affairs. Israel's Foreign Policy in years 2003-2015 has witnessed a lot of events. In these years, transformation of the Iraq's internal structures including the fall of the Baath Regime in Iraq and appearance of the terroristic group of Dashi (ISIS) in this country has provided new opportunities and challenges for the Israel's Foreign Policy. In this regard, establishment of a republic system in Iraq and the reinforcement of the Kurdish streams, specially during the current transformations and the increasing desires for the independence in Iraqi's Kurdistan, have paved the way for Israel to intensify its activities in the region. In this regard, the current study has approach the issue of Israel's Foreign Policy concerning Iraqi's Kurdistan during the years 2003-2015 with a descriptive analytic method. The achieved results show that the political reasons (alliance of the periphery and development of the strategic depth in closeness to Iran), economic (accessing the energy and mineral resources in Iraqi's Kurdistan, the importance of the Kurdistan's hydro-politic resources for Israel and the Israel's economical influence from the Nile to the Euphrates), military-security (presence in the strategic environment of Iran and the external threats in the Middle East, creation of an environmental crisis un the Kurdish region of the Middle East, weakening the Iraqi's central government and disintegration of this country, Israel's security-intelligence expansion, acquiring a strategic territory and getting out of isolation and the resolving the its legitimacy crisis, controlling the currents of thought in this region), all have been influential in thein Israel's Foreign Policy Concerning Iraqi's Kurdistan.


Introduction
The relationships between Israel and the Iraqi Kurdish, in fact, is the extension of Israel's Foreign Policy and its national security strategy in the Middle east in order to exit the isolation and extend his presence in the region.The new transformations in Iraq and the development of the political, economic and social activities of the Kurdish people in this country have provided an advantageous context for expanding the presence and the influence of Israel in the region of the Iraqi's Kurdistan.Accordingly, Israel has initiated some covert extensive cooperation with Kurdish people and direct presence in the region and with infiltrating the social economic activities of Kurdistan seeks for a new strategic ally in the Middle East base on the alliance of the Periphery doctrine.This issue has increased the regional countries' sensitivity, especially the four countries of Iran, Iraq, Turkey and Syria to the interactions of the Kurdish and Israel and has provoked the news and scandals concerning the Israel's presence and influence in the region in a way that some of them have been exaggerated in the various media.Concerning that a great part of the Kurdish race lives in the western region of Iraq, it is important to follow the regional transformation of the Kurdish people outside the boundaries.It is about two decades that the controversial issue of the Iraqi Kurdish people has been around.Even after Iraq occupation by the U.S.A. in 2003 the Kurdish were not content to the 3 states (Suleimanieh, Arbil and Dahuk) which were under their dominance and demanded to hold some other regions as well including the oil-rich region of Kirkuk which is controversial yet.But what is considerable here is that the patter of Iraqi's Kurdistan has been turned into a model for the other Kurdish region outside Iraq including Iran.Every political transformation which results in the formation of the Kurdish government or any economic changes which implies the better condition of the Iraqi Kurdish, inevitably will provoke the other Kurdish regions outside its borders including Iran, Syria and Turkey.Realization of the Kurdish independence or the Federal phenomenon, gradually will raise their claims over the oil-rich northern regions of Iraq like Musel and then Israel will get a good opportunity to provoke the other countries' Kurdish regions to join the advanced Iraqi Kurdish region.The presence of Israel in the boarders of Iran not only will provide the possibility for this fake regime to take advantage of this strategic region is case of a possible war in the future (especially related to the nuclear case) but also has prepared the possibility to provoke and intensify the Kurdish crisis in the Kurdish region of Iran in long.Therefore, it is necessary to propose resolutions and acute programs and adopt logical policies concerning Iraq and the Kurdish regions in order to prevent such events.
Exploiting the new geopolitical regional transformations, Israel intends to achieve its old goals in the region meaning the great Israel and Iraqi's Kurdistan can play the role of the Heartland for Israel in this regard.

The geopolitical transformations of the Middle East
Middle East policies of the U.S.A undoubtedly have been formed based on the presence of Israel.In this plan, the new Middle East is region with unstable, weak, disillusioned and disorganized countries which will not feel any doubt accepting the dominance and advantage of the Israel and will not have any other chance (Gunther, 1993, p. 46).Israel tries to play an essential role in this plan and then gets supported by the U.S.A, because this regime always fully supports the USA's policies and always tries to attend in all the regional crises in which the U.S.A. has been involved, any time any case, to confirm its commitment to the U.S.A.
Iraq crisis is one of them, in which Israel has had a great role.Iraqi's Kurdistan is one of the winners of this crisis who is even more advanced than that Iraq itself governmentally, officially and militarily, at least 10 years.Taking advantage of the geopolitical condition of this region, Israel has initiated and guided a lot of transformation not only in Iraq itself but also in other neighboring countries (Kazami, Akhavan, 2003, pp. 142-168).
Israel tries to strengthen its influence in Kurdistan by helping the Kurdish people to buy the lands of the Arabic countries from their owners.In this regard, a loan bank has granted the Kurdish people a lot of macro loans to buy the lands using the Israeli funds.Furthermore, the Jewish and the Israeli companies directly have bought a large area of lands in Iraq and its strategic regions specially in Arbil or near boarders of Iraq close to the neighboring countries and near the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers.In this case, they even pay 5 times the price of the land to buy Kirkuk's lands.Kirkuk is important to the Israel not only because of its oil resources but also due to the presence of the three known prophets which makes this city as their second Jerusalem (Khosravi, 2004, p. 22).

Israel's Foreign Policy Concerning Iraqi's Kurdistan
One of the Israel's dep-rooted method to maintain its existence and confront the regional countries is the creation of instability in the region through religious-ethnic schismatizing mechanisms, and considers that as a security priority (Muganta, 2000, p. 69).This method is based on the fact of supporting the different ethnics and the religions available in the region and provoking their desires to establish an independent government and helping them to realize this goal through different methods like arming them.As these units are not determined based on a specific territory but on the common religious and ethnic bases, will not be confined in a specific geographical boundary, therefore the national governments which have been created in some specific geographical boundaries will be destabilized (Nazari, 2009).
As one of the features of the Middle East governments is the existence of the different ethnics and religions alongside, the exploitation of this phenomenon has been one of the basic strategies applied by Israel.A study of the Israel and the Kurdish history shows that this regime has always misused their desire for independence in its interest and in fact it has been one of the important reasons for the presence of Israel in the region since the creation of the Jewish Agency and is has been one of the important issues in all the strategies and guidelines designed by the Israeli experts and authorities (Bayat, 2000, pp. 37-82).
One of plans proposed by the Israel was the disintegration of Iraq which was proposed in KIVUNIM Journal related to the Public Relations of World Zionist Congress under the title "A Strategy for Israel" by Ordinon (1980), one of the high ranks of the Foreign Ministry of Israel, which emphasized that Iraq disintegration will serve Israel more than disintegration of Syria (Al Masiri, 2009, p. 6).
Concerning the Israel's ideology about the Jewish race, with the start of the American war against Iraq, they thought that they can recover some of their lost rights which had been disappeared in many geographical centers along the history.One of these centers was the north of Iraq.They believe that in the time of the sovereignty of the ancient Jewish some of them had lived in some part of Babel (Barzegar, 2009, pp. 113-153).
The Kurdish people have always been manipulated by the regional and trans-regional powers, and each one have created some relations with this ethnic based on their interests.And it was due to this strategy (preventing from Iran's influence in the region) that the West and the U.S.A. suddenly established some relations with Saddam Hossein and they played a significant role in setting the war against Iran by helping him.It is possible to say that the issue of Kurdish Federalism and helping them to achieve this goal, is the only point of disagreement between the Israel and the U.S.A. in the case of Iraq.Israel wants to divide Iraq into three separate parts while the U.S.A. wants an integrated Iraq to play weight balance against Iran in the region of Persian Gulf.Concerning the importance of Iraqi's Kurdistan in Israel strategy, a former officer of CIA specifies that: "The relationships between Israel and the Iraqi's Kurdistan is more important than alliance with Turkey."In fact, the best scenario that Israel expects to happen in the process of Iraq's occupation is Iraq's disintegration.This way the Israel will need no more to worry about Iraq's threat (Ruhi, 2010, pp. 77-102).
Therefore, based on the insistence of the Kurdish in the independence of Iraqi's Kurdistan, then Israel has reserved its relationships with this ethnic and this issue has provided the opportunity for Israel to alongside showing itself an advocate for the Kurdish cause, follow its interests in the region.From the other side, Israel's advocacy of the Kurdish Federalism is one of the main reasons that the Kurdish people assert this regime and its symptoms can be seen in their leaders' remarks and this assertion has guaranteed Israel's presence and future in the region.So, the fall of the former regime and occupation of Iraq is the first step for the establishment of the new Middle East and the beginning of a plan to disintegrate some other countries of the region and creation of smaller countries.So the Iraqi's Kurdistan is the beginning of a bigger Kurdistan which its realization is the biggest guarantee for the security of Israel after the fall of Saddam (Asadi, 2010, pp. 223-225).
The federalization of Iraq and independence on Iraqi's Kurdistan has a special position in Israel's strategic policies, because not only the independence of Kurdistan helps Israel to strengthen its position in the region but also has the potential to legitimate its political position as the military barracks of the international Zionism so that to be used as a leverage against countries like Iran, Turkey and Syria, and from the other hand as the Middle East countries confront the ethnic-cultural crises (Bayat, 2003, pp. 141-147), the independence of Kurdistan will change the political map of the region.The international Zionism which has been after the Middle East for long and in order to implement its developmental plans has followed some long-term projects like "the big Middle East" and "the modern Middle East", with supporting "the federalism political system" as the new structure for Iraq and specially for the Iraqi's Kurdistan region, intends to design a new political map for region in a way that it realizes the political and economic goals of the Zionism in the best way (Nazari, 2009, p. 22).

The factors effective in Israel's Foreign Policy in Iraqi's Kurdistan
In order to understand Israel's Foreign Policy concerning Iraqi's Kurdistan we should examine its goals in this region and the factors effective in its formation.Therefore, in the following discussion we will examine the most important factors effective in Israel's Foreign Policy concerning Iraqi's Kurdistan which in fact includes the main goal of this regime in the region (Yusefi, 2009, p. 22).

The alliance of the periphery strategy
Todays, the peripheral plan territory has been extended in the view of the Israeli strategists and includes a range from Strait of Gibraltar in West to the Middle Asia in East, from the Gulf of Aden in South to Black Sea in North.This regime follows this strategy in the new opportunities in the Middle East yet (Tavasoli, 2010, pp. 73-80).Accordingly, the relationships between the Israel and the Iraqi's Kurdistan is consistent with this strategy too.This strategy is based on the view that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend".Based on this, the Arabs, Iranians and the Turkish are the common enemy of the Israel and the Kurdish, who would like to establish a Kurdish state in this region, so the cooperation between them is necessary.So Israel helps the Kurdish to find himself an ally in the region.This alliance based on the isolation of both sides among the neighbors and its profits is inevitable.Therefore, Israel considers Iraqi's Kurdistan as a mainstay against the Arabs and the Islamic governments and as a strategic alliance in the region (Javedani Moghadam and Musavizadeh &, 2009, p. 212).

The development of the strategic depth in closeness to Iran
One of the vulnerabilities of the Israel is its weak strategic depth due to its extent of the geographic area.This issue, regarding the fact that Israel is confined among the enemy Arabic countries, has been intensified.Therefore, Israel has always attempted to develop its strategic depth in the Middle East in line with its foreign policy.It is based on the proposals of "the big Middle East" and from the Nile to the Euphrates" and the according to the strategic positions of its enemies especially the I.R. of Iran that Israel has tried to develop its strategic depth by getting closer to Iran through Iraqi's Kurdistan which borders with Iran.Therefore, it has been one of the important factors determining the Israel's Foreign Policy concerning Iraqi's Kurdistan (Abdollahpur, 2011, pp. 82-106).

Accessing the energy and mineral resources in Iraqi's Kurdistan
From 2003 with the occupation of Iraq by the U.S.A. and the countries supporting Israel, there were a promising atmosphere for the Israel to access Iraq's oil.Joseph Paritzky, Israeli minister of national infrastructures, reviewing the reflow of the oil with the formation of a favorable government in Iraq after war, proposed the evaluation of the old Musel-Haifa pipeline.This pipeline will reduce the energy expenses of Israel as now it is dependent on Russian oil.In 2006, there were 3 oil bases under construction in Kirkuk connected to the shipping port and refinery city of Haifa to make it to another Rotterdam, specially knowing that the Israelis daily consume 250000 barrels of oil worth 6.25 million dollars and annually 12 million tons of oil import, 60%percent from Russia and the remaining from Egypt and other Arabic countries.So, it is completely natural that some Jewish in the U.S.A. government were the causes to start the war and to make possible for Israel to access Iraq's oil resources.Accordingly, many Israeli oil companies has focused their activities to the oil discovery in the oil-rich regions of Iraqi's Kurdistan like the village of Haze Kuahcel Huveizeh and Shuricheh Khormareh located in the Arbil-Kirkuk road (Ghasemi, 2008, pp. 33-34).
Iraq is one of the oil-rich countries of the region and naturally facilitating Israel's influence in this country and securing a communicatory path the Persian Gulf as the largest oil resource will increase the International Zionism' s capability to secure its energy demands.One of its strategies in this regard is supporting the Iraq federalization and independence of Iraqi's Kurdistan.Of course its activities in Kurdistan is not only for the oil, but the oil variable's effect is very significant because an independence government can realize this long wished providing variety to Israel's energy resources, can also reduce the dependency of his country to the expensive oil of the Russia (Sadeghi Aval, 2015, pp. 133-160).And as this pipeline passes through a weak and passive country like Jordan then it will not produce any problem for Israel.Although, it is necessary to say that in 1940, when the British held an extensive part of the region as the mandate, performed some parts of the mentioned pipeline which would transfer the oil of the North Iraq through Haifa Port to the Mediterranean coasts.But in 1948 along with the establishment of the Israel this pipeline was closed.But in the current conditions the possibility of the re-implementation of this project through the Jordan territory has been provided.Although, it is costly but the achievements are significant as well.
Therefore, the formation of an independent Kurdish government in the region not only provides the Israel's oil demands but also reduces the power of the regional countries like Iran, Saudi Arabia and Qatar in using the oil as a strategic tool against Israel (Pur-Hossein, 2008, pp.9-38).

Importance of the Kurdistan's hydro-politic resources for Israel
The scale of the surface current inputs from the borders is one of the vulnerability factors of a country concerning the water shortage.The dependency of the countries to the surface currents inputs from the borders makes them vulnerable to the factors outside their control.
And with the increased demand for water this vulnerability will be more serious.For example, in the war of 1967, Israel invaded a shared dam between Syria and Jordan located in the path of Yarmouk river a branch of Jordan River and even brought many of its branches under its control and kept not much water for the increasing demands of the Jordan.Peter Ghali, the former Secretary-General of the UN, in 1985 when yet he was the counsel minister of Egypt in the foreign affairs stated that "the next war in the Middle East will be no for the oil but for the water".Isaac Shamir, an Israeli authority, has specified that "the water crisis will be the cause for the future war between Israel and its neighbors (ZibaKalam, 2011, pp. 60-75).
In this condition the Iraqi's Kurdistan possessing a more appropriate weather and climatic condition in comparison to the southern and central parts of Iraq benefits from more annual rain and this issue has resulted in better enrichment of the surface and underground water resources of this region in comparison to the other regions.Viewing the networking of Iraq's surface currents, we see that most of the rivers of this country follow a north-south path.In other word they flow from the Kurdish regions to the Arabic ones in the central and southern parts.Although the main origins of the river of Tigris and Euphrates are from the Turkey mountains (44%) but the remaining are supplies from the highs of Iran and north Iraq.As the Iraqi's Kurdistan has the geographical superiority, then today's most of the permanent rivers of Iraq (the Great Zab, the small Zab, Sirvan, Khabur rivers in Iraq and Zarineh and Simineh Rivers from Iran) passes through this region adding to its hydro political importance in comparison to the other parts.A rainfall of 200-400 in the moors and 700-300 in plains in comparison to the average rainfall of the Middle East is significant.Therefore, based on this issue and concerning the shortage of the water resources, the Iraqi's Kurdistan has been in the center of the focus of Israel nowadays Israel supplies its water through the pipelines and irrigation canals from the Jordan lake and import some water through the tankers from Turkey.The existence of water in Iraqi's Kurdistan has caused that Israel put the water transport from this area as its strategic priorities (Javedani Moghadam and Musavizadeh, 2009, p. 212).

Israel's economical influence (from the Nile to the Euphrates)
With penetration into the economic foundations and controlling the financial bases of the Middle East countries specially Iraq, Israel tasks advantage of the current condition in the best way possible.This political-economic approach even succeed relatively will provide a great consumption market for the Israeli products (a consuming population of 20 million).After the Iraq occupation and presidency of Jalal Talibani and the advantages achieved for the Kurdish in the Constitutions of Iraq, the condition got better and more secure for the economical presence of Israel in this country.Shimon Peres in his book "The New Middle East" advises that in order to play a role in the Middle East region they must have a technological advantage over the region to control the markets of the region and then use the economic leverage against them.After the independence of the Kurdish, due to the economic infrastructure, transportation and communication backwardness in this region during the disputes between the government and the Kurdish, the condition for the presence of the foreign investment in this region was very suitable for the foreign countries specially for Israeli companies.
Motorola and Mogul Com are some of those companies which could sign some significant contracts including the construction of Arbil Airport.These companies also are active in fields of bridge and road construction and creation of the industrial companies and the agricultural facilities in the region (Javedani Moghadam and Musavizadeh, 2009, p. 209).

East
One of the policies of Israel has been the strategy of applying the available regional crises in its interest strategically or politically whether it is itself the cause of the crisis or not.During the recent years, there have been a lot of crises in the region which have change the power balance in the favor of Israel.Israel has always tried to be presence in the strategic environment of Iran and has tried, by creating proxy wars, to use the Kurdish, which have been the common problems for the countries of Iran, Turkey and Syria, as a leverage against these countries.In fact, this strategy of Israel has been a response to the fact that Iran has always used an advocate like Lebanese Hezbollah as leverage against this regime and he has been deprived of such a chance.In addition to secure its position it the region by attending in the neighboring countries of Iran, Israel follows some other goals like fighting the Islamism and the terrorism, accessing the most possible information on Iran and creation of small countries which contradict religiously and ethnically.The Iraqi Kurdish is an instance on these small entities (Hafeznia, 2012. p. 2).

Creation of a crisis environment in the Kurdish region of the Middle East
In order to maintain its security and weaken the regional countries, Israel has put the securitypolitical divergence strategy at the head of its strategic policies.Creation of the ethnical and sectarian disputes not only increases the bargaining power of the Israel but also is a leverage against the regional countries which are hostile.The Kurdish crisis in north of Iraq has given Israel the chance to interfere, create and intensify the insecurity and ethnical disputes and this can encounter countries like Iran, Turkey and Syria with serious problems concerning that their Kurdish regions may raise such claims.From the other hand, the Arabic countries are worried about the isolation of the Sunni Arabs in Iraq and destruction of the Arabic identity of that country which may increase the ethnical and cultural disputes in the region (Abasi, 2012, pp. 39-78).

Weakening the Iraqi central government and disintegration of this country
Iraq in the government of Saddam was one of the more powerful enemies of the Israel.
Saddam had threatened the Israel's security with helping the Palestinian militant movements, influencing the Arabic countries to fight the Israel, missile attack to Israel and promoting the Baathist anti-Israel ideology and it was one of the obstacles in the way of its strategic goals in the region.Saddam's fall retained the mental security for Israel which for long has been deprived of.One of the most important goals of Israel from its presence in the north of Iraq is to prevent from establishment of an integrative powerful government in Iraq both politically and militarily.Realization of this goal will change the power balance in Israel' favor.To achieve this goal, Israel believes in disintegration of Iraq and independence of Iraqi's Kurdistan.Then the future of Iraq will be the past of Lebanon and this country will be divided based on the ethnicity, a Kurdish government in the north and a Sunni government in the center and a Shia government in the south (Maleki, 2007, pp. 23-66).

Israel's security-intelligence expansion in the Middle East
The strategic location of the Iraqi's Kurdistan has provided the opportunity for Mossad control the activities of Iran, Syria, ant the south of the Turkey baits presence in this region and establishment of the security and intelligence bases in the north of Iraq.Most of the genuine military agents of Israel are active in this region under the cover of businessmen.One of their activities is the creation of an intelligence and spy warning system in the border of Iran and Azerbaijan in the central Asia and its development with the creation of the horizontal spy system in the border of Iran and Kurdistan.Furthermore, in order to press countries like Iran, of thought and the anti-Zionism centers in this region was increased.As the region recently confronts the emergence and strengthening, Israel tries to set a scenario to control the currents of thoughts and therefore, with creation of stress and crisis between the Islamic groups using the two concepts of "the moderate and the peaceful" and the "fundamentalists" tries to divert their attention from the anti-Zionistic orientations to the internal disagreements.According to this plan, along government-building the idea of nation-building should be considered as well.
The presence of the Shia groups and strengthening the concept of the "resistance discourse" in the region, has made Israel to focus on the currents of thought in this region ant try to control and guide them.Promotion of the disagreement between Shia and Sunni and provoking more disputes through bilateral bombings or assassinating leaders from both sides and empowering some secular entities in Iraq by the U.S.A. and Israel are example of the actions taken place in this regard.

Conclusion
It seems that Israel, due to its special geopolitical condition, has followed its foreign policy based on the alliance of the periphery doctrine.This view which can be explained with a naturalistic approach has made Israel strengthen its position through developing its strategic depth beyond the Middle East of hostile governments.This is because Israel with a population of only 7 million has been located among the multi-million Middle East Arabic countries.So, Guerin, Israel's first prime minister, and other Israeli strategists have proposed the alliance of the periphery doctrine to exit the geostrategic regional sanction.With the fall of Saddam, the Kurdish people who had awaited the golden chance for long took advantage of the opportunity raised and in spite of the resistance of Iran and Turkey achieved a level beyond the self-control.The existence of the Kurdish minorities in Iran, Turkey and Syria, gave the U.S.A. and Israel the opportunity to play with the Kurdish card that as a leverage against these three countries.Concerning the special characteristics of Iraqi's Kurdistan, Israel foreign policy, derived this region into a new condition.In such a condition, the issues like alliance of the periphery, development of the strategic depth in closeness to Iran, and accessing the rich energy and the mineral resources in Iraqi's Kurdistan have been the most important factors influencing the Israel's foreign policy concerning the Iraqi's Kurdistan.The Iraqi's Kurdistan with holding only 30% of Iraq's lands holds 20% of the oil and gas resources of this country and 2% of all the global resources and has the capacity to supply Israel with a low-cost oil.Besides Kurdistan's oil, Iraq possessing rich water resources can resolve Israel's hydro political issues in the future.Israel with the recognition of its abilities and Kurdistan's capabilities has invested a lot in this region and accordingly follow his ambitious and long-term goals.Also Kurdistan's independence puts Israel as being non-Muslim and non-Arab country beside a country that has had the most problems with Arabs and Turks and will help Israel to resolve its legitimacy and isolation problems.It seems that the Iraqi's Kurdistan witness some significant events in the future and Israel will play a significant role in this regard.In this condition, the new Middle East is a region with unstable, weak, disillusioned and disorganized countries which will not feel any doubt accepting the dominance and advantage of the Israel and will not have any other chance.Todays' Israel has started a lot of activities in the northern parts of Iraq and provides ground for and controls the insecurity in Iraq itself and in the neighboring countries as well.These relationships which have been established according to the common mutual interests between Israel and the Iraqi's Kurdistan have some political, security, economic and social consequences for many of the regional countries specially Iran.Therefore, Iran's strategy concerning Kurdistan should be based on the considerations, interests and the threats available.
goal of launching the Musel-Haifa pipeline sooner.The Musel pipeline (600 kilometers in length) built in 1934 by the IPC company, which controlled by the British puppet government.This pipeline launched in 1935 to transfer Musel oil to Haifa port in the Mediterranean Coasts, but with outbreak of the war in 1954 the import of the Iraqi oil from this pipeline stopped and it was transferred through the Syria to the Mediterranean Sea.Since then, it was attempted to reopen Haifa-Musel line several times which one of them was tried during the Iraqi-Iranian war between yeas 1980-1988 when Syria agreed to close the Iraqi pipeline to Europe with the request of Iran.Joseph Paritzky, Israeli minister of national infrastructures, in the Haaretz Newspaper in 2004 states that such a pipeline can besides