How Kurdistan Is Taking Advantage Of Iraq’s Oil Crisis

Iraq is facing a desperate financial situation: obliged to pay billions of dollars in state salaries, pensions, and other disbursements whilst its ability to generate revenue to do so is severely constrained by a low oil price environment and OPEC+-mandated production quotas. Making matters worse is that the government of the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region in the north – the KRG – is using Baghdad’s deteriorating financial position to advance its own agenda and, by extension, the agenda of its principal state-sponsor, Russia.…