Israelis ask whether Obama has given up on Iraq

The situation in Iraq, which is directly linked to the situation in Syria and which, in turn, has direct impact on the situation in Lebanon, Turkey and Jordan, has been the focal point of frenzied discussions in Israel's defense establishment as well as among its decision-makers. There is one thing, however, that most assessment bodies agree on: It is highly likely that the Kurdish autonomy in northern Iraq will shortly announce its independence, leading to the establishment of the separate state of Kurdistan. This estimate, which has been voiced for a very long time in Israel's corridors of power, was significantly substantiated this week. This, when the Kurds took advantage of the chaos created by the fall of Mosul into the hands of the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), taking over Kirkuk, the most important oil-producing city in that region, in what is seen as a demonstrative and resolute power display.

Established on the ruins of what used to be Saddam Hussein's Iraq, Kurdish autonomy has been in recent years an island of stability, sanity and economic prosperity, enjoying a high degree of personal safety. The Kurds, who have not had an independent state to date, avoided pulling the rope too tight and did not declare a state. This was partly because they are surrounded by historically natural powerful enemies — chief among them Turkey — and partly because they saw no existential need to do that.