????伊拉克的暴力沖突持續升級。雖然殘暴如基地組織的遜尼派伊斯蘭主義者正在跟什葉派領導的政府展開殊死搏斗，但對于500萬庫爾德人來說，這場如火如荼的災難似乎會帶來巨大的好處，甚至有可能在世界上催生一個最新的石油國家。

????大約一年多以前，《財富》(Fortune)記者前往伊拉克北部的庫爾德自治區，并在隨后刊發的一篇報道中聲稱，鑒于不同派別發動戰爭以爭奪該國巨額石油財富的控制權，埃克森美孚公司(ExxonMobil)和庫爾德地區政府(KRG)達成的交易可能會引發伊拉克內戰。庫爾德官員當時表示，聽聞世界上最大的石油公司打算在這里鉆探石油，他們欣喜若狂。國際能源機構(International Energy Agency)聲稱，庫爾德自治區擁有40億桶已探明石油儲量，但KRG預測稱，真實的儲量接近45億桶。不過，庫爾德官員去年警告說，華盛頓的伊拉克政策混亂不堪，誤入歧途，正在促發一場災難。“美國的政策是，‘完事了，我們撤了。已經打勾了。該繼續前進了。’”當時在庫爾德地區首府埃爾比勒接受采訪時，庫爾德高級官員庫巴德?塔拉巴尼這樣說道。塔拉巴尼曾經擔任KRG駐華盛頓代表，上個月剛剛成為KRG副總理。在他和其他官員看來，盡管什葉派主導的巴格達政府、作為少數族裔的伊拉克遜尼派，以及數十年來一直懷抱獨立夢想的庫爾德社區已經嚴重分裂，但美國官員還是決定把伊拉克維系成為一個統一的完整國家。“美國仍然希望伊拉克人首先是伊拉克人，”塔拉巴尼說。“好像只要足夠頻繁地表達這種愿望，它就會成真似的。但這種情形根本就不會出現。”

????現在看來，塔拉巴尼的這番話極富預見性。隨著過去六天不斷升級的暴力沖突，伊拉克似乎正朝著三向分裂的道路疾馳而去：遜尼派激進圣戰組織控制的伊拉克西部地區；北部的庫爾德地區；什葉派控制的伊拉克南部和中部地區。作為石油輸出國家組織(OPEC)第二大石油生產國、世界上最大的石油國家之一，面臨解體可能性的伊拉克即將陷入巨大的動蕩之中。但對庫爾德人來說，這不啻為一個巨大的勝利。

????簡單回顧一下伊拉克局勢：這場危機已經持續了一整年，但直到上周三才進入國際社會的視野。當天，一個叫做“伊拉克與黎凡特伊斯蘭國( ISIS)”的武裝組織突然攻入摩蘇爾，幾乎不費吹灰之力就拿下了這座伊拉克第二大城市；政府軍逃之夭夭，放棄了美國用來武裝伊拉克軍隊的武器裝備，其中包括裝甲車、攻擊型直升機和機關槍。具有諷刺意味的是，這些價值數千萬美元的武器原本是用來對付伊斯蘭叛亂分子的。現如今，ISIS士兵駕駛著美國直升機飛向天空，載滿這些叛亂分子的美國裝甲車轟隆隆地向南部地區挺進，很快就占領了薩達姆家鄉提克里特，劍鋒直指巴格達郊區。上周日，這群武裝分子還攻克了摩蘇爾以西、擁有大約20萬人口的小城泰勒阿費爾。

????上周日，ISIS在Twitter上發布了一組令人毛骨悚然的照片和消息（現已刪除），伊拉克的可怕現實終于浮現在世人面前。這個組織聲稱，他們的戰士已經在提克里特處決了大約1,700伊拉克士兵。由于ISIS控制區幾乎沒有獨立記者的蹤跡，這些圖像目前還難以核實。然而，受到照片中可怕場面的刺激，什葉派呼吁報仇雪恨。最近幾天，數千名什葉派穆斯林爭相加入了各地的民兵組織。

????群山環繞的庫爾德自治區位于伊拉克北部，處于敘利亞、土耳其和伊朗之間，巴格達政府允許該地區享有一部分政治自主權，但禁止它自行出口石油。在庫爾德人看來，盡管暴亂局勢的演變速度令人震驚，但它實際上是一個天賜良機，有望解決他們與巴格達持續多年的談判僵局。

????上周四，伊拉克軍隊放棄石油儲量充沛的基爾庫克市之后，被稱為“自由斗士(peshmerga)”的庫爾德士兵迅速行動，最終控制了這片石油儲量接近90億桶的區域。現在，埃克森美孚公司的新油田已經牢牢掌控在庫爾德人手中，而不是處在一片庫爾德人和巴格達政府都聲稱擁有所有權的爭議領土之上。上世紀80年代和90年代，薩達姆通過一輪輪殘酷的種族清洗運動趕走了庫爾德人。數十年來，基爾庫克的主權一直極具爭議，但庫爾德人重新奪回這座城市的決心從來沒有動搖過。

????自從美軍2012年撤離伊拉克以來，伊拉克總理努里?馬利基已經明確表示，政府將把所有在庫爾德人聲稱擁有主權的區域運營的石油公司列入黑名單，禁止它們開發伊拉克南部的超巨型油田。埃克森美孚公司有效地忽略了這一威脅——它揣測（非常準確），作為全球最大的石油公司，自己不會被拒之門外。與此同時，庫爾德人在過去幾個月已經靜悄悄地開啟了通往土耳其的石油出口管道，正在一步一個腳印地搭建起成立一個新國家的基石。

????現在，這個新的國家看起來已經成為現實，只是差個名分而已。KRG不太可能很快就宣布真正的獨立，這是一種很高明的策略。鑒于伊拉克已經陷于動蕩，它幾乎不需要這樣做。“庫爾德人非常清楚，過去幾天的事件使得他們能夠在將來某個時刻宣布獨立，”歐亞集團(Eurasia Group)中東事務主管艾哈姆?卡邁勒周一對《財富》記者這樣說道。“我們正在邁向建國的方向，這一點毫無疑問，但我們不會在2014年宣布獨立。”

????去年趕赴基爾庫克采訪時，我的向導，庫爾德人霍桑?伊斯梅爾告訴我，如果巴格達膽敢阻止他們開采石油，庫爾德人隨時準備開戰。伊斯梅爾是阿聯酋新月石油公司( Crescent Petroleum)的社區開發總監。他說：“除了現狀之外，沒有什么能夠把我們和伊拉克綁在一起。”如今，現狀已經分崩離析。庫爾德人和他們的油田已經跟周遭的動蕩沒有任何瓜葛了。（財富中文網）

????譯者：葉寒

????While violence explodes in Iraq between the brutal al-Qaeda-type Sunni Islamists and the Shiite-led government, there are five million Iraqis for which the unfolding disaster looks set to bring big benefits, as well perhaps as the world’s newest oil state—the Kurds.

????Little more than a year ago, Fortune traveled to Iraq’s autonomous northern region as Kurdistan to describehow the deal between ExxonMobil XOM 0.26% and the Kurdish Regional Government, or KRG, could spark civil war in Iraq, as different factions waged battle for control over the country’s immense oil riches. At the time, Kurdish officials said they were thrilled that the world’s biggest oil company was about to start drilling in their autonomous region, which the International Energy Agency says has 4 billion barrels of proven oil reserves, but which the KRG estimates could in reality be closer to 45 billion barrels. Still, Kurdish officials warned last year that Washington’s muddled, misguided Iraq policy was a disaster in the making. “The U.S. policy is, ‘We got out, finished. Box checked. Move on,’ ” Qubad Talabani, a senior Kurdistan official who became the KRG’s Deputy Prime Minister last month, told me at the time in Kurdistan’s capital Irbil. One major problem, according to Talabani (who was previously KRG representative in Washington) and other officials, was that U.S. officials were determined to keep Iraq as a unified intact country, despite the bitter schisms between the Shiite-dominated government in Baghdad, Iraq’s Sunni minority, and the Kurdish community, which has dreamed of having their own state for decades. “The U.S. still wants Iraqis to be Iraqis first,” Talabani said. “It’s like, if they say it enough it will be so. But it won’t.”

????Now Talabani’s words sound eerily prophetic. With the past six days’ violence, Iraq appears to be hurtling towards a three-way breakup: A Sunni-dominated western Iraq dominated by hardline militant jihadist groups; a northern Kurdish territory, and a southern and central Shiite Iraq. With the potential for disintegration comes major upheaval in Opec’s second biggest oil producer and one of the world’s biggest oil nations—and a huge victory for the Kurds.

????Just to recap: Iraq’s crisis, which has bubbled all year, exploded into view last Wednesday when militants from Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, stormed into Iraq’s second city Mosul and seized it with barely a fight; government soldiers fled, abandoning an arsenal of U.S. weaponry worth tens of millions of dollars, including armored vehicles, attack helicopters and machine guns with which the U.S. had equipped Iraq’s military, ironically to fight Islamic insurgents. Instead, ISIS fighters took to the sky in a U.S. helicopter and rumbled south laden with American armor, quickly taking Saddam Hussein’s hometown of Tikrit and edging towards the outskirts of Baghdad. On Sunday it also seized Tal Afar, a town of about 200,000 people west of Mosul.

????The horrific reality on the ground emerged on Sunday when ISIS posted macabre photographs and messages on Twitter (since removed) claiming that their fighters had executed about 1,700 Iraqi forces in Tikrit. Since there are almost no independent journalists working in the ISIS-held territory, the images are difficult to verify. But the gruesome scenes fueled calls for revenge among Shiites, thousands of whom have rushed to join militias in recent days.

????Seen from the prism of Kurdistan—Iraq’s mountainous northern region hemmed between Syria, Turkey and Iran, which enjoys some political autonomy from Baghdad, but which is forbidden to export its own oil—the stunningly quick implosion has been a potential godsend, in effect, sorting out years of deadlocked arguments with Baghdad.

????As Iraqi forces abandoned the hugely oil-rich town of Kirkuk last Thursday, Kurdish soldiers, called peshmerga, moved in swiftly, seizing control of an area which on its own has nearly 9 billion barrels of oil reserves. That places Exxon’s new bloc solidly in Kurdish hands rather than in some fuzzy contested territory that both Kurds and Baghdad claim. Kirkuk has been intensely disputed since Saddam drove out the Kurds during the 1980s and 1990s in a brutal ethnic-cleansing campaign, and the Kurds have been determined to recapture it for decades.

????Since the U.S. occupation ended in 2012, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has made it that the government would blacklist any oil company operating in territory the Kurds claimed was theirs, and shut it out of southern Iraq’s supergiant fields; Exxon effectively ignored the threat, calculating (correctly) that it was too big to shut out. And meanwhile, the Kurds have over the past months quietly opened its own export pipeline to Turkey, steadily putting in place the building blocks of a new country.

????Now that new state looks like a reality in all but name. Cunningly, the KRG is unlikely to declare real independence soon. With Iraq in havoc, it hardly needs to. “It’s become very clear to the Kurds that events in the past few days will enable them to declare independence at some point,” Ayham Kamel, Middle East director of the Eurasia Group, told Fortune on Monday. “We are definitely moving in the direction of statehood, but it will not be declared in 2014.”

????When I traveled to Kirkuk last year, my Kurdish guide, Hoshang Ishmail, the community development manager for the United Arab Emirates-based Crescent Petroleum, told me that Kurds would readily fight if Baghdad every blocked them from drilling for oil. “Nothing binds us to Iraq except the status quo,” he said. Now that status quo has been ripped apart. And little binds the Kurds and their oil fields to the chaos raging around them.