Pipe Dreams

‘Pipe Dreams’ is an interesting reportage on one of the most complicated areas in the world, Iraqi Kurdistan. This region is one of the richest places in the world but paradoxically this richness is touching only a small elite of the population. Many people are living in refugees camps or in complete poverty. Erin Banco tries to give, throughout the book, the reasons that lead to this dramatic situation.
After the U.S invasion in 2003 and the toppling of Saddam, the West and the Kurdish government promised that a new age of prosperity was over the horizon, but after almost fifteen years nothing has changed. Only a small elite that includes members of the most prominent families in the region, politicians, and members of the Ministry of the Natural Resources have made fortunes. They promised to invest money on health and infrastructures, but most of the money ended in their pockets. A lack of transparency, a predominant climate of corruption at all level have made Iraqi Kurdistan’s economy a crumbling one. Agreements with international companies are signed at close doors, and it’s difficult to track them. However, Kurdish officials put much of the blame not on their lack of transparency and accountability, but on other matters out of control such as the influx of Syrian refugees, the emergence of Isis and the disputes between their federal government and the central government of Baghdad.
Nonetheless, many Kurds are still loyal to the notion of Kurdish independence so fraud and corruption are forgotten amid resentment over Baghdad. For a while, they turned a blind eye to corruption because the region was booming economically, but when the price of oil dropped the entire region faced a strong economic crisis and the rate of unemployment rose dramatically.
The last part if this book is dedicated to Isis’s emergence in 2014 and to peshmerga’s brave resistance. Isis’s plan was to take control of Kurds oil and then sell it to the black market. After the Kurds resistance and international airstrikes, Isis has finally been pushed out of oilfields. Kurds have managed to defend oil wells, pipelines through a great investment in military forces and security and in counterterrorism.
In conclusion, Kurds have been plundered of their oil wealth by their government and by foreign oil companies, but now a new generation of Kurds is aware that things have to change because so many people are living in a miserable condition, almost like animals.