Halabja is a town in Iraqi Kurdistan shaded by mountains, behind which lies Iran. On March 16, Kurds converged there to hold their annual commemoration of the Iraqi chemical attack that killed thousands in 1988. Normally, it is an occasion for visits by Kurdish and foreign dignitaries, speeches extolling Kurdish suffering and advocating independence.

This year, the event took a different turn. Townspeople had long accused the Kurdish leadership of exploiting the gas attack for political gain and withholding foreign assistance intended for the attack’s survivors, many still suffering from debilitating illnesses. Instead of joining the commemoration, Halabjans demonstrated at the memorial. Guards of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), one of the two main Kurdish parties, panicked and opened fire. One demonstrator died, several others were injured. Enraged, the crowd stormed the monument erected in the memory of their loved ones and burned it to the ground.

Deeply embarrassed, the PUK quickly pointed a finger at Iran. The Iranians have long meddled in Kurdish politics, supporting Islamist groups to check the secular parties’ power. The Islamists are strong in Halabja, where they gave rise to violent offshoots, such

as Ansar al-Islam. Observers promptly offered a plausible explanation for an Iranian hand in the March 16 fracas: The “spontaneous” demonstration was a warning from Tehran to PUK leader Jalal Talabani, Iraq’s president, to stop opposing the Shiite coalition’s candidate for prime minister, Ibrahim Jaafari.

The Kurds do not want a Jaafari-led government. During his first term, they say, he hindered their quest to incorporate oil-rich Kirkuk into the Kurdish region. But their challenge to Jaafari is seen by many Iraqis as part of a struggle over their country’s future between two bigger players: the US and Iran.

The Shiite coalition, the United Iraqi Alliance (UIA), was established in 2004 to parlay the Shiites’ demographic majority into political dominance. Supported by Iran, the strategy proved spectacularly successful. The UIA convincingly won both the January and December 2005 elections. Since then, Iran and other stakeholders have sought to maintain the Shiites’ unity in the face of growing instability and violence.

The Bush administration, in turn, considers Jaafari incapable of containing the violence. Moreover, Jaafari is beholden to the radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, who has repeatedly called for US forces to leave. Kurdish opposition to Jaafari has been the main obstacle to the formation of a national unity government.

Whatever government emerges from this tug of war will be weak. This is a dangerous prospect in a country that balances on the brink of civil war. The irony is that neither Iran nor the US can afford to press their power struggle too far.

If Tehran was indeed behind the Halabja demonstration, it would be playing with fire by heightening tensions. The US likewise finds itself under pressure to withdraw from Iraq even as it sees Iranian influence spread. Both have much to gain and even more to lose in the current standoff. There couldn’t be a better time for both to sit down together and put their cards on the table in an all-out effort to save Iraq and, thereby, their own vital interests in the Gulf. — The Christian Science Monitor