Kurdish oil is headed for the United States this week, further buttressing the semiautonomous region’s economic independence as Erbil prepares for a referendum on political independence later this year. An estimated 650,000 barrels of oil, mostly extracted from the Kirkuk field located in Kurdistan, departed the Mediterranean Sea on June 20th, according to Bloomberg data. The oil tanker’s route indicated a dash towards the American East coast, after a three-year hiatus—caused by a dispute with Baghdad over Washington’s true loyalties—ended the transatlantic shipments. The bane of the Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) existence is its relationship with the Iraqi federal government. Erbil has argued for years that it remains under-compensated for its fossil fuel assets. Those tensions rose to the surface in 2014, when Baghdad blocked Kurdish shipments to the U.S. – the region’s coveted foreign ally. The spread of the Islamic State (ISIS) necessitated international teamwork, so the blockade […]