The hydrocarbons dispute between Erbil and Baghdad continues. The Kurdistan Regional Government has not seen any of its share of the national budget transferred to it since over a month. Prime Minister Maliki and Energy Minister Sharistani demand that the Kurds agree to let Baghdad control all oil exports, marketing arrangements and financial payments before they agree to turn over money owing to the Kurdistan region.

Contrary to what some misinformed observers claim, the Maliki government has no constitutional basis to make such a demand. The Constitution states in Article 111 that Iraq’s oil and gas belong to all Iraqis. This doesn’t mean that central government authorities should control every aspect of the industry, of course, even if that is how Mr. Maliki and Mr. Sharistani would like things to be.

Prime Minister Maliki likes to pretend that central government monopoly control of Iraq’s oil is for the good of the country rather than for his own interests and those of the people around him. They claim that letting the Kurds market their own oil exports and receive payment, even though the Kurds agree to keep only their 17% share of oil revenues and forward the rest to Baghdad, would constitute a prelude to Kurdish secession.

If anything, the Maliki government’s economic blackmail of Kurdistan convinces the Kurds more than ever that they must not, under any circumstances, let Baghdad control all aspects of the oil industry. Financial control of 95% of Iraq’s revenues, which is what oil constitutes, means political control of 95% of Iraq. What other issues might Baghdad choose to economically strangle Kurdistan over in the future? Will the Kurds be told to give up on disputed territories and Article 140 if they want their share of the budget? Will they be told to surrender authority over the peshmerga? All the while, will Mr. Maliki continue to consolidate power and ignore the constitution, forming military units such as the Tigris Command and appointing commanders personally beholden to him, all without the constitutionally mandated approval of parliament? Will he continue to undermine the independence of the “Independent” High Commissions on Human Rights, Elections and Public Integrity by placing them under the authority of his cabinet rather than parliament, as mandated in Article 102 of the Constitution?

The current trend is all too familiar in Iraq’s history. It’s a broken record, in fact, playing a song the Kurds know all too well. Rather than keeping Iraqi together, such policies from the government in Baghdad look like the best way to tear it apart. Other Iraqis are revolting in Anbar, Diyala, Mosul, Salah al-Din and Kirkuk – although the presence of some foreign Jihadis in these places clouds the issue, such radicals would never be able to return to the area if it weren’t for Baghdad’s unpopularity. Maliki promised to share power with the Sunnis as well several years ago, but “power sharing” doesn’t seem to be one of the broken record’s songs. Perhaps Mr. Maliki does not want the elections scheduled for April 2014 to actually take place, since he’s already Prime Minister. The worsening security situation, as happened too often in Iraq and other states too numerous to count, may be used to justify “temporary” suspension of democracy, emergency rule measures and creeping authoritarianism.

Perhaps under such circumstances the most dangerous aspect of the game involves pushing the Kurds to the wall of economic desperation. Mr. Maliki’s government in Baghdad seems to think that cutting off the KRG’s finances will lead Kurdistan’s people to rise up against their government. What if they rise up against their other government, however – the central one in Baghdad? What if the Kurds increasingly find common cause with the Sunnis rising up today? What if the Kurds move to block Baghdad’s oil exports from disputed territories, announcing that the central government has no right to these hydrocarbons as long as it fails to share their revenues and fails to implement Article 140 regarding the territories? Finally, what if Kurds conclude as a result of this growing fiasco that the time for a referendum on independence has come? Dangerous moves invite even more dangerous counter-moves, of course.

If any of these things happens, the Americans may finally realize that their blind support of Maliki’s position was not in fact the best thing for stability in Iraq and the region. By then it will be too late.