The Kurdish Question
Perceptions of the US’ reduced role in the region will inflame underlying conflicts between Kurdish factions and their Turkish and Iranian sponsors in Iraq and Syria.
Commercial Summary: The Baghdad government, and the Shi’’a militias that influence it, has set the stage for a confrontation with the Barzani family of Erbil intended to reduce their autonomy and their ability to maintain their role as a US ally. The Baghdad government will maintain the financial squeeze on Erbil indefinitely, until it accepts a reduced role for the US and Israel on KRG territory, and acquiesces to Baghdad’s supremacy. Divisions within the KRG make the area ripe for lawlessness and disorder, raising risks to personnel and assets. The KRG is likely to suffer some kind of military confrontation between Baghdad and Iran-backed factions on the one hand and Türkiye backed factions on the other, with the timing of that confrontation being very likely sudden.
Lay of the Land:
The Kurds are divided along three dimensions: traditionalist vs modernist, relationship with Türkiye vs relationship with Iran, and relationship with the US.
Traditionalist vs modernist: the Kurds of the PKK operate throughout Kurdish regions. They want a Marxist, feminist, republican form of government. The Kurds of Türkiye, Iran, Syria and Iraq, however, are tribal, typically traditional Muslims, and want none of that stuff. Furthermore, especially in Iraqi Kurdistan, the Kurds have followed their traditional princes from the Talabani and Barzani family. Within these families, there are various personal rivalries between cousins and brothers that sometimes lead to localised fights using personal arms.
Relationship with Türkiye vs relationship with Iran: The traditional ruling families of Iraqi Kurdistan are split in their regional loyalties. The Barzani clan has enormous influence in Türkiye, obtained through corruption and through roping in Turkish business interests into the KRG, in the hope of securing Turkish protection against the Iraqi state and Iran. The Talabani clan has therefore turned to Iran, and aligned with the PKK, oddly enough, in order to neutralise Turkish influence.
Relationship with the US: The Syrian branch of the PKK is split between those loyal to the US and those who support Russia. The latter were severely weakened by the Turks, with US support, as Türkiye intervened to capture Afrin in northern Syria. This left the pro-US branch of the PKK as the only game in town in Syria. However, given Turkish extreme hostility to the PKK, the pro-US faction may eventually have to side with Iran and the Syrian government. The problem for them is that the Syrian government does not accept any kind of autonomy or independent decision making for them. It is unclear if the Iranians can mediate an agreement, using their influence over the PKK and the Talabani clan in Iraq. For the Barzani Iraqi Kurds, the relationship with the US also goes through Israel, with much Kurdish oil exported via Türkiye and ultimately to the Jewish state. In addition, Israel used Iraqi KRG territories for its own espionage and special forces operations against Iran. This association with Israel makes the KRG’s position towards Iran far more difficult, as indicated by repeated Iranian strikes against targets in the KRG that are allegedly associated with Israel. Naturally, the KRG denies the presence of Israeli covert bases on its territories.
The US’ role
By protecting both traditionalist kleptocrat Barzani and the revolutionary communists of the Syrian PKK, the US has established a very fragile stability. This is dependent on the perception that the US is staying in the region, and that it does not approve of Kurdish infighting, or of PKK attacks on Türkiye within Turkish territories. Respect for the US’ role, however, is dependent on the perception that it is remaining in the region. Once the US is perceived to be on its way out, all the actors will scramble to improve their positions and prepare for that. The election of Donald Trump in November 2024 may prove to be such a trigger.
Why it matters now
In May 2023, the International Chamber of Commerce ruled against Türkiye for what it deemed to be illegal oil exports from the Kurdistan Regional Government through Türkiye. This covered the period from 2014 to 2018, with another verdict expected to cover the period from 2018 onwards. The ICC required Türkiye to load oil only at the instruction of the Iraqi Ministry of Oil – and not KRG authorities.
Not for the first time, the KRG used the excuse of a funding shortfall, this time instigated by the shutting down of exports via Türkiye in compliance with the ICC’s ruling, to justify halting the payment of salaries, or only paying salaries partially. Tens of thousands of civil servants, teachers and others have been placed on reduced pay. Meanwhile, it is becoming increasingly evident that the KRG does not have a firm grip on internal security, with frequent assassinations, kidnappings and lawlessness by gunmen affiliated with KRG potentates. Recall that, during the border crisis between Belarus and Poland, most of the would-be migrants coming from Belarus were Iraqi Kurds. The region’s governance is so bad that young men would welcome a chance to leave and become illegal migrants. These are conditions conducive to violence and social collapse.
Further undermining the KRG, whose finances are mostly in the Barzani clan’s hands, the Federal Court of Iraq issued on 21 February 2024 a series of rulings that would severely undermine the KRG’s autonomy. The rulings include:
Finding the KRG’s election law unconstitutional.
Making the Iraqi elections commission the competent body to oversee elections in the KRG, and not the KRG’s electoral commission, until new elections are held and a new commission is formed.
Compelling the KRG to hand all oil and non-oil revenues to Baghdad.
Compelling the KRG to pay all salaries to KRG government employees into government banks.
Compelling the KRG to pay all salaries in full, whereas it had been paying only a small portion of the monies owed.
Requiring the KRG’s finance ministry to hand over a breakdown of the budget for salaries.
By siding with protesting civil servants against the KRG, the court made Baghdad appear more friendly to the interests of Kurdish citizens than the two clans, especially the Barzani clan. By forcing the KRG to reveal the breakdown of salaries, the court is paving the way for eliminating “ghost employees”, who are regularly used in Iraq as a means of siphoning off state funds by powerful actors. And by forcing the KRG to hand over revenues, after having banned it from independently making oil contracts, the financial autonomy of the KRG is now severely undermined. It is autonomous only in name. Therefore, if the civil servants and government employees want to be paid, they have to push Iraqi Kurdistan’s government to accept Baghdad’s writ.
Türkiye’s position
It is worth recalling that Ahmed Davutoglu, Erdogan’s former foreign minister (with whom he has since fallen out), wrote a book on the theme of an expanded Türkiye, whose territories extend to Mosul, Erbil and Aleppo, whose interests extend from Grozny to Libya and the rest of Muslim Africa to Central Asia and to Tirana. This agenda still forms the backbone of Turkish foreign policy, despite Davutoglu’s reduced role.
Furthermore, with the Turkish lira collapsing, the cost of energy to the Turkish economy is a critical issue, and foreign currency obtained through trade with the KRG was an important means of keeping the Turkish system going.
Last, Türkiye’s future energy security is intimately connected to the status of oil rich Kurdistan, Kirkuk, and northern Syria, where the Kurdish question, and the issue of dealing with the Kurds, is inescapable. Türkiye needs to find a way to partner with the Kurds (and eliminate Kurdish groups like that PKK that refuse to play along) to guarantee its own role as a Great Power. Its ability to do so is limited by US and Iranian influence, making a localised conflict with Iran’s allies in Iraq and Syria more likely if the US leaves the region.
At the very least, Türkiye needs an autonomous KRG to deal with it favourably. The Iraqi political system is in the process of stripping that away (aided by the corruption and mismanagement of the Barzani family).
Risk Implications:
A US withdrawal, or the perception that the US is leaving the region (potentially triggered by the election of Donald Trump), will very likely accelerate the conflicts within the Kurdish communities of Iraq and Syria along the dimensions described above. It will likely also intensify Turkish and Iranian intervention, intended to secure their positions against one another.