Iraqi Kurds Archives - Politics Today https://politicstoday.org/tag/iraqi-kurds/ Fri, 21 Jan 2022 11:00:16 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.8 The U.S. Withdrawal from Iraq: One Boot Inside, the Other Out? https://politicstoday.org/the-u-s-withdrawal-from-iraq-one-boot-inside-the-other-out/ Fri, 21 Jan 2022 11:00:16 +0000 https://politicstoday.org/the-u-s-withdrawal-from-iraq-one-boot-inside-the-other-out/

The U.S. withdrawal of combat missions from Iraq will not stop drone and rocket attacks by the Shiite militias on U.S. diplomatic facilities and bases hosting the U.S.-led coalition troops in Iraq.

The post The U.S. Withdrawal from Iraq: One Boot Inside, the Other Out? appeared first on Politics Today.

]]>

In January 2020, a military strike by the United States assassinated Qasem Soleimani, the former commander of the elite Quds Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, then deputy head of an Iraqi paramilitary organization known as the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMU).

The assassination increased not only the escalation between the U.S. and Iran-linked Shiite militias, but it also enabled the Iraqi parliament to request then Iraqi prime minister Adel Abdul Mahdi to end foreign military presence in Iraq. Correspondingly, Shiite militias carried out a total of nearly 100 attacks on U.S. diplomatic facilities and bases hosting  U.S.-led coalition troops in Iraq, compelling the U.S. to reconsider its combat mission in Iraq.

At first, the attacks on the U.S. diplomatic facilities and bases forced the U.S. to downsize its military mission in Iraq. Accordingly, the U.S. withdrew approximately half of its 5,000 forces from Iraq in 2020. The majority of the remaining forces serve as advisers to Iraq’s military. The U.S.-led coalition handed over eight bases to the Iraqi military last year and pulled international troops back to larger garrisons such as Camp Taji, Erbil, and Ain al-Asad airbases.

Read: Contractors and Mercenaries will Live on after the US Leaves Iraq and Afghanistan

Meanwhile, Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi has been facing pressure from Iraqi Shia factions in the country and militias allied with Iran to implement the Iraqi parliament’s nonbinding decision to end foreign military presence in Iraq. Al-Kadhimi has strived to reduce coalition combat forces, and instead to increase NATO’s role in Iraq, where in 2018 he invited some 500 NATO personnel to raise Iraqi military and security competencies during Iraq’s strategic dialogue with the U.S.

The U.S. withdrawal of combat missions from Iraq will not stop drone and rocket attacks by the Shiite militias on U.S. diplomatic facilities and bases hosting the U.S.-led coalition troops in Iraq.

On the one hand, the strategic dialogue meetings have resulted in reducing the U.S.-led combat mission against DAESH in Iraq, the majority of whom are American soldiers, by 60 percent. On the other hand, NATO agreed to expand its military consultation mission in Iraq to roughly 4,000 troops.

Moreover, Josep Borrell, high representative of the European Union for foreign affairs and security policy and vice-president of the European Commission, announced that NATO is planning to establish a second base for training missions in Erbil. Thus, the U.S. has shared the responsibility to respond to attacks from Iran-linked Shiite militias with its allies in NATO.

Read: Political Shiism and State-Building in Iraq: An Interview with Ali Taher El-Hammood

On July 26, 2021, during the latest strategic dialogue, U.S. President Joe Biden and al-Kadhimi announced that the U.S. combat mission in Iraq will end by the end of 2022, and that the U.S. military’s role will transform into an advisory mission against DAESH. Coalition spokesman Col. Myles Caggins stressed that the coalition’s consultation to the Iraqi army is only conducted in Baghdad.

Furthermore, the latest strategic dialogue reaffirmed that the U.S. troops in Iraq have been invited by the Iraqi government, which aims to deter attacks on bases hosting the U.S.-led coalition troops. Finally, the Biden administration pledged $5.2 million in support of a UN mission to observe Iraq’s early elections in October 2021.

No United States official referred to a full withdrawal from Iraq. The number of U.S. personnel training and advising missions in Iraq as of early 2022 is not clear. Under these circumstances, the U.S. withdrawal of combat missions from Iraq will not stop drone and rocket attacks by the Shiite militias on U.S. diplomatic facilities and bases hosting the U.S.-led coalition troops in Iraq.

This is to say that the Iraq-U.S. strategic dialogue divided anti-U.S. groups in Iraq. Muqtada al-Sadr, the leader of the plurality of seats in the Iraqi parliament, and even the Fatah Alliance, the political wing of the Popular Mobilization Forces in the parliament, welcomed the results of the strategic dialogue.

Recommended

However, the Iraqi Resistance Coordination Committee, formed last year to coordinate anti-U.S. militias in Iraq, which includes Kata’ib Hezbollah, Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq, Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba, and Kata’ib Sayyid al-Shuhada, rejected the results of the strategic dialogue. The committee evaluated them as a “deceptive declaration to maintain the occupation.” The committee also threatened to continue their attacks until “the existence of any foreign soldier” is terminated.

So far, the U.S. has responded with limited retaliatory strikes against attacks carried out by militias, which has damaged the efforts of the al-Kadhimi government to stabilize Iraq. The Biden administration has strived not to escalate further attacks against American forces. That is why public support for the U.S. military presence in Iraq, including the Democratic Party, has been conditioned on whether the militia attacks cause serious damage to U.S. troops. The Biden administration is interested in keeping leverage in Iraq by avoiding a scenario where the country succumbs to Iranian influence.

A full U.S. withdrawal from Iraq is not expected given that the Biden administration alluded that the 2011 withdrawal was a “mistake.”

Against this backdrop, the Biden administration viewed al-Kadhimi as an effective partner and he was the first Arab leader to meet with Biden after the president assumed office. A full U.S. withdrawal from Iraq is not expected given that the Biden administration alluded that the 2011 withdrawal was a “mistake.” In addition, the U.S. has supported the Kurds in the north and other ethnic and religious groups, particularly Christians and Yazidis, who were portrayed by media outlets in the West as vulnerable to attacks from DAESH.

All in all, Iraq is viewed by the U.S. as an instrument for checkmating Iran and securing the entire Gulf region. Consequently, the U.S. presence in Iraq is bound to the political cost of retaliatory strikes for the Biden administration in the U.S., and the nuclear talks between the U.S. and Iran.

VIDEO: 60 years of US intervention in Iraq explained in 10 minutes

The post The U.S. Withdrawal from Iraq: One Boot Inside, the Other Out? appeared first on Politics Today.

]]> What does the referendum in Northern Iraq mean for Turkey and the Middle East? https://politicstoday.org/what-does-the-referendum-in-northern-iraq-mean-for-turkey-and-the-middle-east/ Fri, 29 Sep 2017 05:24:01 +0000 https://politicstoday.org/what-does-the-referendum-in-northern-iraq-mean-for-turkey-and-the-middle-east/

For Turkey, who accomplished a great deal in her fight against the PKK within domestic borders, it is unacceptable for this terrorist group, which seeks to find a de facto state in northern Syria with the support of the U.S., to enhance its influence towards northern Iraq.

The post What does the referendum in Northern Iraq mean for Turkey and the Middle East? appeared first on Politics Today.

]]>

The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) held a referendum for independence on Monday despite the objections of many capitals including Baghdad, Tehran and Ankara. Israel’s overt support for the vote was only one among many other developments that cast a shadow on the referendum.

A considerable part of Iraqi Kurds were among those objecting to the vote, which demonstrated concerns surrounding the possible problems that could arise. The main reason for the concerns is the fear that the quest for independence would bring more conflict, instability and suffering to the Kurds instead of bolstering peace and welfare.

Some Kurds and regional countries with a significant Kurdish population were also apprehensive that the appeasement of Kurds for the sake of independence might render them increasingly dependent on some regional and global actors, causing their manipulation for the global powers’ Middle East policies.

Furthermore, it is feared that having included disputed areas, such as Kirkuk, in the referendum could convert the disagreements between Kurds and other peoples in the region into conflict. Iraq, which has already been ravaged by Daesh terror, could therefore be dragged into another civil war. Such concerns surely reflect the realities of the geography.

Past experiences make it clear that drifting the region into conflict and war brings serious consequences for the peoples and countries of the Middle East. Above all, the region surrenders to the activities of terror groups since conflict and war disrupt the states in the region. It must be noted that the wars experienced in the Middle East have constituted the main determinant that keeps the outlawed PKK active in the region for almost 40 years now. We know that the authority gaps seen in Beqaa following the Lebanese Civil War, in northern Iraq after the 1991 Gulf War and in the north of Syria as a result of the Syrian Civil War created convenient spaces for the PKK to improve and expand. Likewise, it is more than obvious that the terror groups including al-Qaeda and Daesh took advantage of the conflicts in the Middle East.

Recommended

Another consequence of the conflicts in the Middle East is that they enable global actors to employ pretexts to intervene in the region. Global powers, particularly the U.S. and Russia, become a party to the conflicts in the Middle East in order to consolidate their positions in the region, which is very rich in terms of natural resources. Catastrophes befall the peoples of the region as the conflicts are manipulated for the power struggle between global actors.

Therefore, it can be argued that the referendum will start an excruciating period for all the peoples in the region, especially the Kurds, if it foments large-scale conflicts through the independence schemes of the disputed areas in Iraq. As occurred in all the other conflicts in the region, the global actors will surely take up positions in accordance with their own interests. So, the referendum poses a high risk of causing a long-standing atmosphere of chaos.

When viewed through the lens of Ankara, the extent to which the KRG administration, after a possible independence, will cooperate with Turkey in its fight against the PKK is seriously questioned. This is due to the fact that despite the extensive support of Turkey, the KRG has already failed in this matter so far. Considering that the Barzani administration, which had amicable relations with Turkey is far from satisfying Ankara even in this issue, it is predicted that an independent state of Kurdistan, where political actors have close links to the PKK and where the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and Goran are influential, could possibly pursue policies that would upset Turkey.

For Turkey, who accomplished a great deal in her fight against the PKK within domestic territory, it is unacceptable for this terrorist group, which seeks to find a de facto state in northern Syria with the support of the U.S., to enhance its influence towards northern Iraq.

As a matter of fact, the Barzani administration has already acquired autonomy to a considerable degree against the unjust impositions of Baghdad and Tehran. The KRG was supposed to prove its sovereignty in its territory through solving the PKK question and this is still true. Barzani and the KRG are required to give the actual fight for independence against the PKK and the actors siding with the terror groups.

The post What does the referendum in Northern Iraq mean for Turkey and the Middle East? appeared first on Politics Today.

]]>