Why Iraqi Kurds Want to Stay Out of the Iran War
Amidst Western media reports that the Iraqi Kurds would support Iranian Kurds to attack Iran, quickly Kurdish officials pushed back, fearing a harsh Iranian response.
Last week, Iran’s military warned Iraq’s Kurdistan regional government that it will take strong action against any move to deploy hostile forces along the Iranian border.
This came amidst Western media reports that the CIA was planning to arm the Iranian Kurds, and that President Donald Trump in a phone call called on Iraqi Kurdish leaders to support this. Fox news also claimed that thousands of Iraqi Kurds have launched a ground offensive in Iran, quoting a U.S. official.
On March 5, President Donald Trump in remarks to Reuters, also seemed to support the idea to support Iranian Kurds to march into Iran, while later on March 8 backtracking on his comments, most likely due to Turkish pressure.
There are many risks involved for Iraq’s Kurds to get involved in the campaign by Israel and the United States to overthrow the regime.
The three provinces of the Kurdistan Region are surrounded by Iranian-backed armed groups and could face a fierce response by Iranian ballistic missiles and drones.
The Community Peacemaker Teams – Iraqi Kurdistan reported on March 16, that so far 307 attacks have been carried out against the Kurdistan Region by Iran and affiliated proxy groups, resulting in a total of 8 people killed and 51 injured.
Most of these attacks were carried out by Iranian-backed groups, which are part of the Shia Popular Mobilization Units (PMF) created in 2014 to fight ISIS, which now instead of fighting ISIS, bomb U.S. bases, diplomatic missions, oil infrastructure, Kurdish Peshmerga forces, and Iranian Kurdish opposition groups.
Since 2018, after ISIS was defeated in Iraq, Iran and Iranian-backed armed groups on a regular basis have carried out attacks on Iraqi Kurdistan, killing members of the Iranian Kurdish opposition, damaging infrastructure, targeting Coalition bases and killing civilians.
The Iraqi Kurds have also repeatedly called on Baghdad to stop the attacks by these groups that are receiving salaries from Baghdad, while the Kurdish government employees often do not receive their salary on time.
Shia armed groups before 2014 were only present in Baghdad and the Shia-majority southern Iraq, but after 2014, are also present and politically dominant in Sunni-majority territories and areas disputed between Erbil and Baghdad, such as the oil-rich province of Kirkuk.
Most of the recent Israeli and U.S. airstrikes that targeted the PMF were in the provinces of Diyala, Kirkuk, Anbar, Nineveh, Salah al-Din, Wasit, and Babil, not in southern Iraq.
The Iraqi Kurds also have a bad experience with the U.S., when after the Kurdish independence referendum in 2017, the United States did not move when Iranian-backed armed groups and the Iraqi army with U.S. military equipment moved into disputed territories. As a result, the Kurds who defended against ISIS, lost 40% of the territory it previously controlled.
Therefore, the Iraqi Kurds would want to have strong guarantees from the U.S. to allow Iranian Kurds to attack Iran since they could face a similar scenario as in 2017.
If Iranian Kurds would march and take western Iran with logistical support of the KRG, it would be possible that Iran would stop its attacks on Gulf countries and Israel, and just focus on Iraqi Kurdistan. Unlike Gulf countries, the Kurds who do not have their own state, lack their own defense systems and rely on the United States.
In that case, even U.S. defenses systems that so far protected the Kurdistan Region after the expansion of the U.S. air defense system, would not be enough to stop all the attacks since they mainly protect Erbil city, not its surroundings. In January 2024, Iranian missiles also killed Peshraw Dizayee, a prominent Kurdish businessman, who wanted to turn the Kurdistan Region into Dubai.
It could also lead to possible Iranian army incursions to stop those Iranian Kurdish groups from crossing the border. In 2010, Iranian army units also crossed the border in pursuit of Kurdish opposition groups.
Furthermore, the PMF and the Iraqi Army could also attempt to attack the Kurdistan Region like in 2017, or move in forces to control the Iraqi-Iranian border in the Kurdistan Region. It remains to be seen in such a scenario that the United States and Israel will attack the Iraqi army or the PMF if they march on the Kurdistan Region.
There is so far also no guarantee that the Islamic Republic of Iran would fall. U.S. intelligence last week indicated that Iran's leadership is still largely intact and is not at risk of collapse any time soon.
As a result, on March 5, the spokesperson of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) Peshawa Hawramani denied that the KRG was involved in any plans to arm or send Kurdish opposition parties into Iran.
After the media reports and the statements by the U.S. President Trump, the KRG spokesperson Hawramani on March 10 called on local and international media outlets to exercise maximum restraint and refrain from broadcasting or publishing footage and locations of drone or missile impact sites.
Sam Faddis, who was the head of a CIA team sent into Iraqi Kurdistan in 2002 to help prepare overthrow of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, and wrote the book The CIA War in Kurdistan, told 21 Rays that “the Iraqi Kurds are reluctant to get involved because they think we don’t know what we are doing and we are going to kick up a mess and walk away again.”
“When I went in in 2002 I had to sit down with (KDP President) Masoud Barzani and pass the no bullshit test day one because they had been lied to a lot,” Faddis said.
Therefore, the Iraqi Kurds would only back such a move by the United States and Israel if there are strong guarantees that there would not be a backlash by Baghdad or Iran, and that U.S. and Israeli air support would stop possible threats to the Kurdistan Region by the PMF, Baghdad, or the Iranian army.