Iraqi mass media confirmed recently that the Biden administration had delivered heavy artillery to the Iraqi Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) despite objections from Iraqi authorities in Baghdad.
The U.S. called the delivery of two dozen 105 mm M119 howitzers to the KRG a “long-planned transfer” meant to build capacity for Kurdish Peshmerga forces. But in Baghdad, there were calls from some to seize the artillery and concern that the new U.S. support could exacerbate already tense relations between Baghdad and Erbil, threatening efforts by Iraqi Prime Minister Muhammad Shia al-Sudani to improve ties with the KRG and preserve good relations with Washington despite the anticipated withdrawal of U.S. troops from central Iraq next year.
The historic partnership between the U.S. and Iraqi Kurds has long been a source of anxiety for Baghdad authorities. Since the 1970s, the U.S. has generally been a staunch supporter of ethnic Kurds in the northern part of Iraq, supplying them with arms and other equipment. The U.S. tilt came initially at the request of the leader of Iran, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who was feuding with Iraq. However, the Shah abandoned the Iraqi Kurds in 1975 after reaching an agreement with Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein demarcating the boundary between Iraq and Iran in the Shatt al-Arab waterway leading to the Persian Gulf. The U.S. CIA stopped backing Iraqi Kurds at the Shah’s request.
During the 1980s and 1990s – periods of intense conflict in the Middle East including the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war and Saddam’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait – there were frequent violent clashes between Iraqi Kurds and Iraqi security forces. These included an Iraqi massacre of 5,000 Kurdish civilians in 1988 in the town of Halabja using chemical weapons amid the Anfal campaign to ethnically cleanse the Kurdish population and replace the Kurds with ethnic Arabs from the south and west of Iraq. The U.S. provided humanitarian relief to the Kurds after expelling Iraqi forces from Kuwait in 1991 and established a no-fly zone in northern Iraq that became the KRG after the U.S. toppling of Saddam in 2003. In addition to confirming a federal system for Iraq, a U.S.-backed constitution for post-Saddam Iraq guaranteed influence for the Kurds in the Iraqi central government by awarding the presidency to an Iraqi Kurd. Nevertheless, there have been frequent disputes between Baghdad and Erbil over revenues from oil exploration and the provision of government salaries.
The rise of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in 2014 led the U.S. to boost military assistance to its regional allies including Peshmerga forces and to send thousands of American troops – initially withdrawn in 2011 — back to Iraq. The U.S. began to scale back those troops during the Trump administration and has now agreed to further reduce their numbers to fewer than 1,000 and move those residual forces to Erbil a year from now.
Iraq’s constitution bars armed forces other than the national army from possessing heavy artillery. There are concerns that providing such weapons to Peshmerga forces could revive pro-independence sentiments within the KRG. An overwhelming major of Iraqi Kurds voted for independence in a non-binding referendum in 2017.
At the same time, the KRG still lacks crucially important defensive capabilities including missile defenses, primarily due to the Iraqi federal government’s refusal to authorize such arms transfers. The lack of sufficient firepower has made Iraqi Kurdistan an easy target for Iranian ballistic missile attacks, such as in January 2024 when Iran launched Fateh-110 missiles against an alleged Israeli spy headquarters in Erbil, killing four people.
Under the latest U.S. National Defense Authorization Act, the Biden administration agreed to provide modern air defense systems to the central Iraqi government and the Peshmerga, but Baghdad must approve the transfers.
Other regional states, especially Turkey, are concerned about U.S. moves to improve the KRG’s military strength. For many years, Turkey has conducted a series of military operations in northern Iraq and Syria against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) – an advocate of greater rights for Turkey’s Kurdish minority — while maintaining a strong partnership with the KRG authorities, particularly the governing Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) led by President Nechirvan Barzani, a representative of the powerful Barzani clan.
The delivery of air defense systems may boost Ankara’s concerns that the KDP’s historic rival, the Sulaymaniyah-based Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), may gain control of those systems. However, the results of the Oct. 20 parliamentary elections in Iraqi Kurdistan suggest that those concerns may not be justified as the ruling KDP won, with the PUK coming in second. This means that no significant challenge to Ankara – Erbil relations is likely in the near future.
From Washington’s point of view, the U.S. supply of more advanced weapons to Iraqi Kurdistan reflects a desire to maintain a long-term presence in the area beyond the withdrawal of U.S. forces from central Iraq. The enduring presence of a U.S. military contingent in the KRG will facilitate ongoing anti-ISIS operations as well as deter attacks by Iran.
The U.S. may soon provide the Peshmerga forces with surveillance drones and miniature loitering munitions, which could at least partially compensate for the KRG’s lack of air power. While the KRG is unlikely to use these weapons against Baghdad, rising tensions with Washington over the spreading conflicts in the Middle East could further undermine U.S. efforts to maintain good relations with Iraq and to counter Iranian influence in Baghdad.
Fuad Shahbazov is a policy analyst covering regional security issues in the South Caucasus and a former research fellow at the Center for Strategic Studies and senior analyst at the Center for Strategic Communications in Azerbaijan. He was also a visiting scholar at the Daniel Morgan School of National Security in Washington, DC. He tweets at @fuadshahbazov.