The end of the US military mission in Iraq has created a dangerous security vacuum for the semi-autonomous Kurdish region.ย ย
Politicians in Baghdad celebrated the withdrawal, with Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi officially declaring October 1 a “Day of Sovereignty and Independence.”
Tehran, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and Iranian-backed Shiite militias also cheered the move.
But in Erbil, the capital of Iraq’s Kurdish region, the mood is markedly more anxious.
Having relied on Washington’s protection for two decades, the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI) now faces intertwined crises, including mounting pressure from Baghdad to centralize power and escalating military threats from its neighbors, most notably Iran.
A strategy of containment
The immediate threat to the Kurdistan region isn’t a full-scale military invasion, but rather a slow, calculated chipping away of its autonomy, said Hesam Dastpish, a Middle East analyst based in Brussels.
He describes Tehran’s overarching strategy toward Erbil as hostile and heavily focused on containment.
The Islamic Republic ultimately wants to strip the KRI of its political clout, reducing it to a purely administrative body, the expert stressed.
“Tehran’s goal is to turn the Kurdistan region into an institution with absolutely no room to maneuver,” Dastpish told DW, pointing to Iran’s repeated strikes in the region, supposedly targeting camps of Iranian Kurdish opposition groups.
Salahuddin Khadiw, a political analyst based in Mahabad in Iran’s Kurdish region, said that neighboring states don’t necessarily want to wipe out Kurdish autonomy completely.
Instead, he underscored, Tehran envisions a “controlled and weak” Kurdistan.
By dealing separately with the rival power centers in Erbil and Sulaymaniyah, he argued, Iran has maintained influence across the KRI while seeking to prevent any single Kurdish authority from emerging as a dominant power on its western border.
Internal fragmentation remains a fatal flaw
Despite the external challenges, the Iraqi Kurdish region’s most critical vulnerability comes from within.
The legacy of the 1990s civil war lives on through the deeply entrenched rivalry between the two main ruling factions: the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK).
Hiwa Mahmoud Osman, an analyst on Iraqi and Kurdish affairs in the Middle East, pointed out that Tehran leans heavily on this internal friction. “Iran has spent decades mastering political influence inside Iraq,” he told DW. “The Kurds’ biggest hurdle is their own fragmentation. Without a united front, foreign powers simply have more room to operate.”
Ardeshir Pashang, a Middle East researcher in Tehran, warned that if Kurdish leaders fail to patch up their political quarrels, this disunity could ultimately lead to the collapse of the Kurdistan region as a political entity.
The opposition dilemma
A particularly thorny issue is the presence of Iranian Kurdish opposition outfits taking refuge in the KRI.
These groups, which have historically clashed with Iranian state forces, are now under immense pressure to disarm and relocate.
Their presence provides Iran with a convenient pretext to launch drone and missile strikes across the border, said Dastpish.
But he doesn’t expect Erbil to offer “total surrender,” as maintaining a balance with these groups is crucial for the KRI’s domestic legitimacy and foreign relations.
Kasra Gharadaghi, a political science researcher based in Florida, argues that these groups are now more vulnerable than ever.
If Iran was able to strike their sanctuaries while US forces were still fully deployed โ culminating in a 2023 border security pact between Baghdad and Tehran โ Erbil’s leverage is now practically non-existent, giving Tehran significantly more power to force concessions, he said.
Dollar diplomacy is America’s hidden weapon
While American troops may have left, Washington’s leverage in Iraq has not entirely disappeared. It has simply transitioned toward global financial networks. Gharadaghi describes this as a “realignment of power,” where the US, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia act as natural counterweights to Iran’s growing reach.
Osman echoed this view, highlighting Iraq’s deep financial reliance on the US dollar. This economic tether allows the US Treasury to indirectly influence Baghdad’s internal affairs, right down to ensuring salaries are paid to KRI civil servants.
Khadiw similarly characterizes this strategic pivot as America transitioning from a “military balancer” to a “powerful economic observer.”
But as internal and external pressures mount, the analysts said, Iraq’s Kurdish region may have little choice but to heal its internal divides and present a united front to preserve its autonomy and limit Iran’s strategic gains in the region.
Edited by: Srinivas Mazumdaru