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The Kurds and US Foreign Policy: International Relations in the Middle East since 1945
Abstract
This book provides a detailed survey and analysis of US–Kurdish relations and their interaction with domestic, regional and global politics. Using the Kurdish issue to explore the nature of the engagement between international powers and weaker non-state entities, the author analyses the existence of an interactive US relationship with the Kurds of Iraq.
Drawing on governmental archives and interviews with political figures both in Northern Iraq and the United States, the author places the case study within a broader International Relations context. The conceptual framework centres on the inter-relations between actors (both state and non-state) and structures of material and ideational kinds, while the detailed survey and analysis of US–Kurdish relations, in their interaction with domestic, regional and global politics, forms the empirical core of the study. Stressing the intertwining of domestic and foreign policy as part of the same set of dynamics, the case study explains the emergence of the interactive and institutionalized US relationship with the Kurds of Iraq that has brought about the formation, within an Iraqi framework, of an undeclared US official Kurdish policy in the post-Saddam era.
Filling a gap in the literature on US–Kurdish relations as well as the broader topic of International Relations, this book will be of great interest to those in the areas of International Relations, Middle Eastern and Kurdish Politics.
This chapter examines the interplay between security, legitimacy, and state-building in contemporary Iraq, emphasising the dual nature of intervention by international and regional state and non-state actors. Focusing on the post-2003 Iraq War period, it explores how international actors, particularly the United States, and regional actors, like Iran and Turkey, have shaped Iraq’s political and security dynamics. Initially viewed as opportunities for state-building by the Shi’a and the Kurds, these interventions shifted to consensus and also transitioned from direct interference to strategic alignments with local actors, further complicating governance. Central to the analysis are Iraq’s disputed territories, such as Sinjar (Shingal), which serve as arenas where state sovereignty and legitimacy are intensely contested. On the regional level, non-state actors like the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) and Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) also operate within these territories, undermining Iraq’s state-building efforts. The PMF’s alignment with Iranian strategies and the PKK’s ambitions to control border territories reflect broader trends of external/regional players exploiting local grievances to project influence. These dynamics challenge Iraq’s fragile sovereignty and highlight the importance of the army cohesion as a vital institution for Iraq's state-building process. The chapter’s core argument is that Iraq’s challenges are not solely the result of external interventions but also deeply rooted in regional interferences by both state and non-state actors affected, in turn, by internal divisions among Shi’a, Sunni, and the Kurds. The inability to forge a cohesive state identity has perpetuated fragmentation, enabling external powers to exploit these divisions. This study, building on the book's core argument, critiques the liberal state-building approach, which prioritises institutional frameworks without addressing socio-political disunity. Concluding, the chapter calls for a rethinking of Iraq’s state-building strategies, emphasising the need for internal consensus and inclusive governance as prerequisites for stability. It argues that Iraq’s future hinges on addressing its internal fragmentation while mitigating the destabilising effects of international and regional interference. Ongoing issues of legitimacy—as these are reflected in the current constitution—continue to shape Iraq’s main challenges and demonstrate the lack of continuity today, more than the intervention in itself.
Iraq has been among the Middle Eastern countries most challenged by long episodes of armed conflict over the past half century. Nevertheless, the Iraqi state – which many analysts and politicians derogatively called a “failed state” – did not succumb, but the functions, which it could temporarily no longer exercise, were assumed by other actors. While the state did not cease to exist, the very notions of statehood and sovereignty underwent significant changes. One of these actors, which managed to consolidate its position over time by transforming both its own statehood as well as Iraq's in more general terms, is the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI), which emerged as a want-to-be-state in early 1991. Over the past three decades, despite not having achieved any formal recognition by any UN member state, the KRI has managed to continuously consolidate its limited statehood, however, to the detriment of its often ailing parent-state, Central Iraq. As research on want-to-be-states in international relations is nascent, there are only a few studies investigating the interactions between want-to-be-states and their parent states they aim to detach from. This paper addresses this gap by examining the dynamics between the KRI and Iraq over four distinct phases (1991–1996; 1996–2005; 2005–2014; 2014–2020). Using Krasner's (1999, 2004) conceptualization of domestic, Westphalian, and international sovereignty, the paper analyzes how the KRI has consolidated its statehood along these axes and how these actions have influenced its relationship with Central Iraq. The goal is to identify factors that foster cooperation and those that exacerbate historical conflicts between the two entities. The analysis is based on official documents, archival sources, and empirical data from extensive fieldwork in the KRI conducted in 2019 and 2022. The findings presented are part of a larger PhD project.
This case study explores the gradual institutionalisation of foreign policy that occurs within and among two different types of non-state actors (NSAs) and demonstrates their foreign policy agency. The intensification of the European Union’s (EU) foreign policy engagement in the Middle Eastern region, in response to successive crises, explains its broadening interactions, which increasingly encompasses both state and non-state entities that aspire to play a more active role, including in the formulation of the EU’s foreign policy. A series of regional developments, especially the rise of the Islamic State (2014) but more importantly the Kurdistan Referendum in 2017 as milestones, have prompted the consolidation of the EU’s presence in the KRI (Kurdistan Region in Iraq) and the beginning of a declared EU Kurdish policy. Additional developments include a seat for the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) at the meetings between the European Union and Iraq since 2015; the European Parliament’s support for the Kurdish issue in Turkey in the context of Ankara’s democratic trajectory; and the emerging status of the Kurds in Syria. In this context, this work outlines the nature of the EU’s foreign policy towards the KRI and the latter’s role in determining the EU’s foreign policy practice and rhetoric while also shedding light on the implications for the IR (international relations) discipline and its subfield (foreign policy) and the potential of this example for use as a model that demonstrates interrelations between non-state entities.
The Eylul Revolution in the Kurdish areas of Iraq represents a milestone in the history of the Kurdish national liberation movements. Apart from its intensity and wideness, this revolution enjoyed massive popular support from a wide array of forces in the Kurdish parts of Iraq. The Revolution furthermore also can be said to represent the first Kurdish armed movement that prioritized building foreign relations for the achievement of several interconnected foreign policy goals. After 60 years, some of those early relations or practices that emerged in those early days still impact the Kurdish foreign relations or the conduct of foreign policy by the current Kurdish de facto entity.
Does the Greek foreign policy fail to capitalise on extant weaknesses of an existential threat and if so, why? The study highlights the role of the ‘Eastern threat’ as key foreign policy concern in the Greek foreign policy agenda. It demonstrates why the Greek Middle Eastern foreign policy practise, developed in a context of ambiguity, is marked by discontinuities to maintain consistent policies and patterns of relationships compared with its (Middle Eastern discourse). The result of these persistent discontinuities for almost five decades is an ad hoc Greek foreign policy practise. The paper addresses this puzzle by triangulating novel data from recent interviews with Greek foreign policy officials with public announcements and speeches as well as with secondary sources and official documents. It reveals that key causes include the neglect of other types of “actorness”, and the structures (epitomised in the ideational kind here) as these are portrayed through the role of the leadership in the failure to develop a holistic foreign policy approach. Collaboration between states and non-state actors is a well-established strategy in Middle Eastern international relations. The consideration of both structures and actors, in void of the prioritisation of states over non-state actors, in the examination of the foreign policy practice reflects the theoretical value of this case study. The work is perceived through the lens of the IR and informs theories of foreign policy-making as well as the recent scholarship on new regionalism focused on the role played by non-state agents.
This chapter retraces the outbreak and development of the Iraqi-Kurdish uprising that started in 1961 and ended in 1991 with Kurdish control of the region. Moving away from teleological narratives of national awakening, the chapter presents the Kurdish revolt within the social context of an early postcolonial Iraq ravaged by rural conflicts. The 1961 revolt started as the reaction of Kurdish tribal landowners to the 1958 Iraqi revolution and the resulting land reform and empowerment of the peasantry, and only later acquired a trans-class and national character. This inception crystallised long-lasting relations of power within the Kurdish national movement in Iraq, in particular the rivalry between the tribal elite and the urban middle classes, as well as the marginalisation of the peasantry.
This chapter presented an extensive analysis of the EU’s actorness in the Kurdish issue in Turkey. The chapter started by examining whether and how the EU has, as an actor, identified, formulated and represented common interests in relation to the Kurdish issue in Turkey. Moreover, the chapter included an assessment of the EU’s acceptance by Turkey, one of the two primary stakeholders. Finally, the analysis includes an assessment of the EU’s performance and assessed the broader impact of the EU’s actorness in the Kurdish issue in Turkey. Shaped by the Copenhagen criteria, the EU’s approach to the Kurdish issue in Turkey has been one of the cases in which the EU has set and reinforced its image as a normative actor. While the EU and its member states have been calculative in their engagement with the Kurdish issue, the EU’s approach to this issue has remained largely normative, as reflected in a rhetoric consisting of calls for democratisation and respect for fundamental human rights and minority rights.
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