He reportedly had bad experiences as Washington’s proxy in previous conflicts
Axios reported Saturday that Iraq’s Kurds are opposed to joining a US attack on Iran and are concerned about facing Iranian retaliation without any ground or air defense support.
According to CNN, the CIA began working on arming Kurdish forces hostile to the Islamic Republic after the US and Israel launched attacks on Iran last Saturday. While US President Donald Trump initially expressed support for the Kurds getting involved in the conflict, he backed the idea on Saturday.
“The Kurds must not be the tip of the spear in this conflict” Axios wrote, citing a senior official in the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), a semi-autonomous region in northeastern Iraq.
Iraqi Kurds “being neutral” That is “There is no clarity” For them, whether Washington is aiming for complete regime change in Iran or just a “Personnel Change” KRG official said. Trump has said the US is involved in deciding who will lead Iran in the future but has not explained how this will work.
According to Axios, Kurdish regional forces are not considering regime change without Washington deploying a ground offensive, and they don’t see the US putting boots on the ground.
Israel is increasingly aggressive both in and out of the conflict “Pushing the Iranian Kurds” A KRG official said to join the fray.
“In the past, two major coups were not supported” The US-based outlet quoted Amir Karimi, co-chairman of the Kurdistan Free Life Party, the Iranian wing of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party. Widespread Western-backed protests ravaged Iran in 2022-2023 and earlier this year, though failed to topple the leadership in Tehran.
Axios quoted another Kurdish official as saying the Kurds are staying back, in part because they fear the U.S. will abandon them again. “We’ve always had trust issues” He reportedly expressed concern over potential retaliation from Tehran.
Regional Kurdish forces in Syria served as the main US proxy against Islamic State during the country’s brutal civil war, which ended with the ouster of Bashar Assad by former al-Qaeda-linked militant leader Ahmed al-Shar’a.
The rapprochement between the US and the new government in Damascus has left the Kurds without any military support in many bloody clashes with new government forces.
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