The Kurds in Iraq are resisting pressure from the US and Israel to participate in a U.S.-sponsored invasion of Iran. “The Kurds must not be the tip of the spear in this conflict,” a senior Iraqi Kurdish government official told Axios.
Iraq’s Kurdish government prides itself on talking to both sides, Axios says. But Iran’s government changed its otherwise friendly tone Friday in a communique about Iranian Kurdish militants across the border. “Should their continued presence and plotting be permitted, or should these groups or [Zionist] regime elements enter the borders of the Islamic Republic through the Region, all facilities of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq...will be targeted on a massive scale,” Ali Akbar Ahmadian, an Iranian Defense Council official, said in a written statement.
“They don’t need hypersonic missiles to hurt us. 200 Shahed drones could cause a lot of damage here. We have no air defense systems. We don’t have any ways to knock these things out of the skies,” the Iraqi Kurdish official said. The Iraqi Kurds are complaining that the us policy on regime change is not at all clear to them.
Not mentioned is that the IRGC has been attacking armed camps of the Kurdish opposition inside Iran and that Iraqi Shiite militias have been pounding the two US bases in Erbil, the capital of the Kurdish Regional Government. How Baghdad feels about all this is also not reported.
Iraqi Kurdish leaders have decided to stay neutral in the war for now, partially because they are concerned that at some point the U.S. might abandon them, that source said. “We have trust issues from the past and we don’t want to get involved. Who is going to defend us if the Iranian regime ends up surviving this?” the source said. The Iranian Kurds inside Iraq are not as “battle-hardened” as their brethren who have fought in Syria and lack the military training, numbers and equipment to mount an effective invasion force, Iraqi Kurds say.