Jan 29, 2015

US-led efforts to counter the Islamic State (IS) with Kurdish peshmerga partners is having a backlash on Sunni Arab communities. Relying on Iraqi Kurds to act as coalition boots on the ground may help eliminate some IS safe havens, but it is fueling Kurdish land grabs. Iraqi Kurds are using US airstrikes and the political vacuum in northern Iraq not only to push back IS, but also to recapture the disputed territories and oil fields — some of the very measures that have fueled Sunni Arab resentment since 2003. These trends are undermining the effort to assuage Sunni Arab grievances and laying the groundwork for Iraq’s next protracted, subnational conflict.

While minorities and "apostates" have been brutally victimized by IS, Sunni Arabs have become primary targets in local anti-IS campaigns. In some areas, Shiite militias have retaliated against Sunni Arabs through kidnappings, killings and forced population displacements. The militias remain stationed in Iraq’s disputed territories, which they helped liberate alongside Kurdish peshmerga, Iranian Quds Forces and the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF). Their engagement reflects Iranian influences in Iraq and disputes between Baghdad and Erbil that preceded the IS onslaught, and which are feeding local tensions.

Similarly, as Iraqi Kurds benefit from coalition airstrikes and take control of former IS safe havens in northern Iraq, they are engaging in demographic and territorial engineering to advance their nationalist agenda. Kurdish peshmerga are preventing Sunni Arab populations from returning to their homes while attempting to Kurdify these territories. The peshmerga’s offensives in Diyala, Kirkuk and western Mosul are particularly confrontational because they expand the Kurdish presence into areas outside the Kurdistan Region and considered part of Iraq by all Arab Iraqis.

Indeed, Iraqi Kurds consider these territories as rightfully belonging to the Kurdistan Region and are taking steps to consolidate their control. Some Kurdish officials have publicly affirmed that the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) will not give back these territories and “never ever let Arabs control them again.” To secure the territories, the Kurdish peshmerga are organizing special minority group militias under the control of the KRG's Ministry of Peshmerga Affairs, including Kurdish Shabak peshmerga forces, Kurdish Yazidi peshmerga forces and Kurdish Assyrian peshmerga forces.

By expanding its territorial borders, the KRG may hope to leverage its nationalist demands in Baghdad. In fact, current political conditions leave the Iraqi government little opportunity to retaliate. The ISF cannot effectively push back the Kurdish peshmerga, the KRG has Western military support and Baghdad is cooperating with the KRG in the anti-IS campaign. Both sides are also financially stressed and relying on a temporary oil deal to mitigate their economic morass.