Dr. Pshtiwan Faraj
The New-Old Middle East Is Back: What Regional Power Politics Means for Kurdistan
As Washington steps back from its role as the region’s unquestioned security manager, Ankara, Tehran, Baghdad, and other regional powers are gaining greater freedom to bargain, hedge, and coerce. For Kurdistan, this emerging order presents both new opportunities and a dangerous strategic vacuum.
For much of the post-2003 era, Kurdish strategic thinking in Iraq rested on an assumption that was never entirely correct but nevertheless became deeply embedded in political calculations: the United States would remain the ultimate external guarantor of the regional order. American airpower helped protect the Kurdistan Region during the war against the Islamic State, Washington became the principal military partner of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, and American diplomatic pressure repeatedly constrained Baghdad, Ankara, Tehran, and Damascus from pursuing certain policies without considering the potential consequences of confronting the United States. Over time, this created a powerful strategic habit among Kurdish political actors.
When the regional environment became dangerous, Kurdish leaders looked outward; when Baghdad applied pressure, Washington was expected to intervene; when Turkey escalated, American diplomacy and NATO politics were expected to impose limits; and when Iran expanded its influence, American power was assumed to remain the ultimate counterweight. That strategic environment is changing. The Middle East is not necessarily entering a post-American era in which Washington disappears and another great power takes its place, but it is becoming a region in which the United States is less capable and less willing to organize every major regional relationship around American preferences. For Kurdistan, that distinction is crucial because it means that the old assumption of an external guarantor is becoming increasingly unreliable at precisely the moment when regional powers are acquiring greater freedom to shape the political environment around the Kurds.
The most important transformation taking place in the Middle East, therefore, is not necessarily the disappearance of American power but the decline of American exclusivity. For decades, Washington served as the central external power around which much of the region's security architecture was organized. Gulf monarchies depended heavily on American security guarantees, Israel relied on American military and diplomatic backing, and Iraq became deeply intertwined with American military and political influence after 2003. Today, however, regional states increasingly demonstrate that they can maintain important relationships with Washington while simultaneously cultivating alternative partnerships. Saudi Arabia can strengthen its economic and diplomatic relationship with China while preserving its strategic relationship with the United States; Gulf states can cooperate with Washington on security while developing extensive commercial relationships with Beijing; Turkey can remain a NATO member while maintaining complex relations with Moscow and Tehran; and Iraq can cooperate with the United States while simultaneously accommodating powerful Iran-aligned political and security actors.
The logic of the region is therefore becoming increasingly transactional. States are asking less frequently which geopolitical camp they belong to and more frequently what each external or regional power can offer them. This is a profound shift because it creates greater strategic flexibility for sovereign states while potentially producing greater uncertainty for smaller actors that lack the ability to negotiate with multiple powers on equal terms.
For Kurdistan, the consequences of this transformation are particularly significant because the Kurdish position is structurally different from that of the sovereign states surrounding it. Kurdish actors possess territory, political institutions, armed forces, economic resources, strategic geography, and extensive international networks, but they do not possess full sovereignty. Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria can negotiate directly with one another as internationally recognized states, conclude agreements, mobilize diplomatic institutions, control internationally recognized borders, and make decisions affecting regional security without requiring external recognition of their political existence. Kurdish actors operate within a fundamentally different framework. They may administer territory, maintain security forces, develop energy resources, attract foreign investment, and maintain international relationships, but they remain vulnerable to decisions made in capitals beyond their control.
This vulnerability becomes more serious when great powers become less willing to confront regional partners on behalf of Kurdish interests. Washington may regard Kurdish actors as valuable partners in counterterrorism, recognize the Kurdistan Region as an important component of Iraqi stability, and continue to work with Kurdish forces in Syria, but usefulness does not automatically translate into strategic priority. Kurdish history demonstrates the difference repeatedly: Kurdish actors often become indispensable during periods of war and crisis but substantially less important when the major powers move toward political settlements. The central danger of the emerging regional order is therefore not that the Kurds will suddenly lose all international support, but that they may discover that international support is increasingly conditional, transactional, and subordinate to the larger interests of sovereign regional powers.
This is particularly evident in Turkey's expanding regional role. For Kurdistan, the rise of Turkey as a relatively autonomous regional power may ultimately be more consequential than the gradual decline of American dominance. Turkey possesses a combination of economic weight, military capabilities, industrial capacity, NATO membership, geographic leverage, diplomatic reach, and relationships with almost every major actor in the region that gives Ankara an unusually broad strategic toolkit.
Turkey can cooperate with Washington while negotiating with Moscow, maintain economic relations with Erbil while conducting military operations against the Kurdistan Workers' Party, engage Baghdad on security arrangements while negotiating energy and trade issues with the Kurdistan Region, and pursue its own interests in Syria without waiting for either the United States or Russia to determine the boundaries of its regional policy. Ankara's approach demonstrates the logic of the emerging Middle East: strategic relationships do not have to be mutually exclusive, and economic cooperation does not require political alignment.
For Kurdish actors, this creates a difficult but unavoidable reality. Turkey does not necessarily need to eliminate every expression of Kurdish political power; rather, its strategic objective is to prevent the emergence of Kurdish political or military structures that Ankara considers capable of threatening Turkish national security. This allows Turkey to distinguish between different Kurdish actors and pursue different policies toward each of them. The Kurdish strategic challenge is therefore not simply to oppose Turkey but to understand how Kurdish interests can be embedded within a relationship in which Ankara has significant leverage and strong security concerns of its own.
Iran presents a different but equally consequential challenge because Tehran's regional influence is not dependent exclusively on conventional state power. Over several decades, Iran has developed political, military, economic, and ideological networks extending across Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen, giving it an ability to influence regional politics through both state institutions and non-state actors.
For the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, this creates an environment in which relations with Baghdad cannot be understood solely through the traditional federal dispute between Erbil and the Iraqi government. Baghdad itself is embedded in a broader regional competition involving Iran, the United States, Turkey, and competing Iraqi political factions. Kurdish negotiations with Baghdad over budgets, security, disputed territories, energy, and constitutional issues are therefore inevitably influenced by the wider balance of power.
This makes the Kurdish strategic environment more complicated than the conventional Erbil-Baghdad framework suggests. The relevant question is no longer simply how Kurdistan can negotiate the best possible arrangement with Baghdad, but how it can negotiate with Baghdad when Baghdad itself operates within a regional political system in which Tehran possesses substantial influence and Washington remains an important but increasingly selective actor.
Paradoxically, the emerging multipolar Middle East may make Baghdad more important to Kurdistan rather than less important. For years, some Kurdish strategic thinking treated Baghdad primarily as a problem to be managed while international relationships were viewed as the ultimate source of leverage. That approach became increasingly difficult following the political and constitutional consequences of the 2017 independence referendum and the subsequent efforts by federal institutions to reinforce Baghdad's authority over areas including energy, finance, security, and border-related matters.
The federal government possesses internationally recognized sovereignty, controls Iraq's formal diplomatic position, and has increasingly demonstrated its willingness to use constitutional, legal, financial, and political mechanisms to constrain the Kurdistan Region. As American influence becomes more selective and regional powers become more autonomous, Kurdish political strategy cannot afford to treat Baghdad simply as an internal obstacle that can be bypassed through external relationships. Baghdad is itself becoming one of the principal arenas through which regional power competition will be translated into Kurdish political and economic reality.
Any sustainable Kurdish strategy must therefore combine external diplomacy with a more sophisticated federal strategy capable of building influence inside Iraq rather than assuming that international actors will consistently compensate for weaknesses in the Erbil-Baghdad relationship.
Yet the emergence of a more competitive and decentralized regional order does not necessarily mean that Kurdistan is destined to become weaker. Multipolarity can create opportunities for smaller actors if they possess strategic assets that competing powers need. Kurdistan's most obvious advantage is geography. The Kurdistan Region sits at the intersection of Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria and occupies territory connected to important energy, trade, security, and transportation corridors. This geography has often been understood primarily as a source of vulnerability because it places Kurdish political actors between stronger states with competing interests.
But the same geography can become an asset if Kurdish institutions are capable of transforming it into strategic leverage. A region that connects competing powers can become more valuable precisely because those powers compete. The challenge is therefore to move from thinking about geography simply as something that exposes Kurdistan to pressure toward understanding geography as a resource that can generate interdependence. The objective should be to make Kurdistan economically useful to multiple regional actors simultaneously, thereby increasing the political and economic cost of destabilizing it.
This requires Kurdistan to reconsider the strategic role of energy. For years, Kurdish political thinking placed enormous emphasis on hydrocarbon resources and the assumption that energy exports would generate sufficient international interdependence to protect Kurdish political interests. There was considerable logic behind this approach. Oil created relationships with international companies, generated revenues, encouraged cross-border infrastructure, and gave Turkey a strong economic interest in maintaining commercial relations with the Kurdistan Region. Yet the experience of the past decade has demonstrated that energy interdependence alone cannot guarantee political security. Oil can create leverage, but it does not automatically create sovereignty, and economic dependence can work in both directions.
A sustainable Kurdish strategy therefore needs to move beyond the assumption that hydrocarbons alone can serve as the foundation of external protection. The Kurdistan Region possesses a much broader portfolio of potential strategic assets, including its geographical position, energy infrastructure, trade routes, investment opportunities, security partnerships, counterterrorism capabilities, human capital, universities, tourism potential, and emerging digital and technological capacity. The objective should be to construct multiple forms of interdependence so that a wider range of actors benefit from Kurdistan's stability and therefore have an interest in preventing its destabilization.
The logic of strategic diversification is particularly important because the era in which Kurdish actors could reasonably expect one external power to function as their principal guarantor is becoming increasingly difficult to sustain. The United States remains indispensable to the regional balance, but dependence on Washington alone creates vulnerability because American interests extend far beyond Kurdish priorities. The same principle applies to Turkey, Iran, and any other external actor. Kurdistan cannot build a sustainable strategy around the assumption that one powerful patron will consistently subordinate its own interests to Kurdish objectives.
Instead, the Kurdistan Region needs to develop a strategy of strategic diversification in which relationships with Washington, Ankara, Baghdad, Gulf states, European governments, and other international actors reinforce one another without allowing any single relationship to become the foundation upon which the entire Kurdish strategic position rests. This does not mean pursuing neutrality, which is difficult for a region surrounded by competing powers and embedded within the political structure of Iraq. It means maximizing room for maneuver and ensuring that Kurdish political actors retain sufficient strategic flexibility to adapt when the interests of external partners change.
Perhaps the most dangerous assumption Kurdish politics can no longer afford is the belief that another actor will ultimately save Kurdistan. International relations provides little evidence for such a strategy. External powers support Kurdish actors when Kurdish objectives overlap with their own strategic interests, and they reconsider those relationships when broader priorities change.
The United States can support Kurdish security while simultaneously maintaining strategic relationships with Turkey and Baghdad. European governments can support Kurdish institutions while remaining constrained by their relations with Turkey, Iraq, and other regional states. Russia can engage Kurdish actors while balancing its relationships with Ankara, Tehran, and Damascus. Even governments that are sympathetic to Kurdish aspirations generally prioritize their own national interests when faced with difficult strategic choices.
This should not be interpreted as betrayal; it is the normal logic of international politics. The strategic implication for Kurdistan is that external support should be treated as an asset rather than a substitute for its own political and institutional capacity. Kurdish strategy must begin from the assumption that no external power will make Kurdish interests its overriding priority unless Kurdish stability is sufficiently connected to that power's own interests.
This suggests a fundamental change in the way Kurdish policymakers should think about security. The question should no longer be simply, Who will protect Kurdistan? It should increasingly become, How can Kurdistan become sufficiently valuable that multiple powers have an interest in protecting its stability? The difference is more than semantic. Protection is something another actor provides; leverage is something a political community builds. The former creates dependence, while the latter creates bargaining power.
A Kurdish strategy based on leverage would seek to make the Kurdistan Region economically useful to Turkey, politically relevant to Baghdad, strategically valuable to Washington, commercially attractive to Gulf investors, and internationally connected to European markets and institutions. Such a strategy would not eliminate Kurdish vulnerability, but it could increase the political, economic, and strategic costs that surrounding powers would face if they attempted to destabilize the region. In a multipolar Middle East, the most secure small actors may not be those with the strongest patron, but those with the greatest number of relationships that other powers cannot afford to lose.
The Middle East is therefore not becoming less competitive; it is becoming more competitive without a single unquestioned manager capable of dictating the terms of regional order. This is the defining characteristic of what might be called the new-old Middle East: regional powers are becoming more autonomous, great powers increasingly compete without controlling every regional outcome, alliances are becoming more transactional, economic relationships coexist with security competition, and smaller actors must constantly renegotiate their position.
For Kurdistan, this environment is undoubtedly dangerous, but it also presents an opportunity that should not be underestimated. Kurdish political actors possess territory, institutions, security capabilities, economic resources, strategic geography, international networks, and decades of experience navigating between competing powers. The problem is not the complete absence of strategic assets; it is the absence of a sufficiently coherent strategy for converting those assets into durable leverage.
The Kurdish strategic future will therefore depend less on finding a permanent external protector and more on developing the capacity to maneuver between competing powers without becoming subordinate to any one of them. That requires moving beyond the politics of crisis, beyond the expectation that Washington will intervene whenever Kurdish interests are threatened, beyond the belief that oil alone can purchase political security, beyond the assumption that Baghdad can simply be bypassed, and beyond fragmented approaches in which Erbil, Baghdad, Ankara, Tehran, Damascus, Washington, and European capitals are treated as separate diplomatic arenas. They are increasingly interconnected parts of the same regional system. Kurdish policy must reflect that reality.
The central strategic challenge is consequently not whether Kurdistan can find a powerful friend. It is whether Kurdistan can develop enough economic, political, geographic, institutional, and security leverage that multiple powerful actors have a reason to keep it stable. This does not mean that Kurdistan must become a major power. It means that it must become difficult to ignore, costly to destabilize, and useful enough to competing actors that none can easily afford to see it collapse. In the Middle East that is emerging, where regional powers increasingly make their own bargains and great powers are less willing to impose their preferred order on the region, indispensability may be the closest thing to security that a stateless nation can realistically build.
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#Kurdistan #MiddleEast #Geopolitics #Turkey #Iran #Iraq #USForeignPolicy #KurdishPolitics
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