The Kurdistan autonomous region of Iraq, which controls northeastern Iraq and is home to several million people, is a vital source of stability in the region. It impacts Iraq and Syria and sits at a crucial crossroads between Turkey, Iran, and the Arab states. The Kurds should continue to receive U.S. and Western support to shore up their security posture. This means investing in the Peshmerga, their armed forces, which played a crucial role in the fight against ISIS. With the defeat of the Islamic State, the Kurdistan region faces rapidly expanding Iranian proxies, which could pose an increasing challenge to U.S. forces in the region and U.S.-Kurdish ties.

“Iran and Turkey and their terror proxies; and China and Russia, are expanding their power at every opportunity. They want this crossroads. A U.S.-supported Kurdistan is the only obstacle they have right now,” Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) Vice President Jaafar Sheikh Mustafa said in a recent conversation describing the region’s challenges.

Today, the Peshmerga numbers around 150,000 soldiers, most of whom are part-time. They are deeply influenced by the divisions in the region, frustrating the U.S.-led coalition, which sees the region as too politically fragmented and unwilling to reform. Despite this, ongoing support is essential for stability in Kurdistan and nearby areas threatened by ISIS and other groups.

Unlike the stalemate in Ukraine and the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, the ISIS war was a rare post-9/11 U.S. defense policy victory. Compared to the crippled Iraqi Army, investment in the Kurds yielded smashing results.

From 2003 to 2011, the US invested $92 million to develop eight Peshmerga brigades, compared to $25 billion for 109 Iraqi brigades, according to Dr. Michael Knights. He adds that each KRG brigade received $11.5 million, while each Iraqi brigade got $229.3 million, and noted that ISIS decimated a quarter of the Iraqi federal forces while the eight U.S.-assisted Kurdish units stayed intact.

Not a single American soldier was killed in Iraqi Kurdish territory during the Iraq War. Since Operation Inherent Resolve began in June 2014, fewer than two dozen U.S. soldiers have died in hostilities in Iraq and Syria. The Kurdish Peshmerga have suffered around 1,800 deaths. Syria’s Kurds sacrificed 11,000. The broader U.S.-Kurdish partnership has eliminated more than 80,000 ISIS jihadists.

Some question investment in the Peshmerga, citing slow progress on reform. These efforts are guided by a renewed memorandum of understanding (MOU) signed with the Pentagon in 2022. During a recent visit to the Kurdistan region, I spoke with Major General Hazhar Ismail, a co-founder of the 2017 Peshmerga reform program supported by the United States, UK, Germany, and the Netherlands. He is now KRG President Nechirvan Barzani’s top military adviser.

Eliminating ghost soldiers, who receive salaries without serving, is a key goal. Gen. Hazhar acknowledged that the Middle East is rife with such corruption, noting a 2014 Iraqi admission of 50,000 ghost soldiers in the Iraqi Army, costing $380 million per year. This partly explains why over 30,000 Iraqi forces gave up Mosul to some 800 ISIS fighters in 2014.

Now, KRG Prime Minister Masrour Barzani’s MyAccount initiative to bank the region’s unbanked has onboarded “more than 90 to 95 percent” of Kurdish security forces since 2023. Gen. Hazhar is optimistic they can meet the MOU’s October 2024 deadline. Depoliticizing the Peshmerga is one of the most difficult of the memorandum’s thirty-five points of reform. This better inoculates the force from being split apart by internal or outside pressures.

In the 1970s and 1980s, Kurdish parties fought the Iraqi regime separately. They began unifying after Saddam Hussein’s defeat in the First Gulf War when the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) was born. However, from 1994 to 1997, the Peshmerga factions of the Barzani-led KDP and Talibani-led PUK fought a civil war. A Washington-brokered truce ended the conflict, but they kept separate units. Uniting the Peshmerga has been a U.S. goal since then. Under the Obama administration, Congress spent $289.5 million on unified Peshmerga training for FY2017. Under Trump, this initially jumped to $365 million. “We would be truly divided without America. Political divisions would become changed maps, and other countries would have eaten us up,” said VP Sheikh Jaafar, who is also a Lieutenant General who has fought since 1969.

In October 2017, Peshmerga unification faced a setback. The Iraqi Army, with Iran-sponsored Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), shifted from fighting ISIS to retaking oil-rich Kirkuk from the Kurds, punishing them for their independence referendum held weeks earlier. Peshmerga lines collapsed, partly because the infamous Iranian IRGC general Qassem Soleimani notched a deal with some PUK commanders to withdraw, exposing the flanks of other PUK and KDP units. Some unified Peshmerga brigades split along political lines but began to reunify months later. “We should learn from 2017. There is no way forward without unification,” emphasized Gen. Hazhar, stressing the need to build trust and that the Peshmerga include “all minorities: Kurdish, Yazidi, Turkmen, and Christian. The Peshmerga defend all of them.”

During the Trump administration, support for the Peshmerga remained strong even after ISIS’ territorial defeat in 2019, with $249 million spent in 2020 to ensure the unified Peshmerga units met the “U.S. light infantry brigade standard.” There are now twenty-eight unified Kurdish brigades, with two divisions established and two more in progress. Minister of Peshmerga Shorish Ismail said in March that he expects the KDP and PUK’s Peshmerga forces to be unified by 2026. It could easily take longer, given a similar prediction was made for 2023.

“America must change its Peshmerga reform strategy to be successful. It must own the process. The U.S. should be the decision maker for Peshmerga reform, instead of just soft support like ‘advise and assist,’” suggests VP Sheikh Jaafar.

Despite losing its caliphate, ISIS remains a threat. Gen. Hazhar warns, “ISIS was defeated, but it was not destroyed.” On March 21, CENTCOM’s General Michael Kurilla said ISIS is reconstituting with “the will to attack us and Western interests abroad in as little as six months with little to no warning.” The next day, ISIS-K killed 145 in Moscow.

ISIS strength is estimated at 5,000 to 7,000 fighters. Syrian Kurds suggest 10,000 ISIS are active in their areas, with another 10,000 restless ISIS fighters in their detention centers and 50,000 ISIS family members in the al-Hawl camp. In 2023, ISIS conducted 177 attacks in Iraq, usually guerilla-style hit-and-run attacks, assassinations, and bombings. They thrive in the ungoverned belt of no-man’s land between the Iraqi frontline and the Kurdish security line, a 560-kilometer stretch from the Iran-Iraq border, around Kirkuk, to the Iraqi-Syrian frontier. “The day the U.S. leaves this area,” VP Sheikh Jaafar cautions, “Is the day they will start to penetrate and build terror nests and operational hubs.”

The threat of ISIS is currently overshadowed by Iranian-sponsored proxies in Iraq and Syria. These groups attacked U.S. troops more than 170 times between October 17 and February 4. In January, three American soldiers were killed in Jordan by a drone attack from the Islamic Resistance in Iraq. During flare-ups, Iran and its militias rain drones and missiles on targets in the KRG. Congress mandated that the KRG receive air defenses to protect U.S. troops and KRG infrastructure by July 1. The interceptors seem to be held up pending approval from Baghdad.

Gen. Hazhar says that although Baghdad pledged to pay Peshmerga salaries, they often wait months for payments. The average Peshmerga gets “half the salary of a normal Iraqi soldier,” receiving just $400 when paid, while Iraqi soldiers get over $800 per month.

The budget the Ministry of Peshmerga receives from Baghdad lacks funds “to develop, train, equip, or arm” the Kurdish security forces, says Gen. Hazhar. They urgently need updated technology like surveillance drones and anti-drone capabilities to complement their old Soviet-era arsenal. Kurdish mission readiness is declining since the U.S.-led coalition and Baghdad resources barely cover salaries. Earlier this year, the U.S. stipend for the Peshmerga dropped from $20 million to $15 million monthly, a scheduled annual cut mischaracterized by some as a penalty for slow reforms. These payments end in 2026, when the memorandum expires.

The cuts are bad timing for the KRG since it comes after Iraq’s top court froze the KRG’s independent oil exports, forcing it to haggle with Baghdad for survival. The KRG faces steep deficits as Baghdad only agrees in theory to pay a fraction of its national oil revenue entitlement and then receives payments piecemeal. 

Meanwhile, the Iran-supported PMF militias added 116,000 to their ranks in the past two years, and in 2023, Iraq’s Defense Ministry budgeted “$2.6 billion designated for salaries, over $44.2 million for equipment, $5 million for services, and $10.7 million for equipment repairs,” for the group. If Baghdad stonewalls U.S. aid like air defenses to the Kurds, the United States could consider direct delivery or reducing aid to Baghdad, especially since much of it ends up with Iranian-sponsored forces that oppose U.S. interests.

The KRG is pushing for a breakthrough. This month, KDP President Massoud Barzani made a historic visit to Baghdad for the first time in six years. It is a daunting task to reverse Baghdad’s erosion of KRG’s autonomy in oil sales, budget, and parliament structure. While Iraq’s parliament voted for the United States to leave, Iraqi leaders privately want the Americans to stay, even though attacking the U.S. presence is popular on the street. Pragmatism prevails in private.