The Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga: military reform and nation-building in a divided polity

Abstract

During the war against Islamic State from 2014 to 2017 the Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga became important local allies of the United States and its international partners, playing a significant role in the eventual defeat of Islamic State. In 2017, backed by the US and its Western allies, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) agreed plans to reform and modernize the Peshmerga. This article provides an analysis of this reform process. Reform is severely constrained by two problems. First, the continuing soft civil war between Iraqi Kurdistan's two main political parties, the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), within which both parties view their maintenance of independent Peshmerga forces as central to their power and political survival. Second, the heroic-mythic status of the Peshmerga within Iraqi Kurdish society, which makes it difficult to convert the Peshmerga into a "normal" military force. Reform efforts to date have not addressed these issues. Until such time as the deep political divide between the KDP and the PUK is addressed, Peshmerga reform is unlikely to make significant progress -the military cart cannot be put before the political horse.

Kurdistan Regional Government’s Natural Resources Policy Formulation and Implementation Process

“…The Federal, in return, has had economic, political, and legal reactions against the KRG. Despite the historical struggles between the Iraqi governments and the Kurds, most of present economic, political as well as legal issues in the KRG are associated with the implementation of the KRG natural resources policy after the collapse of Baath regime (Aziz & Cottey, 2021).…”

A közeli kelet: Törökország és iraki Kurdisztán kapcsolatának átalakulásai (1991–2017)

“…Érdekes adalékokkal szolgálhatnak még a KR belső (gazdasági, politikai) fejleményeiről szóló elemzések is. (Aziz-Cottey 2021;Badawi 2017;Csiki 2011;Csiki-Etl 2016;Dalar 2016;Danilovich 2014;Demir-Welat 2010;Ertem 2011;Freij 2007;Gunter 1993;Gunter 2008;Gunter 2013;Hama-Connelly 2017;Hassan 2015;Isakhan 2017;Kuruuzum 2018;Mansour 2017;Natali 2010;Natali 2015;Noori 2016;Owtram 2017b;Paasche-Sidaway 2015;Pénzváltó 2015;Rafaat 2013;Rafaat 2018;Ross-Mohammadpur 2016;Rubin 2016;Shareef 2017;Stansfield 2013;Stansfield 2017;Strachota-Lang 2017;Tugdar 2018;Yılmaz-Sevdeen 2019;Zaman 2016) Mindezen elemzések részeként az Ankara és Erbíl közti kapcsolatokban domináns energiapolitikai szempontra vonatkozó adatok is megjelennek. (Demir 2017;Demiryol-Pekşen 2018;Özdemir-Raszewski 2016;Tol 2014) A disszertáció szoros értelemben vett témájával intézményi szinten a legaktívabban a török kormány támogatását élvező SETA (Siyaset, Ekonomi ve Toplum Araştırmaları Vakfı), (Balci-Gürler-Baykal 2016; Balci 2015b; Gürler 2017) a közel-keleti kutatásokra szakosodott ORSAM ...…”