A recent Column of mine, reproduced below, spoke to the impact the Iranian deal will have on the region including Kurdistan. Today I would like to expand on this in light of the death of 3 year old Aylan Kurdi. I think first off we need to restructure the facts. Aylan and his family are Kurds from Kobane and did leave the village. However they left three years ago to go to Turkey after fleeing the fighting. They had lived in Damascus, then Aleppo, before going to Kobane. What this means is that the start of this tragedy is directly related to the Assad regime and its Iranian supporters. Without Iran’s direct support to Damascus it is likely the regime would have fallen and young Aylan would have been born in a time of peace. It has now become likely that the executive agreement President Barrack Obama presented to the US Congress will be enacted, not by congress whose majority rejects it, not by the people of the United States, whose majority reject it but because 34 Democratic Senators will allow the president to have a sustained veto. The fighting will go on as 34 senators allow the release of billions of dollars and remove the sanctions on the largest exporter of terrorism in the world today. There have been and will be many more Aylan’s, not only in Syria or Turkey but in Iraq, Lebanon and Iran. Unless another becomes this visible most will not be seen and the tragedy will go unnoticed. I repost this as a reminder of what is happening and a warning of what will become.

How will the Iran deal impact Kurdistan?

Posted on NRT English 7/22/15

The recent agreement between Iran and the E3/EU+3 will have long term consequences on the region, including Kurdistan. The aspect of stopping Iran’s march to a nuclear weapon aside, the removal of sanctions will allow an increase in Iranian mischief in the region. The world at large has taken little notice of Iran’s brutal treatment of its Kurdish population, and will be even less concerned once commercial trade is reopened.

The immediate impact to Kurdistan will come from the anticipated $150 billion windfall that will come from the immediate release of sanctions.  Iranian President Hassan Rouhani announced the increase of the budget for the IRGC from $6.5 billion to $9 billion and the agreement removes the IRGC and its commanders from the sanctions list. This will allow the IRGC greater capability to arm and control Shia militias in Iraq, and further reduce Iraqi government control of its internal security.

How does this effect Kurdistan? This strengthening of Iranian influence will have a serious impact on the relationship the KRG has with the government in Baghdad. The KRG budget is busted and Kurds across the region are under increasing pressure from ISIS. The strategy of Iran seems to be to maintain chaos in the region in order to justify its military assistance to Shia militants, such as Hamas and Hezbollah, as well as in Iraq. To this end, it is in Iran’s best interest to keep ISIS a threat to the region, in a defensive position, but not defeated. Kurdish Peshmerga forces have shown a great ability to stop and defeat ISIS fighters but are potentially running short of supplies, with Baghdad under increasing influence of Tehran, resupply for the Peshmerga is doubtful.  European nations have lately filled the gap but some of the bigger donors, such as Germany, will soon be looking to reestablish commercial ties with Iran, which may leverage this desire to reduce support for the Kurds.

Beyond the crisis for the Peshmerga, Iraqi Kurdistan is under increasing internal social and political pressure. With a faltering economy and calls on the current leadership to become more democratic, the road is open for Iran to ferment discord. With an influx of money to one of the political parties and a promise of military aid, Iran could weaken and split Kurdistan while keeping attention on the external threat of ISIS. Turkey would also likely join in with an eye to increased ties to the Iranian energy sector and the increase in natural gas from Iran. If Turkey can benefit economically from the removal of sanctions and see a reduction in Kurdish influence, it would solve two problems at once.

Whether or not Iran keeps to its deal to reduce it capability to produce a nuclear device is years down the road. The impact of sanctions relief however is imminent and for Kurdistan potentially dangerous. If the non-nuclear aspects of the agreement were removed, it would benefit the region and Kurdistan