As U.S. troops prepare to leave Iraq and the Trump administration pushes forward with plans to cut off longstanding subsidies to Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga, is a 35-year status quo in Iraqi Kurdistan about to end?
After Secretary of State Henry Kissinger pulled the rug out from beneath the Kurdish rebellion in 1975, Mulla Mustafa Barzani’s deputy, Jalal Talabani, with Syrian backing, decided to split from the Kurdistan Democratic Party to form the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. It was not the Kurdistan Democratic Party’s first fissure, but it was the most consequential.
Talabani’s complaints were valid. Mulla Mustafa Barzani was a tribal leader, and he made the Kurdistan Democratic Party a tribal movement. Mulla Mustafa’s son, Masoud, took over upon his father’s death in 1979 and has maintained the tribal vision. The Talabanis were different, partly because of vision and partly because Jalal did not have the same tribal pedigree.
Mulla Mustafa Barzani’s deputy, Jalal Talabani, with Syrian backing, decided to split from the Kurdistan Democratic Party to form the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan.
Mullah Mahmood Talabani revived Qadiri Sufism in the early 19th century, and his successors operated from the Talabani taqiya in Kirkuk. But Jalal Talabani was not his direct descendent; at best, he was a distant cousin. Religious authority passed through the lineage of Sheikh Riza Talabani, while Jalal’s claim to legitimacy was more political. Jalal instead sought to promote a more ideological, progressive, and modern vision for the Kurdish movement.
The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, for example, joined the Socialist International organization. For decades after its founding, the chief recruiting point for the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan was that it rested upon a vision instead of nepotism. Within Iraqi Kurdistan itself, a brief attempt to coexist under a power-sharing plan—where each principal of one party had a deputy from the other—collapsed against the backdrop of customs revenue disputes. More than 5,000 Kurdish peshmerga died in the 1994–1997 civil war, and the Kurdish parties forced the displacement of tens of thousands more as Barzani’s side expelled Talabani supporters and vice versa.
While Kurds regale visitors with mythology about the bravery and brilliance of peshmerga and their fight against Saddam Hussein’s regime, the Kurdish fighters have become little more than political militias, different only in sect and leadership from the hashd al-Shaabi Shi‘i militias. Kurds today know their peshmerga more as businessmen and recipients of party patronage than as a vanguard of a national movement.
In recent decades, the purity of Talabani’s vision has eroded. As the U.S. invasion of Iraq loomed, Talabani promoted his sons, surreptitiously at first, and then more overtly. The nepotistic turn fractured Talabani’s own party as former Talabani deputy Nawshirwan Mostafa formed the offshoot Gorran Movement to preserve a more ideological political option, though he, too, betrayed this at the end of his life.
Talabani suffered a massive stroke in December 2012 and died just under five years later. During this period of incapacitation, his wife, Hero Ibrahim Ahmed, maneuvered her two sons into increasing positions of power, while their cousin Lahur also rose through the ranks. In 2020, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan instituted a co-chairmanship, with Lahur and Jalal’s eldest son Bafil taking the helm. Second son Qubad worked behind the scenes as the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan’s deputy to Kurdistan Democratic Party leader Masoud Barzani’s eldest son Masrour.
In January 2022, Bafil led what was, in effect, an internal coup, forcing the ouster of Lahur and assuming leadership of the party, although Qubad ruled with him in an effective duumvirate. When Lahur refused hints to go into exile, Bafil sent U.S.-trained forces to arrest him, and Bafil killed several of his bodyguards and burned his compound down in the process.
Meanwhile, similar generational transitions and infighting occurred on the Barzani side, especially as Masoud Barzani pulled back from daily control. First, his eldest Masrour competed for power with first cousin Nechirvan. More recently, Masrour has pushed his own brothers aside to make way for Areen, his eldest and Mulla Mustafa’s great-grandson.
The Barzanis, largely for reasons of geography, have been more affluent. The Kurdistan Democratic Party controls the entirety of Iraqi Kurdistan’s border with Turkey, and key border crossings into Iran and Syria. The Talabanis control only the region around the Iranian border. In addition, the Barzanis have been able to siphon off more money through their control of ministries. While both Kurdish parties complain about the pace and amount of Baghdad money transfers, more money passed through the Kurdistan Democratic Party.
The Kurdistan Democratic Party’s closer ties with Turkey also give the Barzani family greater diplomatic support than the Talabanis have. The Talabanis’ ability to smuggle oil from Iran may pad their bank accounts, but it does not do them any diplomatic favors in the West.
Both parties’ peshmerga exaggerated their assistance to the United States, especially in the wake of the rise of the Islamic State. The cowardice of some Barzani peshmerga enabled the Islamic State to capture entire Yezidi communities. The Pentagon rushed supplies to Erbil, but Masoud warehoused most of them rather than use them at the front. Ultimately, the hashd al-Shaabi turned the tide of battle against the Islamic State, with the peshmerga mostly playing defense. While the Islamic State is a fading memory for many Kurds, Barzani’s qualitative and quantitative military edge persists.
The withdrawal of American forces and the end to U.S. peshmerga salary subsidies will set off a chain reaction that could lead the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan into collapse. Absent salaries, parties cannot dispense patronage, creating a dynamic of shrinking resources and military power. Both the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and the Kurdistan Democratic Party will suffer, but the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan’s treasury will empty first. Even if the Barzanis suffer recession, their Turkish allies will likely provide a lifeline, just as they do to President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud in Somalia. The Talabanis cannot count on similar Iranian support for two reasons: First, the Iranians are bankrupt themselves and second, what resources they can expend, they will more likely offer to the hashd al-Shaabi.
The Talabanis may instead put their hopes on Baghdad—indeed, they have always played the Iraqi political game better—but, even this may not be enough, especially if Masoud, Masrour, and Areen Barzani sense an opportunity for a knock-out blow.
What is tragic is that the Talabanis will not be able to count on popular support. With Qubad choosing a visit to Cannes over an important conference in Washington this past spring, and a younger generation exacerbated by the duumvirate’s antics and corruption, many people in their home base of Sulaymani would be happy to see the Talabani brothers wither. They liked Jalal, but loyalty did not transcend generations.
Just as with Lahur, when the end to power comes, it might be quick and violent. Bafil and Qubad increasingly do not control that timeline; Masoud and Masrour Barzani and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan do.
While Tehran traditionally has supported the Talabanis as a buffer, the Iranian leadership has solid ties to Nechirvan Barzani and increasingly cordial ties to Masrour.
What could come next? Both Bafil and Qubad take vacations. In all likelihood, they may depart and simply not be able to come back. Turkey has blocked Sulaymani’s airspace before and both Baghdad and Erbil may follow suit. While Tehran traditionally has supported the Talabanis as a buffer, the Iranian leadership has solid ties to Nechirvan Barzani and increasingly cordial ties to Masrour, as well, due to some shared commercial interests. Qubad’s wife is American and the two have property in suburban Washington; both Qubad and Bafil could likewise end up in London.
What comes next for Sulaymani, meanwhile, will be equally important. The engine for such disappointment in the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, and later Gorran, rests in the culture of Sulaymani. Erbil is very conservative; Sulaymani is much more progressive and tolerant. The irony of Kurdistan has always been that, while the Barzanis talked about making their region a new Dubai, the Dubai mindset comes far easier to Sulaymani.
If the Talabanis leave, Kurds must hope that Masrour and Areen recognize that Sulaymani cannot be forced at gunpoint to become a new Erbil. They need to recognize, cultivate, and even protect the Sulaymani exception, lest they sow a new generation of discord in Sulaymani, one that could blow back into Erbil. Sulaymani needs a light touch, and politicians who will enable its citizens’ potential rather than suffocate them.
