Publication Details
Abstract
Objective: The aim of this research is to address the political, military and intelligence role of Kurdish forces on U.S.-led strategy to dismantle the Iraqi regime in 2003 and follow what results came out for the place occupied by Kurds and Kurdistan Region until 2005. Method: The research examines the role of Peshmerga from logics, intelligence-gathering, and military operations towards Kirkuk and Mosul to the postwar institutional transition from a wartime cooperation in alliance among Kurdish political actors to a long-term partnership built around these actors within the Governing Council and its constitutional process. Results: It argues that U.S.-Kurdish cooperation in the war should not be seen as a stopgap battlefield arrangement which had warmer relations between Washington and Ankara merely reintroduced but rather as the product of an ongoing political-security process that has made Iraqi Kurdistan, particularly following Washington's difficulties with Turkey, one of three vital geographic-political-military bases constituting the Northern front. The conclusion is that, by participating in the 2003 war, Kurds secured a place at the post Saddam table which in forming regional institutions and Kurdish co-ordination enabled them to obtain constitutional recognition of federalism (and of Kurdistan Region) in 2005. Novelty: The research examines the role of Peshmerga from logics, intelligence-gathering, and military operations towards Kirkuk and Mosul to the postwar institutional transition from a wartime cooperation in alliance among Kurdish political actors to a long-term partnership built around these actors within the Governing Council and its constitutional process.