It’s a book long overdue. Kurdish scholar Mohammed Shareef’s “The United States, Iraq and the Kurds: Shock, Awe and Aftermath” provides a thoughtful and carefully-researched account of US Iraq policy, and seeks to place a superpower’s relations with a state (Arab Iraq) and a non-state entity (Iraqi Kurdistan) in context. He succeeds admirably. US relations with the Kurds might seem at first glance incompatible due to the lack of an independent Kurdish state, but Shareef in his book suggests otherwise.
This captivating book looks into the evolution of US foreign policy towards Iraq at the supra-national (global), national (Arab Iraq) and sub-national (Iraqi Kurdistan) levels. The book contends that US policy towards Iraq has two major dimensions: The first is US policy towards Arab Iraq and the second its de facto policy towards Iraqi Kurdistan; both defined by US strategy at the supra-national level.
His first level of analysis is at the supra-national level, addressing US global strategy and its effects on US policy towards Iraq. US global strategy is guided by its Grand Strategy, defined as the overall vision of America’s national security goals and a determination of the most appropriate means to achieve these goals. At this highest level of US foreign policy consideration this book looks at whether there have been any changes in US Grand Strategy in response to changes in the global security order. In the end, it finds that there have indeed been transitions, from a Cold War Grand Strategy to that of the “Liberal Internationalist Grand Strategy” to the Grand Strategy of the “Global War on Terror.”
This captivating book looks into the evolution of US foreign policy towards Iraq at the supra-national (global), national (Arab Iraq) and sub-national (Iraqi Kurdistan) levels. 
Shareef, who is a fellow of the London-based Royal Asiatic Society, also probes into US Iraq policy at the national level using a detailed historical narrative and focusing mostly on Washington’s policy towards Arab Iraq.
The third level of analysis of the book is that of US Iraq policy at the sub-national level, i.e. the superpower’s policy towards Iraq’s Kurds. Shareef contends that while the US does have an Iraq policy, it also has a de facto policy towards Iraq’s Kurds.
In doing so, the author examines three distinct phases: For Arab Iraq, the first phase starts with the overthrow in 1979 of the Shah of Iran and his replacement with a theocratic regime hostile to the US. As for US policy towards the Kurdish liberation movement, however, the book takes the first phase back to the unsuccessful Kurdish attempts to create a relationship with the US in September 1961, when the Kurdish revolt against Baghdad began in earnest. The second phase of US–Iraq relations was triggered by Iraq’s occupation of Kuwait in 1990. As a result of this aggression, Iraq was seen as a hostile and irreconcilable actor in the region neither willing nor capable of acting within the confines of acceptable international behavior. This was a game-changer for the Kurds. The invasion of Kuwait mobilized the international community against Saddam Hussein’s regime and paved the way for the Kurdish uprising against his rule and the subsequent establishment of the autonomous Kurdish government. The third phase of US Iraq policy emerged in the immediate aftermath of the attacks on Washington, D.C. and New York on September 11, 2001. America’s heightened international security fears which resulted from the attacks provided the necessary grounds for a major reassessment in US strategy towards Iraq.
The book’s analysis of US foreign policy towards the Kurds is fascinating for two reasons. It shows that a superpower needs other agents to advance its interests. Also, it shatters the notion, held by Realists, that the international system is state-centric and that international relations are largely restricted to state actors.
Shareef also has a few words for his fellow academics, criticizing the current deficiency in contemporary scholarship towards political non-state entities; an area he argues should be addressed. Kurds were once largely neglected in international relations scholarship, nevertheless their increasing proactivity and presence in the international relations of the Middle East makes this no longer a viable option.
It shows that a superpower needs other agents to advance its interests.
The Kurds in the Middle East were arguably the greatest losers in the aftermath of the Ottoman Empire’s demise in the early 20th century – as they were the largest ethnicity in the region denied a state of their own after WWI. With their fragmentation into sizable minorities among major regional countries -- Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria -- Shareef illustrates at great length the complex nature of US foreign policy towards Iraqi Kurdistan which he eloquently describes as “US Iraq policy at the sub-national level.”
The book is very interesting and important as it covers both dimensions of US Iraq Policy, i.e. Arab Iraq since 1979 and towards the Kurdish liberation movement in Iraq since September 1961, all the way up to and including the Obama administration. The book provides a fascinating insight into the continuity and change in America’s Iraq policy and the consistencies of US interests in Kurdistan, Iraq and the Middle East region. And in what may come as a surprise to many in Iraq and outside, the author contends that US policy towards Iraq is far more consistent than is often assumed.
With respect to US-Kurdish relations, the book focuses on the years from 1961 to 2014. Shareef persuasively demonstrates that US policy towards the Kurds, though consistent, has evolved through four distinct phases during this period, the final stage of which is an overt and official policy towards the Kurdistan Regional Government of Iraq. Interestingly, one of the earliest-documented signs of US interest in Kurds was due to Soviet propaganda toward Kurds. In order to counter the rising appeal of Communism among Kurds, the US embassy in Baghdad put out a weekly Kurdish-langue news bulletin in early the 1950s. That initial interest developed into “contacts” (1961-1971), evolved into a “covert relationship” (1972-1975) then to an “overt relationship” (1991-2004) and finally transformed into an overt “institutionalized relationship” (2005-present) embodied in an official but undeclared US Kurdish policy. The change of US interaction with the Kurds from humanitarian assistance to strategic partnership as a non-state ally and an asset is testimony to the enhanced role of the Kurds and their growing importance in the international relations of the Middle East.
Nevertheless, despite what some might think, the US initially did not get involved in setting up the no-fly zone in Iraqi Kurdistan to provide room for a Kurdish entity there. Rather, it was a message they wanted to send to a defiant Saddam that the US perceived him as a threat to its interests in the region. The emergence of a self-ruled Kurdish entity, as Shareef argues, was more the unintended consequence of US and its allies' actions, not the intention.
Despite what some might think, the US initially did not get involved in setting up the no-fly zone in Iraqi Kurdistan to provide room for a Kurdish entity there.
The book contributes significantly to an emerging area of scholarship, especially so to the American relationship with the Kurdistan Regional Government – “a non-state actor.” It has been touted as original and sheds light on a geopolitically sensitive relationship in a rapidly changing Middle East. In this extensively-researched and well-written book, the author has made tremendous use of declassified governmental archives and numerous interviews conducted with high level American and Kurdish officials. This is a remarkably useful book on a subject that demands attention.
The book is a must-read for all those interested in the complex web of US-Iraq-Kurdish relations, from policy-makers and practitioners in Washington, Baghdad and Erbil, to journalists and US Foreign Policy and Middle East students and scholars.
Besides being a fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society in London, Shareef has worked for the United Nations and is a lecturer in international relations at the University of Sulaimani.
Author: Mohammed Shareef
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