Powerless against the great powers

It is a precarious situation for Iraq. Because he is being pinched by his powerful neighbors Turkey and Iran. Turkey has launched a military intervention in northern Iraq to fight the Turkish-Kurdish terrorist organization PKK there. Shortly before, Iran fired rockets at the northern Iraqi capital of Erbil, ostensibly to take out an Israeli “conspiracy center.” Baghdad is too weak to fight back.

During the most recent Turkish intervention, the Turkish army has deployed combat aircraft, drones, artillery and ground troops since the beginning of the week to destroy PKK supply routes and ammunition dumps in northern Iraq. Ankara has maintained several military bases in northern Iraq for years. According to the government, Turkish troops killed 30 PKK fighters in the first days of the new attack; a Turkish soldier was killed.

Turkish offensives in Iraq come almost every spring

Ankara works closely with the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG). The KRG is fine with the PKK’s influence in northern Iraq being limited. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is certain that politicians in Baghdad also secretly welcome the Turkish advance. He thanked both the KRG and Iraq’s central government for their support – even though Baghdad was officially protesting the invasion.

The Turkish government claims that it was forced to intervene because Iraq is not able to control the PKK. The PKK maintains its headquarters in the Iraqi Kandil Mountains about 100 kilometers south of the Turkish border. There are spring offensives by the Turkish army in Iraq almost every year. They are intended to make it more difficult for the PKK to infiltrate Turkey and supply its Syrian offshoot, the YPG militia.

Turkey has been fighting the PKK for almost 40 years, but Ankara has not yet been able to defeat the terrorist group. In response to the recent invasion, the PKK announced that it would take the war to Turkey. According to the think tank International Crisis Group, it is also looking for proximity to pro-Iranian groups in Iraq.

Iraq is part of the ‘Shia arc’

Iran is even more powerful in Iraq than Turkey. Tehran controls pro-Iranian militias and politicians and is currently trying to prevent anti-Iranian groups from forming a government in Baghdad. Iraq is a regional “springboard” for Iranian foreign policy, as the Gulf International Forum institute recently put it. Iraq is part of the “Shia arc” of Iranian power that stretches through Syria and Hezbollah militia in Lebanon to the Mediterranean Sea.

When the Iranian leadership sees their interests in Iraq threatened, as with the alleged Israeli activities in Erbil, Iraqi sovereignty plays no role for them. Erbil was hit by around a dozen missiles in the latest Iranian attack. The Iranian claim to power in Iraq is also opposed to the Turkish military presence. Tehran will not accept foreign troops in Iraq, the Iranian embassy in Baghdad warned last year.

Turkish and Iranian interests are particularly at odds in the Sinjar region on the Iraqi-Syrian border. PKK troops are active in Sinjar, which is currently part of the Turkish troops’ area of ​​operations, as are pro-Iranian militias. Iraq’s Prime Minister Mustafa al Kadhimi is powerless to watch the rivalry between his neighbors. In a recent phone call to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Kadhimi complained that his country was “a stage for settling foreign scores.”