The conflict highlights the Kurdistan Region’s vulnerability as a central theater for Iranian retaliation against U.S. interests. Strategic necessity dictates that Washington provide advanced weaponry and air defenses to the Kurds, while simultaneously pressuring Baghdad to end its economic marginalization of Erbil and curb the impunity of state-funded militias.
Iranian attacks on Iraqi Kurdistan have revealed the autonomous region’s air defense vulnerabilities.
During the war between Iran, the United States, and Israel, Iran and its Iraqi Shia militia proxies targeted Iraq’s northern autonomous Kurdistan Region with more than 700 drone and missile strikes, killing at least 17 people and injuring around 100. The attacks targeted a wide range of sites—from US diplomatic and military facilities to energy infrastructure, where American firms are major stakeholders, as well as industrial sites, Kurdish security forces, European troops, Iranian Kurdish opposition groups based in northern Iraq, and even a residence of Kurdish President Nechirvan Barzani.
Fortunately, the bulk of the incoming drones and missiles were intercepted by the United States and allied air defense systems stationed in Erbil. The scale and nature of these attacks not only exposed Kurdistan’s vulnerabilities but also tested the US-Kurdish relationship, underscoring the need to strengthen and deepen this partnership across multiple levels.
The relentless attacks by Iran and the Iraqi Shia armed factions effectively turned Iraqi Kurdistan into a central theater of the conflict. The reason for this was clear: the Kurdistan Region is the only part of Iraq where US troops are stationed and one of the few areas not under Tehran’s firm influence.
Targeting the Kurds appeared to be part of Iran and its allied Iraqi militias’ broader strategy of maximizing disruption and chaos. The aim was to raise the stakes for the United States and its allies by drawing the Kurds into the conflict, especially amid earlier reports of a possible US and Israeli ground operation involving Iranian Kurdish opposition groups (which ultimately did not materialize).
What made this expansion of the war against Kurds particularly attractive, however, was Kurdistan’s vulnerability: with the exception of Erbil, much of the autonomous region lacks air defense systems capable of intercepting drone and missile attacks. This made the Kurds an easier target than US partners in the Gulf and served as a message that Washington could not—or would not—adequately protect its regional allies.
Beyond the broader regional dynamics and Iran’s effort to inflict damage on American allies, the local drivers of these attacks should not be overlooked. While militia factions have also generated anger in Baghdad through attacks on foreign diplomatic missions and Iraqi security forces, in the case of Kurdistan, their actions ultimately strengthen Baghdad’s hand vis-à-vis the Kurds.
Over the past decade, the federal government in Baghdad has sought to recentralize power across multiple domains, pursuing a sustained, multi-pronged pressure campaign against the Kurdistan Region, the country’s only autonomous entity, particularly in the financial and economic realms. Militia attacks directly reinforce this campaign by further destabilizing the Kurdish region, undermining its governability, and increasing its dependence on Baghdad.
The war against Kurds was also a symptom of a deepening crisis inside Iraq stemming from the ambivalent status of Shia armed factions. These groups are part and parcel of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), a state security institution that has evolved into a key vehicle of Iranian influence in Iraq. The militias dominate the PMF in practice, drawing state funding and legal legitimacy under its umbrella while maintaining operational alignment with Iran.
This dual loyalty was starkly exposed when armed factions launched drones and rockets under façade labels such as the Islamic Resistance in Iraq—part of the broader Iran-led “Resistance Axis”—yet claimed casualties from US-Israeli retaliation under the banner of the PMF. This hybrid status as both state-affiliated and externally directed has enabled them to operate with autonomy and impunity that undermines Iraq’s sovereignty and complicates accountability. Over time, the militias have entrenched themselves not only militarily but also politically within the state, gaining influence across governing institutions and weakening those institutions’ ability to act against them.
The Iraqi federal government’s response has done little to address the threat posed by militias that can quickly reemerge in any future confrontation between Iran, the United States, and Israel. While Baghdad has, in at least one case—an attack on French troops in Kurdistan—claimed to have arrested those involved, it has largely failed to hold these factions accountable for hundreds of other attacks across Iraq.
Baghdad has avoided even basic steps, such as clearly attributing responsibility for attacks on its own territory, instead issuing ambiguous statements that reflect a deeper structural problem: the state is either unable or unwilling to assert full control over armed actors within its own security apparatus. Continued state funding, combined with the absence of meaningful accountability, has created a permissive environment that emboldens these groups to act with impunity.
As far as Washington is concerned, this moment should prompt a strategic reassessment. The attacks on Kurdistan should not be seen as isolated incidents but as a deliberate effort to target a long-standing US ally made vulnerable precisely because of its alignment with Washington.
In light of Baghdad’s ineffective response and Washington’s growing frustration, the United States should press the Iraqi government to enforce full accountability on the militias. While Baghdad may have valid reasons to avoid direct military confrontation at this stage, it can still take meaningful steps, including clearly attributing responsibility for attacks, cutting off state funding, and barring its political factions from participating in government.
Washington should also push Baghdad to lift its de facto “embargo and sanctions” campaign against Kurdistan, as recently acknowledged by Ambassador Thomas Barrack, America’s de facto envoy to Iraq. That campaign has compounded the war’s effects on the Kurds, bringing life across the autonomous region to a near standstill.
Amid continued threats from Iran and its Iraqi proxies, if the US-Kurdish relationship is to remain credible and durable, it must be matched by stronger support and taken to its full potential. This includes extending air defense coverage across the entire Kurdistan Region and, over the longer term, lifting restrictions on the provision of air defense systems and advanced weaponry—including enabling the Kurds to procure anti-drone systems—to respond more decisively to attacks on their territory and infrastructure and to protect American business investments there. Without such measures, the current arrangement risks becoming one-sided, exposing the Kurds to retaliation while offering limited security guarantees.
The Kurds should not be seen as a burden but as valuable security and commercial partners. For more than three decades, Iraqi Kurds have maintained a stable and cooperative relationship with the United States, providing a reliable base for US presence and engagement in the region, particularly against transnational jihadi groups such as the Islamic State and Al Qaeda.
The Kurdistan Region, home to 6.5 million people, also offers significant opportunities for US businesses, particularly in strategic sectors such as energy, minerals, and infrastructure development. It is high time for both sides to take this mutually beneficial relationship to the next level and ensure that threats from Iran and its allied militias do not undermine it.