Counting on the Kurds
Within Iraq and Syria, the U.S.-led campaign against the Islamic State (ISIS) relies heavily on Kurdish Peshmerga as coalition boots on the ground. Since international air strikes commenced in September 2014, the Peshmerga have regained about 25–30 percent of territories lost to ISIS. Territorial gains have also limited ISIS’ access to oil and gas resources, […]Denise Natali writes in Foreign Affairs:
Within Iraq and Syria, the U.S.-led campaign against the Islamic State (ISIS) relies heavily on Kurdish Peshmerga as coalition boots on the ground. Since international air strikes commenced in September 2014, the Peshmerga have regained about 25–30 percent of territories lost to ISIS. Territorial gains have also limited ISIS’ access to oil and gas resources, drying up some of its revenue streams. But the Peshmerga haven’t been a total success story; Peshmerga forces are using coalition air strikes to engineer territorial and demographic changes that are antagonizing Sunni Arabs—the very communities the United States needs on its side to degrade ISIS. Coalition military support to the Kurdish Peshmerga in Syria is also irritating Turkey, a major regional ally, and further hindering a shared regional framework of action.
