Lord Ashcroft KCMG PC is an international   and pollster. For more information on his work, visit lordashcroft.com. Follow him on X/Facebook @LordAshcroft.

 When I arrived in Erbil, the autonomous Kurdistan Region of northern Iraq earlier this week, a column of trucks carrying heavy equipment passed our car as they were leaving the city. Later, I found out that they were part of America’s final effort to withdraw its remaining military capabilities from Iraq.

The Erbil Air Base served as one of the principal hubs for US-led coalition forces in northern Iraq during the anti-ISIS campaign that began in 2014. It supported US troops, aviation, intelligence and surveillance, logistics, and training and advising of the Peshmerga – Kurdistan’s historic armed forces that were developed and modernised during the campaign against ISIS.

Under an agreement reached between Washington and Baghdad in 2024, the US-led coalition’s military mission in Iraq would end by 30 September. The final US forces and equipment departed Erbil Air Base on that date, formally concluding Operation Inherent Resolve inside Iraq.  Meanwhile, Baghdad has committed to bringing weapons held by armed groups under state control with Iraqi government by June 2027.

The leader of Kurdistan Democratic Party and long-standing father figure of Iraqi Kurds, Masoud Barzani, did not believe that the security threat has passed. He feared that Kurdistan could face a resurgence of ISIS similar to that of 2014, but in a very different technological environment in which drones have become ubiquitous weapons of war.

The withdrawal of the Western coalition is leaving Kurdistan more exposed to threats from both ISIS and Iran. While the Peshmerga is a strong force and, following years of US-backed reform, the Kurdistan Regional Government announced in September that the forces historically associated with Kurdistan’s two leading parties – the Kurdistan Democratic Party and Patriotic Union of Kurdistan – had been reorganised under a unified command-and-control structures under the Ministry of Peshmerga Affairs. But the nature of the threat has changed. Drones, missiles and electronic warfare have become central features of conflict across the region. The Peshmerga simply has not had to develop the scale of battlefield experience in these technologies that Ukraine has gained during almost five years of full-scale war.

Since the start of US-Israel war with Iran in February this year, more than 1,000 drones and missiles have struck the Kurdistan region. US Patriot and C-RAM systems deployed in the region provided an important layer of air defence, but they were withdrawn along with American forces.

Iran and Iran-backed militia have justified the attacks by pointing to the presence of American forces and Iranian Kurdish opposition groups in the region. One of these groups – the Kurdistan Freedom Party (PAK) – has bases around Erbil Governorate, which have been targeted by Iranian drones.

Kurdistan’s leaders therefore had little confidence that the US withdrawal would end the attacks. Instead, the prospect of an ISIS resurgence, alongside continued threats from Iran, has intensified Kurdish fears of a broader regional conflict.

Since the outbreak of war with Iran, there have also been reports of substantial reinforcement of Iran’s military presence along its western frontier with Iraqi Kurdistan, including through the deployment of approximately 3,000 members of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps forces. Moreover, there has been a reported substantial increase in smaller, less visible cells of Iranian supported militant groups inside of Iraq.

“Iraq was never handed over to the Iraqi people”, Prime Minister Masrour Barzani said to me about the initial US withdrawal from Iraq in 2011. “It was Iran who filled that space, in everything from the wealth of the country to influence”.

The strained relationship with Baghdad makes the departure of American air-defence systems from Erbil particularly eerie. The KRG does not control Iraq’s national airspace and Prime Minister Barzani has said that the Region cannot independently procure the sophisticated air-defence systems it needs because such purchases fall under federal authority. The KRG Ministry of Peshmerga Affairs has warned that the American withdrawal is not being accompanied by an alternative air-defence arrangements and has placed responsibility for protecting the Region’s airspace on Baghdad.

I couldn’t help but draw parallels with America’s withdrawal from Afghanistan and what followed.

While Kurdistan has historically aspired to independence and sovereignty, the leadership there reiterated to me many times that it must also be pragmatic. Although more than 92% of voters backed independence in the 2017 referendum, the region never formally declared it. Weeks later, Iraqi federal forces invaded the disputed with Kurdistan territories and retook Kirkuk that had been controlled by Kurdish forces, thus sending a clear signal to the KRG’s strive for independence.

Since then, relations with Baghdad have remained strained. Several Kurdish officials stressed to me that the federal government has failed to honour agreed constitutional and budgetary arrangements. The most persistent disputes concern the federal budget shares and control over oil revenues.

“Let us use our own resources to protect ourselves” – Prime Minister Barzani rhetorically pleaded to the international community.

Nonetheless, Kurdistan continues to expand its international leverage and develop ties with its neighbours like Turkey and Syria. Both countries have substantial Kurdish populations and have recently made significant steps towards normalising relations with Kurds.

Turkey has embarked on what it’s called a “peace process” with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in return of disarmament and its effective dissolution. The Turkish Kurds were promised reintegration and a broader political accommodation of the Kurdish question. Turkey is also one of the Region’s most important economic partners with their cross-border annual trade exceeding $10 billion.

In August this year, the long-serving leader of the Syrian Democratic Force Mazloum Abdi was appointed as an adviser to the Syrian president Ahmed al-Sharaa, shortly after announcing the dissolution of the SDF as an independent military force and its integration into Syrian state force. Much of that had been mediated by the President of Kurdistan Nechirvan Barzani whom I also met on this trip. “We have to be pragmatic”, he said to me about Kurdistan securing its interests in the region. “We are hoping that diplomacy will protect us”.

In the world of growing multilateralism when the old international world order is rapidly changing, such geopolitical moves in the region position Kurdistan as an important diplomatic centre for managing transnational Kurdish dynamics. Moreover, with the growing military and geopolitical power of Turkey in NATO and the Middle East, Ankara could become an increasingly important security partner for Kurdistan, especially if Erbil fails to secure enough protection from Baghdad.

All this means, of course, that the historical idea of Kurdistan’s independence – extending beyond the current borders of Kurdistan region of Iraq and encompassing Kurdish-populated areas of Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran – remains distant.

In response to my question about his vision of the Kurdish nation, its long-serving leader Masoud Barzani said to me, that their main priority is recognition of the Kurdish people. “The Kurdish people deserve a state – like the Arabs, Turks or Persians – but only through peaceful means”, he said to me. “The recognition of Kurdish people has to take place, and respect for the aspirations we have.”

I left Erbil on the same morning that the final US troops and military capabilities were being withdrawn. Having seen a remarkable degree of coexistence among ethnic and religious minorities, the staggering development of infrastructure and functioning democratic institutions in an extraordinarily difficult region, I hoped all of this could be preserved. The words of Prime Minister’s Senior Adviser Bayan Sami Abdul Rahman rang especially true – “Kurdistan is the ultimate success story of American state-building”.

Kurds face many of the same challenges confronting nations in today’s geopolitically fragmented world – the declining effectiveness of previously built multinational institutions and the lack of credibility of their main guarantors – principally, the United States and the Western alliance.

However, it is also a moment of opportunity to build one’s own agency. I left Kurdistan with the strong belief that it has all the power, expertise and will to achieve that – and not only survive, but to thrive.