U.S. departments must drop the ‘Kurds will be Kurds’ mindset

Michael Rubin | American Enterprise Institute

How the United States Should Understand and Act on the Intra-Iraqi Kurdish Fight

The State, Treasury, and Justice Departments Should Intervene and Cast Aside the Traditional Attitude That ‘Kurds Will Be Kurds’

On August 22, 2025, Patriotic Union of Kurdistan leader Bafel Talabani ordered a U.S.-trained paramilitary force to arrest his cousin, Lahur Sheikh Jangi Talabani. It was the culmination of a years-long struggle between the family members for succession to not only the political apparatus left behind by the death of Jalal Talabani but also his multibillion-dollar business empire.

The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan presented its evidence against its former co-president, Lahur Sheikh Jangi, in court, and it appears legitimate. Lahur discussed an assassination plot via WhatsApp against both Bafel and brother Qubad, the duumvirate that rule the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan’s zone inside Iraqi Kurdistan. That Lahur did so suggests both incompetence and naïveté.

As a former security chief, he should have known that WhatsApp—and even Signal—are not as secure as the general public believes. Certain conversations should occur only in person or via trusted messenger. He was naïve to believe that those egging him on to kill his cousins would not cut him loose should he fail.

This is where the situation gets complicated. Lahur did not act alone. In late August 2025, the Security Investigation Court in Sulaimani issued an arrest warrant for Azhi Amin, the former head of Sulaimani’s Security Council who defected to Erbil.

Azhi Amin’s political defection should not have surprised Bafel and Qubad; he was always a political chameleon, having served with Ansar al-Sunna, the Al Qaeda-linked Islamist group that established itself along the Iran-Iraqi Kurdistan border prior to the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.

After his cousins purged him from the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, Lahur gravitated politically toward their rival, Masrour Barzani, the prime minister of the Kurdistan Regional Government and the eldest son of party leader Massoud Barzani.

To believe Azhi does not work closely with Masrour would be akin to believing a former Central Intelligence Agency chief could defect to Moscow or Beijing without continuing interactions with their intelligence service.

This creates a new angle toward Bafel Talabani’s deployment of the Counter-Terrorism Group in the heart of Sulaimani. If Lahur is in prison and the Talabanis have an arrest warrant out for Azhi, then by extension the investigation should implicate Masrour and Waysi Barzani, because nothing security-wise can occur inside Erbil without Masrour’s permission. Younger brother Waysi acts as Masrour’s muscle until Masrour’s son Areen is old enough to solidify his own succession.

Adding fuel to fire is the fact that Nechirvan Barzani, Masrour’s cousin and chief competitor, was the one who reportedly blew the whistle on the Masrour-Azhi-Lahur conspiracy against Bafel and Qubad. His goal was likely to undercut rival Masrour. He is no fan of Bafel, but the enemy of an enemy is a friend, at least temporarily, in the Machiavellian Kurdish political sphere.

That the Barzani and Talabani families essentially act as rival mafia families is no secret; a generation of American diplomats now shrug this off as just the Kurdish way of doing business. So long as the constant Barzani versus Talabani and intra-Barzani and intra-Talabani fighting does not impact U.S. interests, U.S. officials simply wait for the smoke to clear and work with whomever happens to be on top at any given time.

After all, if all Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and Kurdistan Democratic Party politicians are corrupt, and all the internal fighting is over power and control of the multibillion-dollar oil smuggling operations, some U.S. officials calculate that it does not necessarily matter who is on top.

Zalmay Khalilzad Ex-US ambassador to Iraq — Zalmay Khalilzad, an Afghan-born former U.S. ambassador to Kabul and Iraq, Baghdad, 2006. Photo: AP

Others, more cynically, choose their horse—Massoud, Masrour, Nechirvan, Qubad, Lahur or others—to attach their golden parachute to for enrichment after leaving U.S. government service. Peter Galbraith, Joe Reeder, Jay Garner, Zalmay Khalilzad, Harry Schute, Jr., and Matthew Zais, for example, all began doing business with Kurdish officials after leaving U.S. government service.

The Lahur crisis is different. The problem with the current fight for the United States is three-fold: Bafel used a U.S.-funded, U.S.-equipped counter-terror unit to arrest his cousin, a former U.S. partner. The use of the Counter-Terrorism Group was neither warranted nor necessary, but rather was part of a deliberately violent show that led to multiple deaths and the shutdown of checkpoints into and out of the city.

Whether Lahur, Azhi, Waysi, and Masrour are guilty or not of a plot to assassinate Bafel and Qubad (and whether Bafel and Qubad, likewise, plotted the assassination of Lahur, Azhi, and Masrour), the fact is that Bafel hijacked a U.S.-funded and U.S.-trained group to act as his personal militia.

Making matters worse is the question: How did an elite force of 600 people grow to include over 5,000? There are two possibilities: Either Bafel and Qubad diverted U.S. money, or they are now funding their militia with the proceeds of oil smuggling from Iran.

Finally, there is the issue of citizenship and residence. Masrour acquired a U.S. green card in December 2003. Lahur is a British citizen; indeed, there likely will be a lawsuit in the United Kingdom over the torture to which he has been subjected since his arrest. Qubad has a British passport and reportedly has U.S. residency; his wife and children are U.S. citizens. Each should file U.S. tax returns based on their residency and/or citizenship.

Bafel Talabani with Lahur Talabani and Qubad Talabani — Top PUK leaders and Jalal Talabani’s sons Bafel Talabani (L) and Qubad Talabani (R) with their cousin Lahur Talabani, Sulaimani, Iraqi Kurdistan, 2018. Photo: Bafel’s FB

Looking forward, the State Department, Treasury Department, and Justice Department should intervene in the current case for three reasons and cast aside the State Department Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs’ traditional attitude that “Kurds will be Kurds.”

First, on July 3, 2025, the U.S. Department of the Treasury sanctioned Salim Ahmed Said for running a company that “profited from smuggling Iranian oil disguised as, or blended with, Iraqi oil.” That Bafel appears to be funding a personal militia using such proceeds could make him subject to sanctions as the United States cracks down on Iran’s financial penetration of Iraq.

In terms of human rights abuses and assaults on Iraqi sovereignty, there is little difference between Iran-funded Shi’i militias and Iran-funded Kurdish militias, except that the U.S. cracks down on one and ignores the other. The cynicism and credibility gap that result in such divergent enforcement undercut the credibility of U.S. demands. The U.S. Department of Justice or the Central Intelligence Agency might even demand to polygraph Masrour, Qubad, or others with U.S. residency over their ties to Kurdish oil smuggling and diversions of U.S. funding.

Bafel Jalal Talabani, the President of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, August 2025. Photo: iKurd.net/Talabani’s Press Office/PUK security forces video

Second, the Lahur situation undermines U.S. credibility in other ways. Lahur partnered with the Central Intelligence Agency to save American lives at a time that Bafel helped Iran’s Qods Force target Americans. It was one thing not to react to Lahur’s ouster; to allow an Iranian-funded group to torture a former American partner signals Iran that it is now open season on any Iraqi or Kurd who once helped the United States.

Third is regional stability. As corruption and Barzani greed eviscerated Erbil’s economy and potential, Masrour turned to repression rather than reform. It is a tactic that never works in the long term. Unfortunately, Bafel and Qubad now repeat the pattern in Sulaimani.

Just as President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan used a nonsensical coup plot to launched a near-decade-long crackdown on political opponents, so, too, do Bafel and Qubad now use the Lahur conspiracy to target political opponents who stand in the brothers’ way. Mullah Bakhtiyar, Bafel’s ex-father-in-law, will likely be arrested in coming weeks. Other Patriotic Union of Kurdistan dissidents, including former Iraqi President Barham Salih, could then follow.

The raid on Lahur’s compound lit a slow fuse that, if not extinguished, will lead to an explosion that will decimate U.S. interests, undermine the counter-terror mission, and empower Iranian sanctions-busting at a time when the Trump administration and European states seek to tighten the noose on Tehran.

Michael Rubin is a former Pentagon official whose major research areas are the Middle East, Turkey, Iran and diplomacy. He is author of “Dancing with the Devil: The Perils of Engaging Rogue Regimes” (Encounter, 2014). He is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute AEI. His major research area is the Middle East, with special focus on Iran, Iraq, Turkey, and Kurdish society.

The article first published at aei.org

The opinions are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of iKurd.net or its editors.