U.S. Must Welcome Kurdish President to U.S. Inauguration

Since President-elect Donald Trump’s historic second election win, Mar-a-Lago has become the “Whitehouse in Waiting”. International leaders visiting him in Palm Beach include Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Argentina’s President Javier Milei, and others with the apparent goal to secure their national interests, concerns, and aspirations for engaging with the renewed America.

Yet to appear there is Nechirvan Barzani, the elected President of semi-autonomous Kurdistan in Northern Iraq, who some say is the most influential Middle-East regional leader from whom the United States could most gain. Following the recent collapse of Syria and against the background of Israel’s entrenched conflicts with Hamas and Hezbollah, Barzani is strategically valuable for several reasons. Barzani is caught between a deeply weakened and retreating Iran and a renewed, inflated Turkey flush with its long bet on Syria.

For Turkey, backing Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, has paid off, not only for HTS, but especially for Turkey. Wasting no time to cement its influence, Turkey’s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan is the first international dignitary of stature to publicly meet with the Islamist rebel group which now governs Damascus and much of Syria. If the Kurds of Syria are to survive, Turkey must be restrained. Barzani’s deep insights, personal influence, and open diplomatic channels with both Turkish diplomats and Turkish intelligence are invaluable to the United States. Simultaneously, Barzani’s influence on sovereign Iran is peerless. No other leader can reason with the increasingly paranoid Iranian regime which now finds itself in an especially brittle moment.

Turkey and Iran are now vital players in the shifting map of the Middle East post-October 7. Barzani’s diplomacy is well-known even in fraught, deeply sectarian Iraq. In the often tense dynamics between the central Iraqi government in Baghdad, led by Iraq Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, and Barzani’s Kurdish Regional Governate, it is Barzani offering counsel and wisdom deconflicting a range of matters domestically for Iraqi Shias, Iraqi Sunnis, Iraqi minorities, and the Iraqi Kurds.

Over 300 Iraqi Sunni and Shia tribesmen met in the capital of Kurdistan at the Erbil Conference to declare their desire to join the Abraham Accords and realize peace with Israel, despite the risks incurred by Iraq’s anti-Israel normalization law. At a time defined by intense current regional conflict, Iran has accused Iraq of hosting Israeli black ops targeting Iran. Such was the conviction of the much-rattled Iran, Iran was driven to strike Iraq, including targeting U.S. Forces.

Traveling recently to Tehran and meeting with the Ayatollah, Barzani reportedly personally deflated the crisis, and convinced Iran to discontinue punitive aerial and drone strikes. On my three trips over the past decade to Iraqi Kurdistan, I met with Kurdish academics, physicians, and psychologists at the University of Duhok, as well as humanitarians. In Lalish, at the shrine at the epicenter of Yazidism, I met with Khurto Hajji Ismail, the Baba Sheikh of the Yazidis, who later passed away in 2020. In Erbil, I met with Hemin Hawrami, Deputy Speaker of the Kurdish Parliament. Throughout my visits to the region, I met with numerous commanders in the famed Kurdish Peshmerga who went to war with, and roundly defeated, ISIS. From here in the U.S., I maintain contact with the Kurdish Diaspora leadership and advisors.

Each time I traveled to Iraqi Kurdistan, I found deep pro-U.S. sentiments and deeply pro-Republican affiliation. Their steadfast alliance has persisted and is one Trump must prioritize and deepen early in his second term. The Kurdish people recall the August 1992 No Fly Zone President George H.W. Bush imposed at the 36th parallel on Iraq, shielding the Kurdish people from Saddam Hussein’s repeated genocides of the Kurds, including with chemical warfare using mustard gas. Yet during the first Trump presidency, to the outrage of even his staunchest Republican supporters, President Trump withdrew U.S. support for the Kurdish forces, enabling Turkey to unleash a violent offensive on them in Northeastern Syria. This led to mass migration from Syria into Iraqi Kurdistan, where I met these refugees fleeing massacres by Turkish forces, anti-Kurdish rebels including ISIS, and others in the oil-rich Northeastern Syrian corridor. Though Trump reversed the decision two months later, the damage was done.

Elected in 2019, Barzani is fluent in Farsi as well as Kurdish and English, so he not only has the language skills but has amassed trust, political capital, and cultural cachet with both Turkish and Iranian Islamist Muslim Majority leaders. These are invaluable assets to U.S. national interests at a time when dialogue between the United States and Iran is at a standstill and markedly more complex with Turkey.

This fraught time demands nuanced diplomatic finesse lest an opportunity to deescalate conflict, and hopefully re-orient both the recalcitrant Iranian Islamist theocracy and emboldened Islamist patron Turkey is not missed. In his pragmatic approach, Barzani recognizes the Kurdish people cannot confront the Turkish or Iranian militaries, nor the Russian superpower to their north.

Even so, under Barzani, the Kurds continue to preserve pluralism – a central ethos for the Kurdish culture, as population movements confirm. The only place Christian populations have increased in the Middle East has been in Iraqi Kurdistan. The Yazidi people, once targeted for genocide by ISIS, are now also returning. Barzani’s government provides representation for minorities, and 30% of all parliamentary seats are mandated for women. Kurdish values are American values.

The U.S. Congress also has a mature bipartisan Kurdish Caucus. Over 46 congressional members are in the caucus founded in 2008 by Joe Wilson (R-SC) and Lincoln David (D-TN). This affords a seasoned and effective voice for both the 75,000 Kurds living in the U.S. and the almost 30 million Kurdish diaspora living in Iraq, Syria, Iran, and Turkey.

With the incoming second Trump administration, the Kurdish vantage will be well-represented by proposed National Security Advisor, Congressman Mike Waltz. He is a former Green Beret who served in Iraq and Afghanistan and is co-chair of the Kurdish Congressional Congress. If confirmed as Secretary of State, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida is also a staunch pro-Kurdish ally. Both politicians will inform newly appointed Middle-East Envoy Steve Witkoff who would be wise to personally engage Barzani in close counsel.

The need to engage Barzani is urgent. Christian humanitarian leader of the Free Burma Rangers, Dave Eubank – in direct contact with me – has currently deployed staff and coordinators in Northeast Syria. He reports that minorities, including Christians, have been slaughtered by ISIS jihadists in schools and hospitals under the cover of Turkish aerial support also targeting these minority populations by air and drone strikes.

American influence must operate within the dynamic, volatile tensions between Turkey’s growing interests in North Syria and waning Iranian influence. Managing these competing spheres of national interests will require Barzani’s nuanced counsel. The inauguration marks the official beginning of his Presidential term and acknowledgement of a new American era. The new administration faces perhaps the most turbulent and conflicted international world order any incoming American president has encountered since World War II. Barzani belongs with the distinguished guests attending the January 20th ceremony. Not only does President Trump need this wisdom, but the United States and its allies do too.

Qanta A. Ahmed MD
Senior Fellow, Independent Women’s Forum
Life Member, Council on Foreign Relations
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