President Donald Trump has spoken with Iraqi Kurdish leaders. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu believes the Kurds can be used to fight against the Iranian government.
Axios reports that Trump spoke with the leaders of the two main Iraqi Kurdish factions, Masoud Barzani and Bafel Talabani, on Sunday. The calls followed the push from Netanyahu.
According to one official who spoke with the outlet, “It is the general view, and certainly Netanyahu’s view, that the Kurds are going to come out of the woodwork … that they’re going to rise up.”
The US and Israel have used the Kurds as proxies in several Middle Eastern countries. The Kurds are an ethnic minority in several countries, including Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey. In Iran, Kurds make up about 10% of the population and are mainly located in the country’s eastern region along the Iraqi border.
Kurdish cooperation with Washington has typically backfired for the ethnic group. After the Gulf War, the George H.W. Bush administration called on minority groups in Iraq to rise up against Saddam Hussein. However, Washington did not provide support and tens of thousands of Kurds were killed.
Following the rise of the Islamic State, Washington backed Syrian and Iraqi Kurdish groups. Earlier this year, Trump withdrew US forces from Eastern Syria, allowing the Syrian government to take over Kurdish territory.
During the protests in Iran earlier this year, Kurdish forces attempted to cross the border from Iraq to Iran, where they were stopped by Iranian forces.
Sources speaking with Axios said that Netanyahu’s “relentless” demands for war with Iran involved a Kurdish uprising. “When he first came over and sat with Trump for hours, you would have thought Netanyahu had it all figured out,” the official explained. “He had the successor planned out. He had the Kurds all figured out: Two sets of Kurdish groups here and there. This many people are going to rise up.”
Some US policy makers believe Netanyahu overstated the number of Kurds willing to fight against the Iranian government.
