BARCELONA, Spain – The center of gravity in the war in Iraq has shifted from Baghdad to Erbil, where European leaders have poured in one after the other to get behind Kurdistan’s war against the armies of the Islamic State (IS/formerly ISIS).
Just in the last four days Kurdish leaders have held crisis talks in Erbil with Italy’s Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, Sweden’s Foreign Minister Carl Bildt, the European Union’s Commissioner for Humanitarian Aid Kristalina Georgieva, a number of European Union officials and MPs, as well as European ambassadors.
This is because, with the Iraqi armed forces in disarray after a rout by the militants in June, the Peshmerga remain the only viable force in the country capable of standing up to the jihadists.
And, while a government in Baghdad is still not fully in place months after elections, the autonomous Kurds have a working government and parliament.
The visits by foreign dignitaries – including US Secretary of State John Kerry in June -- underscore Western concern about the threat posed by the Islamic State regionally, and the repercussions in their own countries. After all, most of the IS fighters are reportedly foreign, many of them European citizens.
The speaker of Kurdistan’s parliament, Yousif Muhammad, warned foreign diplomats in Erbil this month that: “This war isn’t a threat only to the Kurdistan Region, but it is a threat to the security of the whole region and the world.”
“The ISIS is a new form of violence that knows no boundaries,” he said.
The visits by Western officials to Erbil, and arms supplies that have been on the rise, also underscore the success of Kurdish diplomacy.
The Kurds were able to convince the Americans to come in with air strikes against the IS, while outgoing Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki failed even to have himself fully heard by US officials.
Kurdish President Massoud Barzani and Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani have been cultivating European ties, with frequent visits abroad that were often questioned by opposition politicians back home.
With European military support swelling for the Kurds, Kurdistan’s top leaders feel vindicated in their early push to cultivate good ties with top European leaders, especially in Italy, France, Britain and The Vatican.
It was France that played a major role in urging the international community and European countries to support Kurdistan militarily against the jihadists, while providing assistance for the many displaced.
European military support for the Kurds has continued to swell, with Germany, Britain, Italy and Albania this week announcing arms supplies to Peshmerga forces, and Canada offering logistical support.
In an interview with Le Monde, French President Francois Hollande said that Paris wants to bring together Arab states, Iran and the main world powers to coordinate a global strategy against IS.
The militants already control large swathes of Iraq and Syria, where they have been executing non-Sunni Muslims and minorities, and have driven up to 1.5 million people.
Pope Francis, the head of the Catholic Church, has also expressed his desire to travel to Kurdistan. Earlier this year, President Barzani visited the Pope to discuss the plight of Christians threatened by IS in Iraq.
Last week, Pope Francis sent his personal envoy, Cardinal Fernando Filoni, to Kurdistan with an undisclosed amount of cash to help Christian refugees.
Kurdistan has become a safe haven for hundreds of thousands displaced in Syria and from their homes in other parts of Iraq. The IS has especially gone after non-Muslim minorities like the Yezidis and Christians, who have flooded in large numbers into the Kurdistan Region.
The international spotlight on Kurdistan coincides with a growing realization among Western leaders that, while it is the Kurds that are locked in the fiercest fighting with IS, the Islamic armies are a global threat.
The group has declared a Caliphate in Iraq and Syria and has threatened to expand its war to the world.
Masrour Barzani, head of the Kurdistan Region’s National Security Council, said last month that the West has only this choice over the Islamic State: “either they can come and face them here, or they can wait for them to go back to their own countries and face terrorism on their doorsteps."
After the world saw the gruesome murder of US journalist James Foley in an IS video this week, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said: “Today it is Iraq, but the caliphate is the entire region, and beyond it is obviously Europe."
The repercussions of the war in the Middle East are already felt much farther away.
Earlier this month, IS sympathizers assaulted a group of German Yezidis in the German city of Herford. The attack renewed a debate in the German media about potential terrorist threats.
Also this month, Spain detained a 14-year-old as she was trying to cross the border into Morocco. She confessed she was en route to Iraq to join the IS, together with another 19-year-old girl who was arrested with her.
According to a counter-terrorism official quoted by the Los Angeles Times, as many as 10,000 foreign fighters are believed to be fighting in Syria and Iraq, and 3,000 of them hold European or other Western passports.
Although the war has accelerated the global importance of the Kurdistan Region, Erbil had been growing both economically and diplomatically even before the conflict.
Many Western and other countries have consulates in Erbil, foreign oil companies and banks have offices there and some of the world’s top airlines have been flying scheduled flights into the Kurdish capital for more than two years.
