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During the war against Islamic State from 2014 to 2017 the Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga became important local allies of the United States and its international partners, playing a significant role in the eventual defeat of Islamic State. In 2017, backed by the US and its Western allies, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) agreed plans to reform and modernize the Peshmerga. This article provides an analysis of this reform process. Reform is severely constrained by two problems. First, the continuing soft civil war between Iraqi Kurdistan's two main political parties, the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), within which both parties view their maintenance of independent Peshmerga forces as central to their power and political survival. Second, the heroic-mythic status of the Peshmerga within Iraqi Kurdish society, which makes it difficult to convert the Peshmerga into a "normal" military force. Reform efforts to date have not addressed these issues. Until such time as the deep political divide between the KDP and the PUK is addressed, Peshmerga reform is unlikely to make significant progress – the military cart cannot be put before the political horse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Northern Part of Iraq and its structures has generated considerable interest in the West in the last thirty years. This paper analyzes the creation of the security structures in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI), highlighting the difficulties effected by their traditional disunity within the context of the historical periods that this article considers – the period from 1991 to 2003, 2003 to 2014, 2014 to 2017 and finally, 2017 to 2020. As for the last of the stages, this article claims that a US´s withdrawal from Iraq might change the strategy followed by the Iraqi Kurds whose identity and political structures are at stake. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Kirkuk issue in the Iraqi Kurdistan state building processes in the recent period of Iraqi history has been analyzed. General scientifi c and special historical methods of research have been used by the author. The conclusions that the general threat to Iraq from the Islamic State has become a factor of the convergence of various political interests and forces for stabilization of the situation and future development have been made by the author. Despite the aspiration of Iraqi Kurds to achieve broad rights and freedoms until full state independence, the separation of Kurdish territories from Iraq and the solving of the Kirkuk issue is unlikely in the near future, because it will not only lead to the fi nal disintegration of Iraq, but it can provoke another regional armed confl ict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The text is exploring, fi rst of all, some central aspects of the history of the Kurdish problem, starting with the fi nal years of the First World War. Then it presents the signifi cant results (at least at military level) of the massive involvement, along the past few years, of the Kurds in Syria and Iraq in the large international effort aimed at containing and defeating the so-called Islamic State. The text is also presenting, with some details, the way in which important strategic actors in the West (USA and Germany, for example) have deliberately boosted the military capabilities of the kurdish Peshmerga units. The fi nal conclusion of the study is that the effectiveness of the Peshmerga troops cannot be ignored, and their successes are clearly boosting the Kurdish bid for independence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper it's s brief presentation of Kurd people. I tried to underline their specific, the bloody and tragic XX century and nowadays, their heroic struggle against the most dangerous face of terrorism - the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIS). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The siege of the northern Syrian town of Kobane was lifted in January 2015. The Kurdish defenders there had triumphed against Islamic State (IS). The conflict then moved on. It moved on, though, with the United States, the United Kingdom, and other Western powers having adopted, almost by default, the Kurds as proxy fighters in this conflict. The Kurds, however, are a divided and fractious nation spread across three states and historically famous for fighting among themselves. In employing the Kurds as proxies against IS, as this article shows, these Western powers must be aware of the unintended consequences that can result. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses the U.S.'s strategy of fighting the terrorist organization the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and the American policy of containment against Iran, including in regard to Iran's supporting the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad in the Syrian Civil War. The author recommends increasing support for Sunnis in Iraq to fight ISIS. An overview of the role of the Kurds in Iraq and Syria in combating ISIS, including the Kurdish peshmerga in Iraq and Syrian Kurdish militant group Popular Protection Units' (Yekîneyên Parastina Gel's, or YPG's) fighting ISIS, is provided.