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With only days left before the US presidential elections, the commentariat is awash with hot takes on which country wants which candidate to prevail, Democrat Kamala Harris or her Republican rival, Donald Trump. The world’s estimated 35 million-plus Kurds don’t have a state of their own but they, like other nations in the region, strongly feel they have a stake in the outcome. Internally divided as they are, it depends which lot you ask.

More often than not, their opinions are shaped by who they think will be worse for their enemy, rather than beneficial to themselves. Yet throughout history, despite their unremitting spirit of resistance against assorted oppressors, the Kurds have felt they have little agency when it comes to determining their own future.

Inside the United States, their impact on the election is minimal. Estimates of the US ethnic Kurdish population vary from 15,000 to 40,000, with the majority residing in Nashville, Tennessee, and of Iraqi extraction.