Ankara’s ongoing missteps in Iraq may cost it another valuable regional ally. Not only has Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan failed to create and lead a grand Sunni Muslim alliance that could check Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s power, but his policies have undermined essential Turkish interests in Iraq. Baghdad has recently stopped awarding commercial licenses to Turkish companies, Sunni Arabs are turning toward Maliki and the PKK continues to operate from bases in Iraqi Kurdistan. If Turkey wants to keep its borders secure and become a regional energy hub, then it may have to re-think its sectarian-based foreign policy, understand the limits of soft-power politics and more clearly reaffirm its commitment to Iraqi sovereignty.

The deterioration of Ankara-Baghdad relations is not a by-product of the so-called Arab Spring or the Syrian crisis, but a result of Erdogan’s personalized politics and miscalculation of Iraqi and Kurdish nationalism. Indeed, the Turkish premier has created useful partnerships to help secure Ankara’s stakes in Northern Iraq’s energy wealth. With Turkish backing, former rivals Atheel al-Nujaifi, the governor of Mosul Province, which is the heart of Sunni Arab Iraqi nationalism, and Massoud Barzani, president of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) are now discussing ways to cooperate on oil contracts, including the ExxonMobil deal. Erdogan’s Barzani alliance also has helped create a productive Iraqi Kurdish client state and a direct outlet for Turkish oil and gas imports.

Still, Erdogan has overestimated the influence of Turkish soft power and Sunni Islamic identities in Iraq. Rather than form a cohesive Sunni Arab-Kurdish bloc that could advance Turkish interests beyond Erbil, anti-Maliki factions in the government have seen their influence decline. Ayad Allawi and his Iraqiyya collegues have become almost irrelevant to Iraqi politics, while Nujaifi has seen his support base weaken. Nor has the KRG gained greater leverage from fellow Sunni Muslims in Baghdad; after seven years, it still unable to pass a national hydrocarbons law and fully pay its oil companies.

Ankara may have no real interest in a fragmented Iraq, but its Iraqi Kurdish ally does. And as the KRG aggressively pursues its national interests in disputed lands, Turkey has become inadvertently implicated. Ankara has not helped the matter by playing off Baghdad and Erbil, feeding into Iraq’s internal power struggles and encouraging Kurdish maximalist behavior. While stating its interest in Iraqi oil imports through the official state pipeline, Turkey is also bartering Kurdish crude for its own refined products and egging on Kurdish discourse of an independent pipeline. Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davatoglu’s recent unauthorized visit to Kirkuk has only reinforced suspicions by many Arab Iraqis that Ankara is working with the KRG to undermine Iraq’s territorial integrity.