The United States' economic and diplomatic pressure on Iran is expected to reach its crescendo in early November with the imposition of oil and gas sanctions. The Iraqi Kurds who were punished by Tehran and snubbed by Washington last year following their ill-conceived referendum for independence are under extensive pressure to choose a side in this international affray. 

“The Kurdish parties are not united and therefore they cannot avoid getting pulled into this rivalry. They will be hit by some sparks from the fire,” Ahmad Haji Rashid, a veteran Kurdish lawmaker in the Iraqi parliament, told Al-Monitor. “What is happening right now in Iraq is a clear war between Iran and America.”

The Kurds who lost much of their influence in Baghdad over misreading international support for their independence referendum last autumn are again struggling in between the pro-Iran and pro-American camps in Baghdad. Haji Rashid, nominated by his party for the position of the second deputy parliamentary speaker, has come under extreme pressure from the head of the pro-Iran Fatah Alliance, Hadi al-Amiri, to withdraw his candidacy in favor of another candidate. Haji Rashid even implied that financial incentives were offered to him to withdraw, but he refused.

Jamal Kocher, a popular and experienced Kurdish politician from the Kurdistan Islamic Union, believes that the Iraqis and the Kurds have little power over their fate in the face of Iranian and American interests. "Who appoints the prime minister of Iraq?” Kocher quipped to Al-Monitor on Sept. 13 in Dahuk before proceeding to answer the question. “Qasim Soleimani comes and gathers the parties from all sides and appoints a government, just like that. Then the American Qasim Soleimani — I mean Brett McGurk — comes and sits down with the Kurds and Iraqis and says that we need to do this and that. Then [Prime Minister Haider al-] Abadi parrots the same line on TV.”