Iraqi–Kurdish conflict

The Iraqi–Kurdish conflict consists of a series of wars, rebellions and disputes by the Kurds against the central authority of Iraq starting in the 20th century shortly after the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in World War I. Some put the marking point of the conflict beginning to the attempt by Mahmud Barzanji to establish an independent Kingdom of Kurdistan, while others relate to the conflict as only the post-1961 insurrection by the Barzanis. Since the US-led invasion of Iraq and the subsequent adoption of federalism and the recognition of the Kurdistan Region (KRI) as a federal entity in the new Iraqi constitution, the number and scope of armed clashes between the central government of Iraq and the Kurds have significantly decreased. In spite of that, however, there are still outstanding issues that continue to cause strife such as the disputed territories of northern Iraq and rights to oil and gas, leading to occasional armed clashes. In September 2023, Masrour Barzani sent a letter to the President of the United States expressing concerns about a possible collapse of the Kurdistan Region and calling for the United States to intervene.

The first chapter of the Iraqi–Kurdish dispute followed the end of World War I and the arrival of British forces. Mahmud Barzanji began secession attempts in 1919 and in 1922 proclaimed the short-lived Kingdom of Kurdistan. Though Mahmud's insurrections were defeated, another Kurdish sheikh, Ahmed Barzani, began to actively oppose the central rule of the Mandatory Iraq during the 1920s. The first of the major Barzani revolts took place in 1931, after Barzani, one of the most prominent Kurdish leaders in Northern Iraq, succeeded in defeating a number of other Kurdish tribes. He ultimately failed and took refuge in Turkey. The next serious Kurdish secession attempt was made by Ahmed Barzani's younger brother Mustafa Barzani in 1943, but that revolt failed as well, resulting in the exiling of Mustafa to Iran, where he participated in an attempt to form the Kurdish Republic of Mahabad.

In 1958, Mustafa Barzani and his fighters returned to Iraq from exile, and an attempt was made to negotiate Kurdish autonomy in the north with the new Iraqi administration of Gen. Qasim. The negotiations ultimately failed and the First Iraqi–Kurdish War erupted on 11 September 1961, lasting until 1970 and inflicting 75,000–105,000 casualties. Despite the attempts to resolve the conflict by providing Kurds with a recognized autonomy in north Iraq (Iraqi Kurdistan), the negotiations failed in 1974, resulting in resumed hostilities known as the Second Iraqi–Kurdish War, which resulted in the collapse of the Kurdish militias and the reconquest of northern Iraq by Iraqi government troops. As a result, Mustafa Barzani and most of the KDP leadership fled to Iran, while PUK gained power in the vacuum, leading an insurgency campaign against the central Iraqi government. Since 1976 PUK and KDP relations quickly deteriorated, reaching the climax in April 1978, when PUK troops suffered a major defeat by KDP, which had the support of Iranian and Iraqi air forces. During this period, the Ba'athist authorities took the opportunity to perform large-scale displacement and colonization projects in North Iraq, aiming to shift demographics and thus destabilize Kurdish power bases.

The conflict re-emerged as part of the Iran–Iraq War, with the Kurdish parties collaborating against Saddam Hussein and KDP also gaining military support by the Islamic Republic of Iran. By 1986 Iraqi leadership grew tired of the strengthening and non-loyal Kurdish entity in north Iraq and began a genocidal campaign, known as Al-Anfal, to oust the Kurdish fighters and take revenge on the Kurdish population—an act often described as the Kurdish genocide, with an estimated 50,000–200,000 casualties. In the aftermath of the Persian Gulf War, a series of uprisings shattered Iraq, but only the Kurds succeeded in achieving a status of unrecognized autonomy within one zone of the Iraqi no-fly zones, established by the US-led coalition. In the mid-1990s the conflict between the KDP and PUK erupted once again, resulting in a bloody civil war, which ended in 1997. Despite mutual recognition after the 2003 Iraq war which ousted Ba'ath rule, relations between Iraqi Kurdistan and the Iraqi central government grew strained between 2011 and 2012 due to power-sharing issues and the export of oil. Since the failed Kurdish independence referendum in 2017, and the ensuing conflict between the central government of Iraq and the KRG, the former has sought to weaken the Kurdistan Region in an attempt to return to the pre-2003 centralised political system.