THE US FOREIGN POLICY TOWARDS THE IRAQI KURDS IN THE MIDDLE EAST AFTER EMERGENCE OF ISIS

Abstract

The Middle East is one of the significant areas in the US foreign policy and its strategic interests in this region. US foreign policy, adopts the principle of the US national security interest in drawing up foreign policy towards countries and this principle is one of the main goals of US foreign policy in the Middle East. The US has three interests: the free flow of Middle Eastern energy from the region, the continued security and well-being of Israel, and the reduction of terrorist and rogue actor threats. The objective of this research is to investigate the US foreign policy toward Iraqi Kurdistan in the Middle East after emergence of ISIS, especially the event in 2014, when ISIS attacked Kurdistan territory, and America did not allow it to enter Erbil. In addition, the research attempted to find out the reasons that made the US do not support the Kurdish referendum and do nothing when the popular crowd ( al-hashd alshaebiu ) loyal to Iran, Iranian Revolutionary Guards and Iraqi army attacked Kirkuk on October 16. Neoclassical Realism will be used as a theoretical framework for this research. This research is trying to highlight Morgenthau's ideas from classical realism and Waltz and Mearsheimer's ideas from neo-realism or structural realism. The study argues that The Kurds do not hold a considerable importance in the US foreign policy, because they inhabit a region which is very important to US foreign policy, and its interests with these states are more significant than the Kurds. Therefore, US foreign policy toward the Kurds was incoherent and ambivalent, due to its dependence on US interests in the region. The study found out that the US foreign policy goals in the Middle East have not changed, but foreign policy has changed to achieve these goals.