What Explains the Abandonment of Yezidi People by the Kurdish Forces in 2014? Foreign Support or Internal Factors

Abstract

In 2014, the genocide of Yezidi people in Shingal by the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL) attracted the world’s attention and triggered a military intervention by the United States. The Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) has been accused of allowing the genocide to occur because it had been in military and security control of the area, but abandoned the local population to its horrific fate when ISIL attacked. As such, the KDP’s rival parties regard the withdrawal of KDP Peshmerga forces as a betrayal of the Yezidi people that raises troubling questions about the party’s motivations for doing so. This article offers six possible factors that may have contributed to the fall of Shingal: moral hazard based on genocide, moral hazard based on risk-taking on the Kurdistan Region’s capital of Erbil, military preparedness, bureaucratic and partisan obstacles, and lack of strong leadership and morale. The article tests these hypotheses and concludes that moral hazard does not account for the abandonment. Instead, the article argues that Kurdish forces could not defend the town because of a lack of military preparedness, bureaucratic and partisan obstacles, and lack of strong leadership and morale.