Iraq’s Kurdistan Region and US military facilities across Iraq became recurring targets of Iranian missile and drone strikes during the 2026 Iran war, continuing and intensifying a pattern of Iranian-backed attacks on US forces in Iraq that had escalated through 2023, 2024, and 2025. When the US and Israel launched the February 28, 2026 strikes on Iran, the IRGC escalated its strikes on US positions in Iraq significantly, targeting facilities in the Kurdistan Region including Erbil International Airport, several US military bases in the Mosul and Sulaymaniyah areas, and the diplomatic district in Erbil where international missions and business headquarters are concentrated. The strikes caused casualties among both US military personnel and Iraqi civilians and infrastructure in areas surrounding the targeted facilities, generating intense pressure on the Iraqi government to either condemn Iran’s actions – which Baghdad’s Iran-aligned political factions opposed – or condemn the US-Israeli strikes that triggered them – which would risk Iraq’s relationship with the United States and the financial and security assistance it provides.

Iraq’s federal government under Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ Al-Sudani spent the first weeks of the 2026 conflict in a state of near-paralysis, attempting to maintain the careful diplomatic balancing act between Washington and Tehran that Iraqi governments have attempted since the 2003 US invasion reshuffled the country’s political order and created parallel dependencies on both powers. Iraq hosts US forces under a strategic framework agreement that both governments have periodically reviewed, while also hosting Iranian-backed Popular Mobilization Forces that operate outside formal Iraqi state command structures and that Iran used as a regional logistics and intelligence network throughout the 2026 conflict. The strikes on Kurdistan Region targets placed the Kurdistan Regional Government – which has a closer relationship with the United States, Israel, and Western business interests than the federal government in Baghdad – in a particularly acute security situation, with Erbil’s role as a regional commercial hub for foreign oil companies, NGOs, and international businesses severely disrupted by the repeated strikes.

Iraq’s Diplomatic Efforts and Internal Politics

Prime Minister Al-Sudani attempted to position Iraq as a mediator between the warring parties, offering Baghdad as a venue for ceasefire talks and reaching out to both American and Iranian officials through existing diplomatic channels. Iraq has hosted previous rounds of Saudi-Iranian dialogue and has positioned itself as a rare Arab state capable of maintaining functional relationships with both sides of the US-Iran divide, but the scale and intensity of the 2026 conflict made meaningful Iraqi mediation difficult – the conflict moved too rapidly and involved too many direct military stakes for either the US or Iran to prioritize Iraqi diplomatic channels over the direct back-channel communications through Oman and Pakistan that ultimately produced the June 14 MOU. Iraq’s internal political situation was complicated by the response of Iranian-backed Popular Mobilization Forces, some of whom continued attacks on US positions in Iraq through the conflict period, maintaining the pressure that had been building since the 2023-2024 escalation cycle regardless of the federal government’s diplomatic posture. The June 14 MOU reduces the immediate pressure on Iraq by establishing a ceasefire framework, but Iraq’s structural challenge – managing competing Iranian and American demands within a fractured political system – will persist into the post-conflict period and will shape the country’s trajectory for years to come.