The House measure, tucked into an early version of an annual defense bill, would require the Pentagon to set aside at least a quarter of up to $715 million in military assistance to Iraq for support to Kurdish peshmerga forces and Sunni tribal fighters.
The bill also proposes deeming the peshmerga and certain tribal fighters “a country” so they would be eligible to receive direct U.S. military aid against the Islamic State in the event that Iraq’s central government in Baghdad does not take steps to sufficiently empower them.
The government of Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi was particularly incensed by the use of the word “country,” which goes to the heart of the decades-long dispute over the degree of autonomy enjoyed by Iraq’s Kurdish region. Iraqi Kurds have gained significant political clout since 2003, but they continue to clash at times with Iraq’s central authorities and have threatened to hold a referendum on independence.