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How Iraqi Kurds learned to play Washington’s lobbying game
09.05.2026
By Winthrop Rodgers*
Source:https://theamargi.com/posts/how-iraqi-kurds-learned-to-play-washingtons-lobbying-game
The United States is an indispensable partner for Iraq’s Kurdistan Region. But it is not a one-way street.
Erbil must also be able to convince Washington of its value, that the Kurdistan Region can play a positive security and political role in a chaotic region and is a stable and profitable place to do business. In doing so, it has to stand out among the clamor of domestic and foreign voices demanding attention, money, and support from the White House and Capitol Hill. It must seize every advantage getting its message out.
To do this, various Kurdish forces have played that most Washington of games and hired lobbyists.
These well-connected individuals, law firms, and strategic communications outfits use their familiarity with government officials and access to the levers of power to advocate for legislation and executive action, shape perceptions among decisionmakers, and respond to moves by competing interests on behalf of their clients. There is a major opportunity cost for a robust operation to influence Washington powerbrokers.
To their credit, Kurdish leaders have recognized this and poured resources into that effort.
“The Kurds have understood the value of keeping United States engaged…and seeing the value of partnership with the Kurds in the region,” a Kurdish source who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss this sensitive subject.
“Over the years, this partnership grew because it demonstrated value and served the interest of both sides,” they added.
Since 2008, the Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) diplomatic office in Washington, known as KRG USA, has received approximately $40 million from Erbil, according to publicly available documents. A portion of this was then spent on lobbyists, lawyers, and communications specialists, with many firms receiving around $20,000 per month for their work.
“This is not a sovereign country, but it has a lot of autonomy, and it has interests that sometimes contrast with Baghdad and elsewhere. They feel that they need to have a very strong voice in Washington. Having longstanding lobbying relationships strengthens that voice,” said a source in Washington with knowledge of Kurdish lobbying.
Yet for many people, this seems like an opaque process taking place in a far-away capital in a very different political context. If the stakes are clear, the details of the process can be hard to see.
The Amargi has set out to investigate Iraqi Kurdish lobbying in Washington in order to explain in the public interest how it works, who the players are, and what it costs. It also hopes to show where Kurdish lobbying efforts are succeeding and where they are failing.
To report this piece, The Amargi relied on publicly available disclosures mandated under US law, known as the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA).
Originally passed in 1938 as a way to combat Nazi propaganda, FARA mandates that all those who act “at the order, request, or under the direction or control of a foreign principal” register this interest with the Department of Justice (DOJ) and file regular disclosures. These include contracts and financial terms between foreign principals like the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and lobbying firms, descriptions of events and conferences, and records of communications with government officials, media outlets, businesses, and civil society.
However, these disclosures provide an incomplete picture. Some registrants are more forthcoming about their activities and regular in their filings than others. Moreover, there are numerous other informal ways to influence Washington that do not appear on FARA disclosures.
To flesh out the picture and fill in some of these blank spaces, The Amargi also spoke to a range of sources in Washington and the Kurdistan Region from across the political spectrum with knowledge of Iraqi Kurdish foreign policy and lobbying operations. They were granted anonymity to discuss sensitive issues.
What emerges is a picture that reflects the politics and balance of power back in the Kurdistan Region, as much as the foreign policy of the US.
For the first twenty years of this century, the Kurdistan Region punched above its weight in Washington, with the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) working together to show a united front to their most important foreign partner. The Kurdistan Region mattered and was ready to work with the US — and Washington saw that.
These days, the Middle East is in flux. Its geopolitical structure is changing and what was built in the post-9/11 era is shifting amid the rise of the Gulf monarchies, increasing Israeli bellicosity, the growth of Chinese influence, and fluctuating US attention. The International Coalition that fought Islamic State (ISIS) for the last twelve years is ending its mandate. A new period of conflict between the US and Iran has arisen under the second Trump administration, but the ripple effects of the war remain unclear. How the Kurdistan Region fits into these new dynamics and how it continues to retain its importance is a major question.
The Kurdistan Region has also changed in the intervening years. Cooperation between the KDP and the PUK has all but collapsed. The parties seem bent on pursuing separate strategies and agendas. As a result, cracks are beginning to appear in how they present themselves to Washington. In fact, the discourse has grown rather nasty.
On April 17, PUK leader Bafel Talabani went on the television program Piers Morgan Uncensored, which is broadcast on the Fox Nation channel in the US, to discuss accusations made by US President Donald Trump that the Kurds had stolen weapons meant for transfer to protesters in Iran, which all Kurdish groups have denied.
“Kurdistan is a tale of two cities. We’re kind of a country, but not a country. We have a government that’s not really a government… I can’t speak for the other side,” Talabani said, in an apparent reference to the KDP. “I’m sure that those words didn’t come out of nowhere, I think it’s absolutely shameful.”
“I presume there will be [repercussions],” he added.
KRG Spokesperson Peshawa Hawramani condemned Talabani’s remarks without naming him. “The leader of this party has no legal or official standing to speak on behalf of formal government institutions,” he added.
On May 1, Rahim Rashidi, a reporter for KDP-affiliated Kurdistan 24, participated in a press conference with President Donald Trump on the White House lawn. Without citing sources, Rashidi declared that the weapons were in Sulaymaniyah and asked him to confirm this in an apparent attempt to implicate the PUK. “As you said, they will pay a big price,” he added.
Trump ignored the loaded premise of the question and grumbled: “I’m not happy with what happened with the Kurds.”
This is also appearing at an institutional level, including how the parties approach formal lobbying.
Last year, the PUK went outside the KRG USA and hired its own Washington lobbyist for the first time in 34 years. In doing so, it signaled that its confidence in the ability of the KRG’s shared institutions to represent nonpartisan interests no longer exists. For some, it represents a troubling development.
“Kurdistan’s lobbying efforts have been hugely undermined by the fragmentation of politics, and that part the politicization of the lobby… Sometimes they lobby against each other as well. So, we have paid the price, and they both are equally [accountable] in this kind of in this issue,” a Kurdish source said.
“If they had been focused on better cooperation, better governance, better collaboration between them, even the allies would have been more receptive to them and lobbying in America would have been easier and more coordinated,” they added.
GETTING A FOOTHOLD
Iraqi Kurds have maintained a presence in Washington for decades, building up their presence over time as ties deepened and geopolitical events brough the US and Kurdistan closer together.
“Historically, we’ve been through difficult phases where we were on the wrong side of the United States and or [when] the United States did not really pay attention to minorities in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. So, the Kurds were always victims of efforts that against people who were supported by the United States,” a Kurdish source explained.
The KDP first appears in the FARA documentation in 1987, when Muhyeddin Rahim Abdulla registered as its representative in the US. The PUK got in the game in 1992, when Barham Salih signed a contract on its behalf with Commonwealth Consulting Corporation, a now-defunct PR entity, for $10,000 per month.
By the early 2000s, however, it was the KDP that had the more robust presence. In 1997, Nijyar Shemdin registered as the KDP’s representative in Washington. According to FARA records, the party spent a total of $999,530 on him as a “US Policy Consultant” between his registration and the end of 2003 when his tenure ended. These were heady days when the George W. Bush administration launched the War on Terror and the invasion of Iraq to depose Saddam Hussein in Iraq, in which the Kurds played a major role.
In June 2004, the KDP hired its first outside lobbyist, Barbour Griffith & Rogers, which is now known as BGR Group. The contract, which was signed on behalf of the KDP by Farhad Barzani, agreed to pay the firm $29,166.67 per month for lobbying services that “include providing strategic counsel and tactical planning on legislative, regulatory, and political matters before the US Government.”
This period represented an important inflection point politically in the Kurdistan Region. In 2006, the KDP and the PUK signed a strategic agreement that institutionalized the post-Ba’athist power sharing agreement between the two parties. It was the basis for shared government institutions, including those responsible for carrying out the KRG’s foreign policy goals.
It was also the beginning of the Kurdistan Region’s ascendence as the “Other Iraq,” a sales pitch to American investors that they could do business in Erbil while Baghdad fell deeper into civil war. This would last until the mid-2010s when the messaging shifted to the war against Islamic State (ISIS) and the investor shine dulled as a result of the Kurdistan Region’s financial crisis, through the basic tenants of this strategy remain at the heart of Erbil’s current promotion campaign in Washington.
Qubad Talabani, the younger son of PUK leader Jalal Talabani, was appointed as the first head of the new KRG USA office. Its FARA disclosures from that period outline five goals for the office: establishing a grassroots lobby for Kurdish interests in the US, promoting educational and cultural links, promoting Kurdish-American business relationships, widening the KRG’s diplomatic network, and establishing a Kurdish Congressional Caucus.
The Amargi reached out to Qubad Talabani for an interview, but never received a reply.
Firms like BGR were helpful in guiding those efforts. According to a Kurdish source, the Republican-leaning firm is the KRG’s “go-to” lobby shop for Congress, with particularly good connections with the defense, intelligence, and foreign relations committees. These reportedly proved useful in securing Congressional appropriations for Peshmerga stipends and military equipment during the ISIS war.
The KDP remained the foreign principal for BGR until 2006, when the contract officially transferred to KRG USA. “We have had a long-term relationship with the firm,” Talabani told the New York Times in 2007 about the lobbying activities for BGR by former Bush administration official Robert D. Blackwill. In retrospect, this comment was an understatement, with the relationship persisting for 22 years and counting.
In total, Erbil has spent more than $10 million on lobbying fees for BGR since 2004, according to FARA Semi-Annual Reports to Congress and an estimate based on its current disclosed contract of $20,000 per month, though the exact total is not clear due to incomplete data.
BGR’s work extends beyond the security sphere and into all matters that the KRG feels are important. Its most recent KRG filings relate to KRG Prime Minister Masrour Barzani’s visit to Washington in May 2025. During the visit, Barzani announced several new oil and gas deals with US-based energy companies.
BGR is hardly the only firm that the KRG has retained to advance its interests in Washington.
It also has a longstanding relationship with Greenberg Traurig, paying it $3.9 million between 2007 and 2021 for legal and lobbying services. Its current contract is worth $20,000 per month.
According to one Kurdish source, the law firm acts as a “fixer” for the KRG in Washington. The law firm has also assisted with legal cases involving KRG Prime Minister Masrour Barzani, including those filed in recent years by the Kurdistan Victims’ Fund and Shnyar Anwar.
Over time, the initial goals of the KRG USA office have largely been met, in part due to the efforts of the KRG’s investment in lobbying and PR. There is an active and engaged Kurdish-American community that has helped facilitate cultural links like the Nashville-Erbil Sister City agreement and a friendship proclamation between Zakho and Moorhead, Minnesota. The US-Kurdistan Business Council (USKBC) was established in 2012 to help facilitate the entry of US companies into the Kurdistan Region with support from the US Consulate General in Erbil. A trade delegation visitedErbil as recently as November 2025 under those auspices.
A Kurdish American Caucus was formed in 2008, though this informal grouping has not been visibly active during this current legislative term as several important members have left Congress, including former co-chair Michael Waltz. However, legislation like the Save The Kurds Act was introduced on a bipartisan basis this session. While the bill has aroused much discussion and brought some attention to Kurdish issues, it has not yet passed the Senate and does not appear likely to move beyond the committee stage. Nevertheless, Congressional support for the Kurdistan Region remains strong, according to several sources.
There have been serious setbacks as well, sometimes coming at the most critical moments. The KRG’s inability to convince the first Trump administration to back the 2017 independence referendum stands out in particular. Erbil’s inability to secure air defenses from the US is a relevant issue given the ongoing attacks by Iran and Iraqi militias and clearly causes a great deal of frustration for the KRG’s leadership.
These and other examples suggest that Erbil sometimes misreads signals from Washington and overstates its importance in regional affairs, with the US prioritizing other interests.
No amount of lobbying can fix that: that understanding must come from Kurdistan before anywhere else. It is a hard lesson that ought to inform Erbil’s response to the current Iran-US war.
Editor’s note: This is the first in a three-part investigation.
*Winthrop Rodgers is a journalist who focuses on politics, human rights, political economy, and the environment in Iraq’s Kurdistan Region. He also serves as a Chatham House associate fellow.
09.05.2026
By Winthrop Rodgers*
Source:https://theamargi.com/posts/how-
The United States is an indispensable partner for Iraq’s Kurdistan Region. But it is not a one-
Erbil must also be able to convince Washington of its value, that the Kurdistan Region can play a positive security and political role in a chaotic region and is a stable and profitable place to do business. In doing so, it has to stand out among the clamor of domestic and foreign voices demanding attention, money, and support from the White House and Capitol Hill. It must seize every advantage getting its message out.
To do this, various Kurdish forces have played that most Washington of games and hired lobbyists.
These well-
To their credit, Kurdish leaders have recognized this and poured resources into that effort.
“The Kurds have understood the value of keeping United States engaged…and seeing the value of partnership with the Kurds in the region,” a Kurdish source who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss this sensitive subject.
“Over the years, this partnership grew because it demonstrated value and served the interest of both sides,” they added.
Since 2008, the Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) diplomatic office in Washington, known as KRG USA, has received approximately $40 million from Erbil, according to publicly available documents. A portion of this was then spent on lobbyists, lawyers, and communications specialists, with many firms receiving around $20,000 per month for their work.
“This is not a sovereign country, but it has a lot of autonomy, and it has interests that sometimes contrast with Baghdad and elsewhere. They feel that they need to have a very strong voice in Washington. Having longstanding lobbying relationships strengthens that voice,” said a source in Washington with knowledge of Kurdish lobbying.
Yet for many people, this seems like an opaque process taking place in a far-
The Amargi has set out to investigate Iraqi Kurdish lobbying in Washington in order to explain in the public interest how it works, who the players are, and what it costs. It also hopes to show where Kurdish lobbying efforts are succeeding and where they are failing.
To report this piece, The Amargi relied on publicly available disclosures mandated under US law, known as the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA).
Originally passed in 1938 as a way to combat Nazi propaganda, FARA mandates that all those who act “at the order, request, or under the direction or control of a foreign principal” register this interest with the Department of Justice (DOJ) and file regular disclosures. These include contracts and financial terms between foreign principals like the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and lobbying firms, descriptions of events and conferences, and records of communications with government officials, media outlets, businesses, and civil society.
However, these disclosures provide an incomplete picture. Some registrants are more forthcoming about their activities and regular in their filings than others. Moreover, there are numerous other informal ways to influence Washington that do not appear on FARA disclosures.
To flesh out the picture and fill in some of these blank spaces, The Amargi also spoke to a range of sources in Washington and the Kurdistan Region from across the political spectrum with knowledge of Iraqi Kurdish foreign policy and lobbying operations. They were granted anonymity to discuss sensitive issues.
What emerges is a picture that reflects the politics and balance of power back in the Kurdistan Region, as much as the foreign policy of the US.
For the first twenty years of this century, the Kurdistan Region punched above its weight in Washington, with the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) working together to show a united front to their most important foreign partner. The Kurdistan Region mattered and was ready to work with the US — and Washington saw that.
These days, the Middle East is in flux. Its geopolitical structure is changing and what was built in the post-
The Kurdistan Region has also changed in the intervening years. Cooperation between the KDP and the PUK has all but collapsed. The parties seem bent on pursuing separate strategies and agendas. As a result, cracks are beginning to appear in how they present themselves to Washington. In fact, the discourse has grown rather nasty.
On April 17, PUK leader Bafel Talabani went on the television program Piers Morgan Uncensored, which is broadcast on the Fox Nation channel in the US, to discuss accusations made by US President Donald Trump that the Kurds had stolen weapons meant for transfer to protesters in Iran, which all Kurdish groups have denied.
“Kurdistan is a tale of two cities. We’re kind of a country, but not a country. We have a government that’s not really a government… I can’t speak for the other side,” Talabani said, in an apparent reference to the KDP. “I’m sure that those words didn’t come out of nowhere, I think it’s absolutely shameful.”
“I presume there will be [repercussions],” he added.
KRG Spokesperson Peshawa Hawramani condemned Talabani’s remarks without naming him. “The leader of this party has no legal or official standing to speak on behalf of formal government institutions,” he added.
On May 1, Rahim Rashidi, a reporter for KDP-
Trump ignored the loaded premise of the question and grumbled: “I’m not happy with what happened with the Kurds.”
This is also appearing at an institutional level, including how the parties approach formal lobbying.
Last year, the PUK went outside the KRG USA and hired its own Washington lobbyist for the first time in 34 years. In doing so, it signaled that its confidence in the ability of the KRG’s shared institutions to represent nonpartisan interests no longer exists. For some, it represents a troubling development.
“Kurdistan’s lobbying efforts have been hugely undermined by the fragmentation of politics, and that part the politicization of the lobby… Sometimes they lobby against each other as well. So, we have paid the price, and they both are equally [accountable] in this kind of in this issue,” a Kurdish source said.
“If they had been focused on better cooperation, better governance, better collaboration between them, even the allies would have been more receptive to them and lobbying in America would have been easier and more coordinated,” they added.
GETTING A FOOTHOLD
Iraqi Kurds have maintained a presence in Washington for decades, building up their presence over time as ties deepened and geopolitical events brough the US and Kurdistan closer together.
“Historically, we’ve been through difficult phases where we were on the wrong side of the United States and or [when] the United States did not really pay attention to minorities in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. So, the Kurds were always victims of efforts that against people who were supported by the United States,” a Kurdish source explained.
The KDP first appears in the FARA documentation in 1987, when Muhyeddin Rahim Abdulla registered as its representative in the US. The PUK got in the game in 1992, when Barham Salih signed a contract on its behalf with Commonwealth Consulting Corporation, a now-
By the early 2000s, however, it was the KDP that had the more robust presence. In 1997, Nijyar Shemdin registered as the KDP’s representative in Washington. According to FARA records, the party spent a total of $999,530 on him as a “US Policy Consultant” between his registration and the end of 2003 when his tenure ended. These were heady days when the George W. Bush administration launched the War on Terror and the invasion of Iraq to depose Saddam Hussein in Iraq, in which the Kurds played a major role.
In June 2004, the KDP hired its first outside lobbyist, Barbour Griffith & Rogers, which is now known as BGR Group. The contract, which was signed on behalf of the KDP by Farhad Barzani, agreed to pay the firm $29,166.67 per month for lobbying services that “include providing strategic counsel and tactical planning on legislative, regulatory, and political matters before the US Government.”
This period represented an important inflection point politically in the Kurdistan Region. In 2006, the KDP and the PUK signed a strategic agreement that institutionalized the post-
It was also the beginning of the Kurdistan Region’s ascendence as the “Other Iraq,” a sales pitch to American investors that they could do business in Erbil while Baghdad fell deeper into civil war. This would last until the mid-
Qubad Talabani, the younger son of PUK leader Jalal Talabani, was appointed as the first head of the new KRG USA office. Its FARA disclosures from that period outline five goals for the office: establishing a grassroots lobby for Kurdish interests in the US, promoting educational and cultural links, promoting Kurdish-
The Amargi reached out to Qubad Talabani for an interview, but never received a reply.
Firms like BGR were helpful in guiding those efforts. According to a Kurdish source, the Republican-
The KDP remained the foreign principal for BGR until 2006, when the contract officially transferred to KRG USA. “We have had a long-
In total, Erbil has spent more than $10 million on lobbying fees for BGR since 2004, according to FARA Semi-
BGR’s work extends beyond the security sphere and into all matters that the KRG feels are important. Its most recent KRG filings relate to KRG Prime Minister Masrour Barzani’s visit to Washington in May 2025. During the visit, Barzani announced several new oil and gas deals with US-
BGR is hardly the only firm that the KRG has retained to advance its interests in Washington.
It also has a longstanding relationship with Greenberg Traurig, paying it $3.9 million between 2007 and 2021 for legal and lobbying services. Its current contract is worth $20,000 per month.
According to one Kurdish source, the law firm acts as a “fixer” for the KRG in Washington. The law firm has also assisted with legal cases involving KRG Prime Minister Masrour Barzani, including those filed in recent years by the Kurdistan Victims’ Fund and Shnyar Anwar.
Over time, the initial goals of the KRG USA office have largely been met, in part due to the efforts of the KRG’s investment in lobbying and PR. There is an active and engaged Kurdish-
A Kurdish American Caucus was formed in 2008, though this informal grouping has not been visibly active during this current legislative term as several important members have left Congress, including former co-
There have been serious setbacks as well, sometimes coming at the most critical moments. The KRG’s inability to convince the first Trump administration to back the 2017 independence referendum stands out in particular. Erbil’s inability to secure air defenses from the US is a relevant issue given the ongoing attacks by Iran and Iraqi militias and clearly causes a great deal of frustration for the KRG’s leadership.
These and other examples suggest that Erbil sometimes misreads signals from Washington and overstates its importance in regional affairs, with the US prioritizing other interests.
No amount of lobbying can fix that: that understanding must come from Kurdistan before anywhere else. It is a hard lesson that ought to inform Erbil’s response to the current Iran-
Editor’s note: This is the first in a three-
*Winthrop Rodgers is a journalist who focuses on politics, human rights, political economy, and the environment in Iraq’s Kurdistan Region. He also serves as a Chatham House associate fellow.
