Charting the Course: Geopolitical Dynamics and Market Realities in the Iraqi Kurdistan Energy Sector

The Iraqi–Kurdish conflict consisted of a series of wars and rebellions by the Kurds against the central authority of Iraq in the twentieth century. However, after the fall of Saddam Hussein’s dictator regime in 2003, the new Iraqi constitution was adopted under the supervision of the US administration, and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) was officially recognized. Later, the conflict turned into a dispute over oil and gas and an attempt to break the will of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI). As a result, the KRI’s political economy of hydrocarbon has faced turbulence in recent years: the continual internal political divisions, the Iraqi federal government’s inclination to keep KRI away from energy negotiation, regional pressure, and the decision made by the International Court of Arbitration (ICC) in Paris, and ruled in Baghdad’s favor against the Kurdistan Region’s independent crude oil exports through Turkey in March 2023. This study serves as a case study to investigate the KRI’s energy position within the new geopolitical reverberations, such as those supposed to connect the Eastern Mediterranean Gas Project and the Gulf energy basin as a new emerging regional order. To this effect, the research assumed a more realistic approach to show how the regional powers’ threats to the KRI’s oil and gas fields and the KRI’s energy sector require the support of superpowers such as the United States and Europe. Finally, this effort calls for the KRI’s ruling parties to bring a new energy vision and activate institutions so that the global economic market looks exuberantly forward to the Kurdistan Region during the Russian–Ukrainian war.