Iraqi sovereignty is undermined by the “Triad” of instability inherent in its structure. The Iraqi government is now a house divided: it has two rival standing armies with rival loyalties, a fragmented energy system in which the Iraqi Kurdistan region has a self-governing, legally recognized oil economy, and a political structure that has systematically drained the treasury. The trillions of Iraqi dollars hidden away in overseas tax havens mean that the Iraqi government is not just poorly managed; it is also being eviscerated from the inside out.

Iraq is the only country in the world trying to function as if it had two different conventional armies. The ISF is the military representation of the federal government of Iraq. The Peshmerga are the military representation of the government of Kurdistan. The above-mentioned dichotomy is not only an administrative problem; it also constitutes an inherent risk to national unity.

This is because the click-and-share system prevents coordination between forces since there is no unified command. Intense rivalry and competitiveness between these forces represent a potential conflagration. This has led to what has been described as “overlapping and blurred lines of responsibility,” which ISIS has been taking advantage of. Currently, as of the end of 2025, the Kurdish representation within the Iraqi Army has been less than 1 per cent, indicating that the Iraqi government has retreated from its “inclusive military vision promised in 2005.

The difference is not measured only in numbers. According to a 2017 assessment by the Foreign Policy Research Institute, the Peshmerga lost over 10,000 fighters battling ISIS since 2014. Yet, they function with only 25 ambulances for over 150,000 fighters, while the ISF has over 1,250 ambulances. Such a difference signifies the exacerbation of disparity through the two-army structure. However, the U.S. has endeavored to close this disparity through significant investments, committing $1.25 billion in Foreign Military Financing since 2015 and maintaining $16.3 billion in active government-to-government........

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