Kurdish Leaders Refuse to Be Dragged into a US–Iran War, Recall Bitter Memories of Being Lied to by America During the Fight Against Saddam

REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, SULAIMANIAH — Kurdish leaders have responded to the tensions in the Middle East that threaten to drag the Kurdish community into a war between Zionist Israel–United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran. First Lady of the Republic of Iraq, Shanaz Ibrahim Ahmed, said the Kurds are now living in peace and tranquility. She stressed that the Kurds are not mercenaries who can be dragged back into someone else’s war. “Let the Kurds be themselves. We are not mercenaries,” Shanaz said in a written statement published on her official social media page on Thursday (5 March 2026). Shanaz Ibrahim Ahmed is the First Lady of Iraq, wife of Iraqi President Abdul Latif Jamal Rashid. The couple are prominent political figures from the Kurdish community in Iraq. Both are politicians from the Kurdish Patriotic Union (PUK), one of the largest political factions in Iraq. Shanaz is also an important female figure from a line of her family in Sulaymaniyah, the main semi-autonomous city for the Kurdish people in Iraq. Shanaz condemned the past role of the United States in treating the Kurds merely as pawns for war purposes. The First Lady, born in 1954, said in her written statement that in 1991, the Kurds were urged to fight Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq. “But we were left when priorities changed,” she said. She said there was no one to defend the Kurds when the attempt to oppose Saddam Hussein 35 years ago ended in massacre. “There was no one to defend us when the regime (Saddam Hussein) deployed combat helicopters and tanks to crush us,” she said.