Bashdar Pusho Ismaeel is a writer and analyst whose primary focus and expertise is on the Kurds, Iraq, Turkey and Middle Eastern current affairs. His work has previously appeared in, among others, the BBC, the <em>Washington Examiner</em>, the<em> Asian Times</em>, the <em>Kurdish Globe</em>, the <em>Epoch Times</em>, and the Lebanese <em>Daily Star</em>.

Counting on the Kurds

[caption id="attachment_55250325" align="alignnone" width="620"] An Iraqi man displays military badges at a shop in Erbil, the capital of the…