DC Bureau - Investigative Journalism, Environmental News, and National Security Stories That Matter

President Jalal Talabani and his son Qubad, the Kurds' man in Washington Getty Images

"There is a common saying in Kurdistan -- if you buy a kiosk in the street, make sure half of it belongs to Barzani or Talabani…Otherwise, don't get the kiosk."

On Saturday, March 21, the Washington Post carried a rigorous report of the nepotism that has bred corruption and conflicts of interest in the increasingly-tenuous region of Iraqi Kurdistan. But the real story of the Kurds’ lucrative governing enterprise—and the one that is most compelling for the American people—is how the Talabanis and Barzanis are using their concentrated money and power to influence the U.S. public and policy community. What the Post piece overlooked is the fact that Kurdistan’s fate is not just being determined by the political aristocracy in Sulaymaniyah, Dahuk or Erbil; it’s also playing out among the kingmakers in the D.C. Beltway. In 2007 and 2008, the Washington Monthly’s Laura Rozen published a pair of informative pieces about how Qubad Talabani, Jalal Talabani’s son and the Kurdistan Regional Government’s U.S. representative, had effectively penetrated the Washington power elite. In promoting the “Other Iraq”, the young Talabani has garnered widespread support for the Kurdish cause among American policymakers, activists and journalists.

This doesn’t come cheaply. KRG has spent over $4.5 million in lobbying since 2005, enlisting the help of lobbying groups that include giant Republican strategist BGR Group, the law firm of Greenburg Traurig, which has been shrouded incontroversyex-employee Jack Abramoff; Broydrick and Associates, the American Business Development GroupRusso, Marsh and Rogers, a GOP-linked PR firm that aired nationwide television ads promoting Kurdistan. Moreover, KRG’s small Washington office is burning through $1 million a year as Talabani establishes connections on the Hill, in the White House and around the country. The Kurds have come a long way since the 1970s and ‘80s, when American officials were forbidden from having open contact with Iraq’s largest ethnic minority. since the conviction of and

But the political waters are getting rough for the KRG. With parliamentary elections looming, it continues to be plagued by internal and external tensions. Jalal Talabani’s announcement that he would not seek a second term as president threatens to weaken the Kurds’ influence in Baghdad, while discontent is rising back at home. Meanwhile, the U.S.’s pledged troop withdrawal has sent ripples of concern throughout the Kurdish leadership, which, as a result, has been peddling the risks of an American pullout in a manner that is strikingly reminiscent of 1991.

Under the lobby-friendly Bush Administration, Qubad Talabani’s chief agent was GOP aficionado and BGR Chairman Ed Rogers, a former assistant to President George H.W. Bush. But with a Democrat-dominated Congress and a new administration that is taking greatpains to curb the sway of lobbyists, the Kurds’ eminence in the District may be waning.

As reports of PUK/KDP corruptionproliferate, amid concerns that their shady, quid-pro-quo business dealings are luring American companies, the question remains: will Talabani lose support in Washington just as he seems to have lost it back home?