Are the Kurds Merely Guns for Hire?
Grinfi Political Risk Brief
Good Morning!
Welcome to this week’s edition of Grinfi Political Risk Edge, your trusted source for expert political risk analysis and strategic intelligence. Thorough, insightful, and industry-focused. We deliver clarity in uncertainty and strength in decision-making. Anticipate, Adapt, and Excel!
But first, let’s begin the week with a laugh 😄 to brighten the mood. Remember, a little humor never hurts before moving on to the serious stuff.
From Grinfi Political Risk Observatory (GPRO), here’s what we’re monitoring:
High Impact Situational Updates
“At Grinfi, we track immediate fragility and systemic contagion to ensure leaders see risks before they spread.”
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Here are the key issues that are expected to shape political risk this week.
“Leave the Kurds alone. We are not guns for hire!” Those words uttered by Iraq’s First Lady Shanaz Ibrahim Ahmed, herself a Kurd, cut through the strategic fog of the US-Israel-Iran war as it enters its third week.
At the moment, Washington is reportedly seeking to arm Iranian Kurdish factions along the Iraq-Iran border to open a ground front, but Kurdish leaders have not forgotten how quickly the United States abandoned their Syrian counterparts in January. This comes as the US is also deploying approximately 2,500 Marines from the Okinawa-based 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit and an amphibious assault ship, the USS Tripoli (LHA 7), to the Persian Gulf near the Strait of Hormuz as part of a broader military escalation with Iran.
Last Friday, American forces struck military targets on Kharg Island, the chokepoint through which 90% of Iran’s crude exports flow. President Trump announced that he spared the oil facilities but issued an explicit warning that they would be hit next if Iran continued blocking the Strait of Hormuz.
Tehran responded by threatening to strike American-linked oil assets across the Gulf. Brent crude closed the week at $105.66. American gas prices have risen 24% since the war began, to $3.70 per gallon. A fire broke out at Fujairah’s major oil bunkering hub in the UAE on Saturday after Iranian drone debris fell during interception.
Markets delivered their verdict. The S&P; 500 fell to 6,672, its lowest close of 2026 and the third consecutive weekly decline. Japan’s Nikkei shed 3.2%. India’s Sensex dropped 1.9%. The Stoxx 600 has fallen 3.6% since the war began. Revised data confirmed what the sell-off already implied. Fourth-quarter GDP was revised down to 0.7%, and core PCE inflation rose to 3.1% YoY.
The American economy is contracting while prices accelerate. The Federal Reserve, which meets on