Leverage or Liability? Kurdistan’s Gas on the Iraqi & Regional Chessboard

About This Event:

Co-sponsored by the Department of Politics, Governance & Economics, the Global Kurdish Initiative for Peace at the School of International Service is pleased to host a timely panel discussion on the geoeconomics of natural gas in the Middle East, with a particular focus on the strategic trajectories of the gas sectors in the Kurdistan Region and Iraq, and how they might impact the regional power dynamics.

The Kurdistan Region’s emerging gas sector could become either Erbil’s next source of strategic leverage or a costly liability. Natural gas has become a central arena of rivalry across the Middle East, and both Iraq and the Kurdistan Region are positioned at its crossroads. This panel, featuring leading think tank experts and former officials, will explore how Kurdish–Iraqi gas is reshaping strategic balances at home and across the region: from disputes between Erbil and Baghdad over revenues, contracts, and infrastructure, to the quieter inter-state competition over export routes, markets, and influence.

The panel will assess how Iran and Russia view the Kurdistan Region’s gas, including Tehran’s interest in preserving export leverage over Iraq and limiting rival routes, and Moscow’s stakes in regional corridors, investment plays, and market share. The discussion will also examine how the United States can help ensure Iraqi energy security by mediating durable Baghdad–Erbil arrangements, backing gas-to-power and flaring-reduction projects, mobilizing financing and risk cover, coordinating with Turkey and Gulf partners on interconnections, and supporting the protection of energy infrastructure.

This event will feature expert panelists Victoria Taylor, Raad Alkadiri, and Noam Raydan, and will be moderated by Yerevan Saeed, SIS Professor and Director of the Global Kurdish Initiative for Peace.

The panel will conclude with a Q&A session and Middle Eastern cuisine will be served at the end of the event.

Bios:

Victoria J. Taylor is the director of the Iraq Initiative in the Atlantic Council’s Middle East program. A national security leader with over two decades of experience in the Middle East and Europe, she led large interagency teams and advanced US economic and national security interests as a deputy assistant secretary, as a deputy chief of mission, and at the White House National Security Council.

Prior to joining the Council, Taylor served as a career senior foreign service officer with the rank of Minister Counselor. She served most recently as deputy assistant secretary for Iraq and Iran in the State Department’s Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, where she advised senior State Department leaders on Iraq and Iran in the aftermath of the Gaza conflict. She was the director for North African affairs from 2021 to 2023 and the deputy chief of mission at the US embassy in Croatia from 2018 to 2021. She has served as the deputy director for Western Europe in the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs and as the director for Balkans, Caucasus, and Black Sea affairs at the National Security Council, where she advanced Montenegro’s NATO accession and strengthened US defense cooperation with Georgia. Other Washington assignments include positions in the Office of Iranian Affairs, on the Turkey Desk in the Office of Southern European Affairs, and as an international affairs fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. Taylor has served overseas at US embassies in Georgia, Tunisia, and Pakistan, as well as at the US consulate in Lahore, Pakistan.

Taylor hails from Springfield, Missouri. She holds a bachelor’s degree in international relations and diplomatic history from the University of Pennsylvania and a master’s degree in development studies from the London School of Economics and Political Science. She speaks French, Mandarin, Russian, and Urdu. She served as chair of the American International School of Zagreb’s Board of Trustees from 2019 to 2021. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. She has been featured on BBC, CNN, Al Sharqiya, Iran International, and other international media outlets.

Raad Alkadiri is an international country risk specialist, with over 20 years of experience advising senior oil and gas industry executives and government leaders on the management of long-term investment strategies, above-ground risk mitigation, and stakeholder engagement in the energy sector. Previously he was a managing director for energy, climate, and sustainability at Eurasia Group. He was also a senior director at the BCG Center for Energy Impact, a managing director at IHS Energy, and partner and head of markets and country strategies at PFC Energy. From 2003 to 2004, he was policy adviser and assistant private secretary to the UK special representative to Iraq and later served as senior policy adviser to Her Majesty's ambassador in Baghdad from 2006 to 2007. Alkadiri holds a DPhil in international relations from St. Antony's College, Oxford University. A fluent Arabic speaker, he has spent extensive periods living and working in the Middle East.

Noam Raydan is a Senior Fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy. She writes on topics related to energy and maritime risks in the Middle East. She is a co-creator of the Institute's map on maritime attacks in the Middle East since 2019, and Maritime Spotlight. Prior to joining the Institute in June 2023, Raydan was an independent energy researcher and consultant working in Baghdad and Beirut. Noam also publishes a Substack newsletter, THE CHOKEPOINT, in which she shares rare historical documents shedding light on the history of some Middle Eastern countries, with a focus on their energy, industrial, and shipping sectors.

In addition to her work at the Institute, Raydan is an MA student in sustainable energy at Johns Hopkins SAIS.

Yerevan Saeed (moderator) is the Barzani Scholar in Residence at American University’s School of International Service and a non-resident fellow at the Arab Gulf States Institute. He is a TEDx speaker and former lecturer at the University of Kurdistan Hewler. Saeed previously was a visiting scholar and research associate at AGSI. Saeed is a political analyst who researches and writes on security, political, and energy issues in the Middle East, focusing on Iraq, Turkey, Iran, the Gulf, and the Levant. He has served as White House correspondent for the Kurdish Rudaw TV, and his work has been published in the Washington Institute’s Fikra Forum, the Diplomatic Courier, The New York Times, the London-based Majalla magazine, Rudaw, Global Politician, and several Kurdish newspapers. In addition, he has been interviewed by Voice of America, NPR, CNN, Voice of Russia, and Kurdish television programs and newspapers. From 2009-13, Saeed worked with Stratfor; additionally, he worked for several media outlets, including The New York Times, NPR, The Wall Street Journal, The Boston Globe, BBC, and The Guardian, as a journalist and translator in Iraq from 2003-07.

Parking Information:

Parking is available at the School of International Service Garage.

Parking rates are $2.00 per hour or $16.00 per day, and are paid via the Pay-As-You-Go Machines located in the elevator lobbies or in the front of the parking lot and require your license plate number. Find more information here.

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