SULAYMANIYAH, Iraq — Top security and business leaders from around the world will gather these next days here in the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) part of Iraq to chart a pathway forward for what one key official told Breitbart News is a “complex region” as the world looks to decipher what is next for the Middle East in the aftermath of the U.S.-Iran war.
The Slemani Strategic Forum on Thursday and Friday will see top Iraqi and other officials openly discussing the future of the region after American President Donald Trump declared this week that the U.S.
war against Iran is “effectively over” and that any renewed offensive from the Americans is “quite unlikely.” Trump’s declaration of what essentially amounts to the end of the conflict comes after sweeping Democrat wins and Republican losses in the U.S.
midterm elections last week that both Trump and Vice President JD Vance have attributed in large part to public dissatisfaction with the war’s effects on the American economy.
economy is still recovering from the massive surge in inflation that happened under now former President Joe Biden, a Democrat.
That, along with the Iranians creating a chokepoint in the Strait of Hormuz for oil shipments as retaliation against Trump’s decision to use America’s military to eliminate Iran’s nuclear program and the U.S.
killing of longtime Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khameini did not help matters for Republicans ahead of the midterm elections in the U.S.
Here in KRG, the northern semi-autonomous part of Iraq that is controlled by Iraqi Kurds and also borders Iran itself, the hope has long been—since much earlier in 2026—that the war would come to a close, which could create major opportunities for both this region as a whole and for the United States.
Back in April at the Delphi Economic Forum in Delphi, Greece, Kurdistan Regional Government Deputy Prime Minister Qubad Talabani told Breitbart News that Trump is the “master of the deal” and the Kurds hope that Trump would secure an agreement with Iran to end the war.
At that time, negotiations between the two sides were heading toward what would become the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that Vance brokered between the U.S.
The MOU eventually collapsed, but the principles behind it—broader economic cooperation and a signature Trump diplomatic trademark, remain sound—but the hope now is now that the U.S.
has achieved its military objectives in full according to Trump and after the U.S.
midterm elections that a true lasting peace will now be possible.
Talabani, in that interview with Breitbart News in the spring, which Trump himself shared on Truth Social, getting it instant....
