Perpetually Between East And West

The latest reports and rumors about Iraq’s planned future acquisitions of fighter jets are an apt reminder of how, throughout its history, the Iraqi Air Force (IQAF) has long gone back and forth between east and west. 

According to a source cited by Defense News in mid-February, Iraq intends to buy 14 Dassault Rafale multirole fighter jets from France for $240 million, which Baghdad plans to pay for with oil instead of hard cash. 

Rafales aren’t the only fighter jets Iraq has reportedly considered acquiring. In September, local media reported that Iraq plans to acquire 12 JF-17 Block 3 fighters from Pakistan and has even put aside $600 million to pay for them.  

Either aircraft could significantly enhance the IQAF’s capabilities. After all, both have active electronically scanned array (AESA) radars and are capable interceptors and ground attack jets. 

Iraq’s fleet of F-16s didn’t come with any AIM-120 AMRAAM beyond visual range air-to-air missiles (BVRAAM). Instead, they have to make do with much shorter-range AIM-7 and AIM-9s. 

If Baghdad could acquire either Rafales equipped with Meteor BVRAAMs or JF-17s with China’s PL-15 BVRAAM, that would significantly improve its intercept capabilities. 

Iraq also has minimal air defenses, with its most substantive air defense system being the medium-range Russian-built Pantsir-S1. 

In February, Iraq’s Air Defense Commander Lieutenant-General Maan al-Saadi told state media that Baghdad hopes “that during the current year, advanced modern systems will be introduced, in addition to the available systems, which will increase the combat capabilities of air defense and enhance the protection of the airspace.” 

Iraq will most likely procure air defenses from France, Russia, or South Korea. 

From its foundation in 1931 until today, Iraq has gone through several periods of procuring its aircraft from both east and west. 

In the 1950s, Iraq acquired its first-ever fighter jets when Britain sold it de Havilland Vampires, de Havilland DH 112 Venoms, and Hawker Hunters. 

However, following the 1958 coup in Iraq that ended the monarchy, Baghdad drifted closer to the Soviet Union. As a result, it first began acquiring MiG-17s, followed by MiG-19s and MiG-21s. 

As a result, by the 1960s, as military aviation historian Tom Cooper pointed out, Iraq “had a very mixed fleet of fighter jets, consisting of Vampires, Venoms, Hunters, MiG-17s, MiG-19s, and MiG-21s.” 

Iraq was impressed by the performance of French-supplied jets in Israeli operation during the 1967 Arab-Israeli War. Furthermore, when the Soviets withheld support and spare parts for its military in the mid-1970s when Iraq was fighting a Kurdish revolt, Iraq realized it needed to diversify its procurement sources so as not to become wholly dependent on Moscow. 

As a result, Iraq ultimately acquired an enormous fleet of Dassault Mirage F1s from the French beginning in the late 1970s.

Baghdad still retained defense ties with Moscow. It bought MiG-25 Foxbats, one of the fastest fighters ever built, that served throughout the Iran-Iraq War and fourth-generation MiG-29A Fulcrums in the late 1980s. 

(Iraq’s air defenses in the 1980s consisted almost entirely of Soviet-made surface-to-air missiles integrated under the French-built KARI command, control, and communications system.) 

The Iraqis even fitted different components from some of its Soviet and French aircraft onto each other. When French Chief of Staff Maurice Schmidt visited Baghdad in April 1989, he was utterly dismayed to see the Iraqis had fitted a Soviet Kh-29L air-to-surface missile on one of their Mirage F1’s pylons. They had even fitted one of the Mirage refueling probes onto a MiG-23 Flogger.

The Iraqi Air Force was pulverized in the 1991 Persian Gulf War by the United States-led coalition, and its remnants did not even attempt to put up a last-ditch fight during the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. 

By the 2010s, Baghdad seemingly found itself torn between buying American and Russian weaponry to rebuild its military. It ultimately did order a fleet of 36 F-16s from the United States. In 2012, it canceled a controversial $4.2 billion deal with Russia that included the supply of MiG-29M/M2 jets. 

While Iraq opted out of buying Russian fighter jets, it did buy Russian Mi-28 and Mi-35 attack helicopters rather than seeking American AH-64 Apaches. It also bought T-90 main battle tanks in 2016 instead of additional U.S.-built M1A1 Abrams tanks and is reportedly interested in purchasing more of those Russian tanks in the near future.

Interestingly, France, perhaps nostalgic for the lucrative arms sales it had inked with Baghdad in the 1970s and 1980s, also offered Iraq 18 upgraded Mirage F1s for $1 billion in early 2011. 

Ultimately, Iraq received a small fleet of Su-25 Frogfoots from Russia and Iran (the latter of which were ironically ex-Iraqi Air Force flown to that country during the 1991 Gulf War) in 2014 to combat ISIS. It began taking delivery of its F-16 fleet the following year and also procured two dozen South Korean KAI T-50 Golden Eagle trainers/light attack jets not long after that.

At present, the F-16 is the most advanced aircraft in the IQAF. While these F-16s have been dogged by maintenance issues over the past two years, after Lockheed Martin reduced on-base contractor support because of militia rocket attacks, they are still carrying out airstrikes against ISIS. 

The latest Lead Inspector General Report for the anti-ISIS Operation Inherent Resolve – which covers the quarter Oct. 1, 2021, to Dec. 31, 2021 – notes that Iraq’s Su-25s and Czech-built L-159 light combat aircraft still suffered “from low fully mission capability rates, while Iraq’s F-16 and AC-208 aircraft remain the main strike platforms with use and mission capable rates similar to those in the previous quarter.”

While Iraq will not likely replace its F-16s anytime soon, it will likely seek a different fighter instead of more advanced variants of that American jet. When it does, it will probably once again look both eastward and westward before making up its mind on which jet to acquire next. 

In the next decade, the IQAF may well have something like a mixed fleet of F-16s and Rafales or F-16s and JF-17s (or even JF-17s and Rafales) similar to how it simultaneously flew Vampires and MiGs in the 1960s and Mirages and MiGs in the 1980s.