The Iraqi Kurds Struggle For Autonomy

Kurds and their Struggle for Autonomy: Enduring Identity and Clientelism is a comprehensive study of the roots of Kurdish identity, the processes of identity formation among the Kurds, and the Kurds’ seemingly never-ending struggle for self-determination. By relying on a hybrid theoretical model of identity politics, this book offers a thorough treatment of the origins, characteristics, and evolution of Kurdish culture in general, and political culture in particular. It also examines the historical explanations and nuances of Kurdish struggles for some form of autonomy, assesses economic imperatives that shape the potentials and challenges of Kurdish social and political life, and offers a critical review of the contemporary Kurdish institutional and policy dynamics in Iraq and Syria.

Forming minorities in five adjacent countries for 74 years, Kurds have been fighting for independence or autonomy, against governments reluctant to accede either. The Kurdish saga is one of periodic insurrections, partial victories, misfortunes, defeats, betrayal, national repression, clashing personalities, changing allegiances and an unusual mixture of heroism and expendiency. Kurds used governments, and governments used Kurds. A good insight is given into both political and military aspects of the struggle, and of the motives and machinations of major personalities involved.

Kurdistan is currently divided between four countries: Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey. In each of the parts of Kurdistan, Kurdish identities and cultures have been repressed for generations. This book, by Eliza Egret and Tom Anderson, gathers together first-hand accounts of the struggles for a new society taking place in Bakur and Rojava the parts of Kurdistan within the borders of Turkey and Syria. The setting up of local assemblies and co-operatives, as well as radical women's and ecological movements, are rapidly gathering momentum in Kurdistan. The book gives a simple introduction to democratic confederalism, the idea that has inspired many of those involved in these movements. The book also compiles accounts from Kurdish people who are oppressed by the state of Turkey and profiles some of the companies that are complicit in their repression. The interviews give suggestions of how people outside of Kurdistan can act in solidarity."

As American tanks came to a halt on the Euphrates at the close of the war against Saddam Hussein, President Bush called on the oppressed peoples of Iraq to rise up against their ruler. Thousands of peshmerga (Kurdish guerrillas) responded, seizing the towns and countryside of northern Iraq. But after Saddam signed the truce with the U.N. forces, he sent his surviving units north, slaughtering the lightly-armed Kurds and driving millions more into exile while the Allies stood aside. For the Kurds, it was one more betrayal in their long and tragic history. In No Friends but the Mountains, veteran Middle East journalists John Bulloch and Harvey Morris provide the only history of the Kurdish people available today. Ranging from their earliest origins to the aftermath of the Gulf War, Bulloch and Morris trace the course of the Kurds' past and identify the pressures that have denied them a state of their own for so many centuries. Numbering some sixteen million and spread across five countries, the Kurds are the world's largest nationality without a state--a people divided among themselves in their struggle for independence, the pawns of rival governments throughout history. Bulloch and Morris show how they were exploited by the Turks and the Great Powers in the days of the Ottoman Empire, how the British, French, and the new Turkish republic subverted Woodrow Wilson's promise of a Kurdish state in 1918, and how the Kurds' revolts and insurrections led to further repression. Later the peshmerga guerrillas were funded and manipulated by Saddam Hussein, the Shah of Iran, Israel, and the CIA--while the Turkish government has harshly repressed any signs of Kurdish identity, banning the use of the Kurdish language until only recently. Both Saddam and Khomeini's government sought to use the Kurds to their own advantage during the long Iran-Iraq War. Bulloch and Morris trace the history of the main Kurdish organizations, such as the PKK in Turkey and the KDP in Iraq, underscoring the divisions that are threatening Kurdish survival at a time when the Iraqi army stands poised to attack the "safe haven" established by the U.N. This authoritative, highly readable account details the story of the rebellion, exile, and return that followed the Gulf War, providing a critical historical perspective on these momentous events. Written by two leading Middle East journalists, No Friends But the Mountains offers the first history of the long-suffering people at the center of one of the world's most explosive conflicts.

"Examining the major Kurdish revolts, this book analyzes the internal factors that led to their defeat, as well as arguing that reliance by Kurdish leadership on foreign powers has had disastrous consequences at crucial points in Kurdish history."--BOOK JACKET.

Presents the inside story of Kurdish guerrilla movement. This book combines reportage and scholarship to give an account of PKK, the Kurdistan Workers' Party.

Kurdish Politics in the Middle East analyzes political and social dimensions of Kurdish integration into the mainstream socio-political life in Iran, Iraq, and Turkey. Its central thesis is that ethnic conflict constitutes a major challenge to the contemporary nation-state system in the Middle East. Long vanquished is the illusion of the "melting pot," or the concept that assimilation is an inexorable process produced by "modernization" and the emergence of a relatively strong and centralized nation-state system in the region. Perhaps no single phenomenon highlights this thesis more than the historical Kurdish struggle for self-determination. This book's focus is on Kurdish politics and its relationship with broader regional and global developments that affect the Kurds. It does not claim to cover everything Kurdish, and it does not promote the political agenda of any group, movement, or country.

The overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2003 in Iraq opened the door for Kurdish nationalists to move toward outright independence. Despite the recent visibility of the Kurds in the international media, little is known about their political aspirations as citizens of an autonomous region. In Secession and Conflict Zheger Hassan employs a comparative analysis to explore why Iraqi Kurdistan, despite being better positioned institutionally and economically than the similar cases of South Sudan and Kosovo, has not declared independence. In rebuilding Iraq and fighting against the Islamic State, the Kurds have cultivated important political alliances with the US and Europe, which have garnered them international economic, military, and political support. Though now well-positioned to function as an independent state, Iraqi Kurdistan has vacillated in seizing this golden opportunity to declare independence. The apparent Kurdish willingness to forgo independence runs counter to the prevailing narratives about the Kurds in the Middle East. Hassan draws not only on the history of the Kurds but also on first-hand interviews with high-ranking officials, journalists, and nationalists to provide a new window into the calculations of Kurdish leaders as they navigate the complicated politics of Iraq. Secession and Conflict offers a new model for understanding the Kurdish question in Iraq.