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BOOK REVIEWS: The
Kurds In Iraq : The Past, Present and Future
(Paperback) by Kerim Yildiz
Price: ($15.30, paper)
Buy the Book- The Kurds In Iraq - click here
The liberation of Iraq propelled Iraqi Kurdistan
into the international limelight. The Iraqi Kurdish
militia plays an important role in Iraq; Iraq’s
president, Jalal Talabani, is a former Kurdish
guerilla leader, and the Kurds have an important
role in the new government’s politics. The Iraqi
Kurdish experience is now central to discussion over
the fate of Baathist officials, and Kurdish demands
remain at the heart of the debate over federalism.
Yildiz, executive director of the London-based
Kurdish Human Rights Project, has compiled a guide
better than many other surveys of Iraqi Kurdish
history, society, and politics. The Kurds in Iraq is
a valuable guide not only for the policy
practitioner but also for the general reader who
wants a clear, concise study to aid understanding of
a people and a region increasingly in the news.
Unlike many other authors on this subject, he
neither indulges his emotions nor does he
artificially extend backwards Kurdish nationalism.
He is precise, noting that while the term “Kurd”
first appeared in the seventh century C.E., it would
be almost a millennium before the term “Kurdistan”
entered common usage and even then with a lack of
precision as to its boundaries. His narrative is
exact. Yildiz details not only Washington’s 1975
decision to withdraw support for the Kurdish
uprising but also the often ignored 1974 Kurdish
decision to turn down Baghdad’s autonomy offer. He
also gives context to Saddam Hussein’s 1987-88 Anfal
campaign and does not limit its discussion to its
most famous episode, the March 1988 use of chemical
weapons against civilians in Halabja.
While Yildiz emphasizes human rights and
international legal responsibilities, he glosses
over intra-Kurdish human rights abuses. There is no
mention, for example, of the 2-3,000 Kurds executed
during the 1994-97 Kurdish civil war, nor does he
discuss Kurdistan Democratic Party leader Masud
Barzani’s appropriation of land and property from
rival tribes, nor is there coverage of Iraqi
Kurdistan’s corruption problem. Small errors of fact
mar the account. The Iran-Iraq war, for example,
began in 1980, not 1983. Likewise, despite the
nickname, the “Swiss dinar” currency used in Iraqi
Kurdistan between 1991 and 2003 was printed in the
United Kingdom and not in Switzerland.
Looking toward the future, Yildiz highlights
conflicts over the death penalty likely to occur
between the European states and the Iraqi Special
Tribunal trying Saddam Hussein and other former top
regime officials. He also questions the extent to
which American and European civilians serving in the
Coalition Provisional Authority and its successor
organizations conform to international law. His
background in humanitarian law contributes to some
bias. He states that many “have called for the U.N.
to take over administration of Iraq,” something
perhaps true among his human rights colleagues in
London but certainly not among Iraqis, the vast
majority of whom wish for a return to full
sovereignty.
Michael Rubin is a resident scholar at AEI.
Source Notes: This book review appeared in the
Winter 2006 issue of the Middle East Quarterly.
www.aei.org
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