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The Kurds may be the only group powerful enough
to keep Iraq from tearing itself apart. But who says
that's what they want?
Get a taste of what awaits you in print from this
compelling excerpt.
Since the aftermath of the 1991 gulf war, nearly
four million Kurds have enjoyed complete autonomy in
the region of Iraqi Kurdistan—protected from Saddam
under a "no-fly zone" north of the 36th parallel and
behind the defensive wall of the Kurds' highly
disciplined army, the peshmerga. They have held
region-wide elections, formed a legislature, and
chosen a president, establishing a world entirely
apart from Baghdad—a de facto independent state. For
the first time in their long history, Kurds are
wielding significant political power, successfully
negotiating for control over their own military
forces and authority over new oil discoveries in
their own terrain. Under the federated Iraq being
called for by the international community, they
would have powers of autonomy that match—or even
exceed—what they now enjoy.
But in the end, the essential Kurdish truth today is
that they can't give up the dream of outright
independence. After 14 years of self-rule, the Kurds
can no longer imagine themselves as Iraqis. To
travel through Kurdistan is to follow an intense
national debate whose central issue is no longer the
pros and cons of full, unambiguous separation from
Iraq. It's how best to secure it. I came to think of
it as a debate between Builders and Warriors.
A 13-year-old girl put the distinction into words. I
met Mivan Majid in a mountain park above the city of
Suleimaniya, where she was taking the evening air
with her father and younger sister. To the north and
east the jagged ridges of the Zagros Mountains,
marking Iraqi Kurdistan's border with Iran, were
receding into dusk. To the south, the immense
Mesopotamian plain was a sunset-gilded carpet
stretching toward Baghdad and the Persian Gulf. I
needed some air myself—we'd stopped at the park
after our escape from the oil field—and I
involuntarily flinched when a tall, gangly teenager
in faded blue jeans tapped me on the arm.
"Hey," she said, "are you guys American?"
That's an uncomfortable question in the Middle East
today, but her casual manner put me immediately at
ease. She had remarkable poise and proceeded to
grill me in near-perfect California slang, which
she'd picked up from an expatriate girlfriend.
When I learned her age, it struck me that Mivan
Majid was the Kurdish dream personified. She had
never known a day under the rule of Baghdad.
Suleimaniya, her hometown and the capital of Iraqi
Kurdistan's eastern sector, has been under unbroken
Kurdish control since 1992, the very year of her
birth. She wanted to be an engineer, Mivan told me,
"because they build such cool things: houses, roads,
shopping centers. It's like, when you're an engineer
you don't get hung up on our terrible history. You
look ahead."
Get the whole story in the pages of National
Geographic magazine.
www.nationalgeographic.com
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