KURDS
have enjoyed autonomy in their northern Iraq region since the end of
the First Gulf War in 1991. Now, the ethnic group promises to be a
major obstacle to President Bush’s attempts to impose a highly
centralized government in Iraq.
Former dictator Saddam Hussein and his Iraqi army, striving to bring
the north under control of Iraqi Arabs, destroyed hundreds of
villages and killed 100,000 Kurds during a campaign that peaked in
1988.
But Kurds do not consider themselves Iraqis, writes Frank Viviano in
National Geographic. During the January 2005 elections, 98.7 percent
of Kurds voted for total independence from any government in
Baghdad.
Significantly, oil fields around the city of Kirkuk are among the
largest in the world, so the Kurdish region is a coveted prize.
Today, when Kurds build and repair roads, they improve highways
heading north to neighbor countries, Viviano writes. Roads heading
south to Baghdad remain in serious disrepair.
The Kurdish region began its current 14 years of self-rule when
America imposed a no-fly zone there after the 1991 war.
For 70 years before that war, Kurds had launched numerous
insurrections against Baghdad. But they all — including some backed
by the United States — failed.
Kurds are remarkably diverse. “Over the centuries, the Kurds have
mixed with all of their neighbors and invaders, producing a gene map
that ranges from wiry-haired and dark to blond and blue-eyed,”
Viviano writes.
But tragedy continues to haunt the region, which is more peaceful
than most in Iraq. Terrorist attacks strike oil facilities. Millions
of land mines strewn across the countryside kill and maim ordinary
citizens.
Kurdish independence is likely to meet resistance from government
leaders of Iran, Turkey and Syria, who fear that Kurdish autonomy in
Iraq would undermine their control over Kurds in their own
countries.
President Bush repeatedly promises a “free, unified Iraq” run by a
centralized democratic republic. But like many former colonies, Iraq
is an artificial state created by Great Britain after World War I.
Its disparate peoples have little interest in unity.
Ivan Eland, an Independent Institute scholar, warned early last
year, “Any attempt by an outside authority to impose a federation
might very well end in civil war.”
Eland’s paper, “The Way Out of Iraq: Decentralizing the Iraqi
Government,” argues: “The only way Iraq’s fractious populace has
been held together in one country has been by the brute force of
arms.”
Shiites in southern Iraq prefer an Islamic state. Sunnis in central
Iraq are more secular and nationalistic. Kurds continue to distance
themselves from both groups.
Like a growing number of scholars from all political perspectives,
Eland sees Iraq as a “large quagmire” creating a “huge financial
albatross hanging from [U.S.] taxpayers’ necks.”
Iraq needs a decentralized form of government. It may not be a
perfect solution, Eland admits, but it could be the best way out of
“an ill-advised military adventure.”
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