The Fall of 'Kurdistan' - by Adam Elkus
One of the most chilling parts of the recently released National Intelligence Estimate is its section on the oil-rich Iraqi city of Kirkuk. It noted that the Kurds are moving to cement their hold on the city, annexing it into the Kurdistan Regional Province against increasingly virulent opposition from the city's Arabs. It is becoming clear that the Kurds will never accept being part of a unified Iraq--their dream of an independent Kurdish nation cobbled together out of oil-rich Northern Iraq is a higher priority. If we wish to prevent Turkey from intervening in Northern Iraq (and thus adding an entirely new and bloody dimension to the conflict), we must do everything possible to discourage the Kurdish dream of an independent state while at the same time developing contingency plans for the fallout of a possible, even likely, partition.
The Kurdish desire for an ethnic state is understandable. Kurds have been a victimized people for the past 100 years. And the atrocities that weigh most on the Kurdish mind occurred even more recently-- in the last thirty years. Saddam Hussein infamously slaughtered 100,000 Kurds with military force and poison gas during the "Anfal" campaign in 1988. Since the dawn of modern Turkey, the Turkish government has carried out a campaign to erase the Kurdish identity, barring them from politics and banning the Kurdish language. And since the early eighties, Turkish armed forces have razed Kurdish villages and "disappeared" Kurds suspected of aiding enemies of the Turkish state.
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