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NEWNATIONS BULLETIN 15 SEPTEMBER 2008
THE KURDS SEIZE THEIR OPPORTUNITY
Probably the world's largest nation with no state - with a history of at least 2,400 years, the Kurds had long controlled their mountainous regions in what now overlap the frontiers of IRAN, IRAQ, SYRIA and TURKEY. Apart from some 30 million Kurds living there now, there are at least I million within the European Union - Germany alone has a half million - as well as a diaspora within the wider middle east, western Asia and beyond. But unlike the Israelis and the Armenians whose overseas lobbies are legendary, the Kurds have never been able to deploy that level of PR clout and their story is less well known.
The nation who produced the Abbassid dynasty of Egyptian sultans, the most distinguished of whom was Saladin, the 12th century general who vanquished the crusaders, was unable itself ever to become a nation state. But everything changed with the Gulf War. Since then, the Kurds have taken a place front and centre, in any consideration of South West Asian geopolitics - and may become even more significant. The US desire for a regional base, when it's military presence is no longer 'wanted' in the rest of Iraq, might well be in what is now widely known as Kurdistan. Although it has renounced 'independence,' nevertheless the reality is a high degree of autonomy within the Iraqi state and influence on the neighbours.
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