The Kurds

The Kurds

The Gist

With ISIS in the news, the plight of the Kurds (and the not-real-country of Kurdistan) has come to forefront…again. The Kurds, until recently, have simply had a century’s long streak of bad luck. It doesn’t help that the four countries they live in are as follows: Iran (currently under western sanctions and accused of wanting to obtain nuclear weapons), Iraq (no explanation necessary), Syria (in the midst of a civil war) and Turkey (who has worked against an independent Kurdistan since the founding of modern day Turkey in the 1920s). After the end of the World War I, when the Ottoman Empire’s Middle Eastern empire was being divided up, the Allied victors overlooked the Kurds. Since the time, they have been one of the largest stateless people in the world. Since the first Persian Gulf War, the Kurds of Iraq have enjoyed a certain level of autonomy (after then President Saddam Hussein gassed them, the international community thought it might be a good idea). Will the Kurds get their own country, especially after they have been at the forefront in the battle against ISIS? Probably not. They are not economically self-sufficient, the United States is not keen on breaking up the federal Republic of Iraq, and an independent Kurdistan would strengthen Iran and embolden Turkish Kurds (something that the United States sees as detrimental to American interests in the region)...and now you now the gist.