The Birth of Kurdistan? Not So Fast

The Birth of Kurdistan? Not So Fast

It is wishful thinking to predict the Kurds will move towards independence, or that they are ready. Neither a fragmented Iraq, an Islamist controlled border with the KRG, nor a flood of refugees are in Kurdistan's interests. Kurdish institutions are still embryonic, divided between the two dominant parties, the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) of KRG President Masoud Barzani and Iraqi president Jalal Talabani's Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), each of which control their own peshmerga forces. Rather than a united Kurdistan, a more accurate assessment is that of a KDPstan and PUKstan. Intra-Kurdish rivarly and particularist interests, therefore, militate against independence.

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