The Kurdish Predicament in Iraq: a Political Analysis
Michael M. Gunter
St. Martin's Press
In May of 1992, the Iraqi Kurds held democratic elections that led to the formation of a Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), in which power was equally shared by Massoud Barzani’s Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and Jalal Talabani’s Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK). During that same summer, the Iraqi Kurds also played a major role in the creation of an umbrella Iraqi opposition organization, the Iraqi National Congress (INC), whose professed goal was the creation of a democratic and federal post-Saddam Iraq in which the Kurdish problem would finally be solved. Jawar Namiq Salim, the speaker of the Kurdish Parliament, declared that a special human rights committee in parliament was not necessary because the entire legislative body would now serve as a human rights committee. Six turbulent years later, Michael Gunter looks at why everything went so horribly wrong. The Kurdish Predicament in Iraq is a political analysis of events in Iraq since 1992, based on the author’s extensive travels in Kurdistan and interviews with Kurds who participated in the government. The book examines the personalities of Barzani and Talabani, the Iraqi opposition to Saddam, in which the Kurds were a leading force, the continuing Iraqi Kurdistan civil war that began in May 1994, and the resulting power vacuum in Iraqi Kurdistan. Gunter provides an objective analysis, with the hope that it will lead to a better understanding of both the continuing tragedy in Iraqi Kurdistan and the chances that exist for renewed hope.
Michael M. Gunter is Professor of Political Science at Tennessee Technological University and author of The Kurds and the Future of Turkey, The Kurds of Iraq, and The Kurds in Turkey.
Contents
Map / iv
Acknowledgments / vi
Introduction / viii
Chapter 1. The Past as Prologue / 1
Chapter 2. Barzani and Talabani / 11
Chapter 3. The Iraqi Opposition / 33
Chapter 4. The KDP-PUK Civil War / 67
Chapter 5. Power Vacuum / 111
Chapter 6. Prospects / 127
Notes / 137
Selected Bibliography / 164
Index / 176
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
It has been more than 20 years since I spent a year as a Senior Fulbright Lecturer in International Relations at the Middle East Technical University in Ankara, Turkey. The interest first kindled then continues to develop with this my fourth book about the Kurds. I hope my work will have a positive effect by enabling my readers to understand better what is involved in the Kurdish situation. I certainly have learned a great deal along the way and continue to do so daily.
In writing this present analysis, I owe a great debt of gratitude to the more than 50 people—Kurds and others involved with them—whom I have interviewed in the past few years. Most of them are listed in the selected bibliography under “Interviews and Correspondence.” I assume fully the responsibility for any errors resulting from my misunderstanding. Hopefully, these mistakes are minimal.
I have also made copious use of various news services on the Internet such as those of the Washington Kurdish Institute and the Turkish Radio Hour (Haywood, California); news clippings such as those of the Institut Kurde de Paris; and the translation service provided by the Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FB1S) that is now online. These were all invaluable tools, but since their reproduction of the original sources sometimes lacked original page numbers, my notes are occasionally inconsistent here. Thus, I have given original page numbers of sources when 1 could obtain them, but I omitted them when they were not available. Apparently, this minor concession is necessary to use the much greater advantage of the Internet and news clipping services.
I would like to thank Mehrdad Izady for the excellent map of Iraqi Kurdistan he produced for me to use here. He also has been an important source of knowledge. In addition, I would like to thank for their invaluable help and advice Ibrahim Ahmad, Farhad Barzani, Masrour Barzani, Najmaldin Karim, Sheri Laizer, Latif Rashid, and Barham Salih. Michael Flamini, the Senior Editor for the Scholarly and Reference Division at St. Martin’s Press, and his many editorial associates have been most helpful and supportive.
Both the microcomputer staff and the library staff at Tennessee Technological University in Cookeville, Tennessee— where 1 have taught political science since 1972—have also been very helpful. In addition, I want to thank the Middle East Journal, Middle East Quarterly, and the Journal of South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies for permitting me to use some material of mine that appeared there earlier.
To use a consistent transliteration system for the names and terms from Kurdish, Arabic, Turkish, and Persian that appear in this study might have resulted in making some appear needlessly awkward or virtually unrecognizable. Therefore, I have used spellings that seemed most natural to me as an English- speaking reader. Similarly, only Kurdish words in the text not frequently used in English have been italicized. To simplify the text, I also have omitted certain diacritical marks. Although the purist might object, such procedures have not affected the meanings of these terms.
Finally, I want to recognize my wife Judy and our two chil-dren—now grown—Michael (and his wife Linda) and Heidi. This book is dedicated to my late father Dr. Martin J. Gunter (1919-1993). It is the sequel to my study The Kurds of Iraq: Tragedy and Hope (1992), which I dedicated to my late mother Larissa Kostenko Gunter (1917-1993). I miss them both very much.
Introduction
In May 1992, the Iraqi Kurds held democratic elections that in July of that year led to the formation of a Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), in which power was equally shared by Massoud Barzani’s Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and Jalal Talabani’s Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK). During the same summer the Iraqi Kurds also played a major role in the creation of an umbrella Iraqi opposition organization, the Iraqi National Congress (INC). The professed goal of INC was the creation of a democratic and federal post-Saddam Iraq in which the cultural and national destiny of the Kurds at last would be solved.
What an incredible turnabout from Saddam’s genocidal Anfal campaign against the Kurds at the end of the Iran-Iraq War in 1988, and, less than three years later, the tragic flight of some 1.5 million Kurdish refugees following the failure of their uprising at the end of the Gulf War in March 1991. Hope blossomed that the long running tragedy of the Kurds in Iraq might finally be ending!
More than six years have passed since those heady days in 1992 when I published my first book on the Kurds of Iraq.1 Since the positive reception of my work,2 a new analysis of the tragic descent into civil war and the many other events that have occurred subsequently now seems appropriate. It will serve as a sequel to my earlier study.
I met some of my sources when I traveled to Iraqi Kurdistan in August 1993 at the invitation of both Barzani’s KDP and Talabani’s PUK. Dr. Najmaldin O. Karim, a prominent Kurdish-American independent …
Michael M. Gunter
The Kurdish Predicament in Iraq
A Political Analysis
St. Martin's Press
St. Martin's Press
The Kurdish Predicament in Iraq
A Political Analysis
Michael M. Gunter
Copyright © Michael M. Gunter, 1999.
All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America.
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner
whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief
quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
St. Martin’s Press
175 Fifth Avenue,
New York, N.Y. 10010.
ISBN 0-312-21896-6
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Gunter, Michael M.
The Kurdish predicament in Iraq: a political analysis
Michael M. Gunter
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index
ISBN 0-312-21896-6
1. Kurds—Iraq—Politics and government.
2. Kurds—Political activity.
3. Iraq—Ethnic Relations. I. Title.
DS70.8.K8G86 / 1999
956.7’00491597—dc21 / 98-37355
CIP
