The Kurdish Question

Can Turkey learn to live with an increasingly powerful Iraqi Kurdistan across the border?

The phantom nation of Kurdistan has as long and bloody and proud a history as any Middle Eastern nation -- longer, bloodier, and even prouder, one might say, for it has never had the chance to fail its citizens. It has led its existence as a shadow country hovering over the mountainous region now occupied by Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Iran, and Armenia. It has had leaders who fought for it, and enemies who tried to destroy it, and millions of would-be citizens, but it has never appeared on official maps of the region. full text