since. The Mahabad republic was quick-
ly defeated by Iran, and Barzani went
into exile in the Soviet Union, where he
remained until a revolution overthrew
the British-installed Iraqi monarchy in
July 1958. At that point, Barzani re-
turned from exile to lead the Kurdistan
Democratic Party, a disparate collection
of leftist nationalists and more conserva-
tive tribal chieftains.
Assurances by the new military
regime that Kurdish rights would be
enshrined in a new constitution at
first seemed to herald a new beginning
for the Kurds. However, negotiations
between Barzani and ‘Abd al-Karim
Qasim, Iraq’s new prime minister,
broke down. Barzani’s demands for
autonomy were too far-reaching, and
included making oil-rich Kirkuk the
‘capital’ of an autonomous Kurdistan.
Eventually, the deadlock descended into
all-out war between the government
and the Kurds, who formed military
units called Peshmerga to take on the
Iraqi army.
Though Qasim’s regime was over-
thrown in 1963, subsequent militar y
regimes followed a similar pattern: seek-
ing negotiated settlement but eventually
engaging in militar y action against the
Kurds. Increasingly, the Shah of Iran
and Israel provided financial and logistic
support to the Kurdish rebels, in order
to undermine the Iraqi government.Deal with Saddam
When the Ba‘ath Party seized power in
1968, Saddam Hussein took charge of
negotiations and successfully managed
to agree a deal with Barzani in March- Although the agreement was the
most far-reaching ever signed by any
Iraqi government – promising extensive
autonomy with Kurdish-language provi-
sion, a guarantee of Kurdish officials in
Kurdish areas, and a separate legislative
body – it soon became clear that it was
not enough for the Kurds.
War broke out again in 1974, this
time on an unprecedented scale. By now,
the Shah, along with the CIA, was pro-
viding millions of dollars to the Kurds
annually, and extensive logistic support
across the border. The Iranians even
stationed troops disguised as Kurdish
Peshmerga in Iraq to help the rebellion.
W hen the Shah unexpectedly made
a deal with Saddam in March 1975,
promising to withdraw support for
the Kurds in exchange for Iraqi border
concessions, Iraqi troops swiftly moved
in and crushed the rebellion, forcing as
many as 200,000 Kurds to flee to Iran.
In the aftermath, the Kurds accused the
government of pursuing an ‘Arabisation’
policy in the region. It therefore came as
no big surprise that, when Iraq invad-
ed Iran in 1980, the Kurds eventually
sided with the Iranians, even though by
then that latter country had become an
Islamic republic following the overthrow
of the Shah in 1978–79. The Kurds paid
a heavy price for their decision, being
branded traitors by the Saddam regime
and taking the full brunt of a brutal
campaign at the end of the war that saw
thousands of Kurdish civilians killed
as the Iraqi government retook areas
captured by Iran and the Kurds.
Similar hardship afflicted the Kurds
when, following Iraq’s invasion of
Kuwait and defeat by the internation-
al coalition in early 1991, they rose
up in rebellion anew, along with the
Shia population in southern Iraq. The
uprising was quickly crushed and, as
the west looked on, millions of Kurds
were uprooted from their homes. Many
fled to Europe and beyond for safety.
Eventually, their plight forced the inter-
national community to react. Belatedly,
the United States and Britain established
a no-fly zone in the north that effectively
allowed the Kurds to develop a semi-
autonomous proto-state under western
protection. With the Saddam regime
facing stiff international sanctions untilThe Kurds discovered that Turkey
and Iran were intent on preventing
Kurdish independence at all costs
Iraqi Kurd émigrés celebrate the capture of Saddam Hussein by US forces in December 2003.
Saddam had negotiated a deal with the Kurds in 1970, but brutally crushed later uprisings
GETTY^ IMAGESKurds in Iraq