The history of the conflict between the Kurds and the government of their homeland of Iraq up to about 1980 is covered in two books. One book addresses specifically the Kurdish question in Iraq as a historical narrative, the other covers the same issues through history in essays by several different historians and commentators. The two books taken together offer a picture of the conflict and of the peoples of this part of the world, showing how the two sides differ, how they are alike, and how the differences are having a greater effect than any similarities.
Edmund Ghareeb in his book The Kurdish Question in Iraq says that he intends to offer a brief examination of the history of the Kurdish question in Turkey and Iran and then concentrate on the Kurdish question in Iran and specifically on the "Iraqi Baath government's attempts since 1968 to achieve a political understanding with the Kurds concerning their status in northern Iraq" (ix). Ghareeb views the issue as one in which the leaders of Iraq have tried to accommodate the Kurds, and he states that these leaders wish to maintain the territorial integrity of the country and keep primary decision-making powers in Baghdad even as they are willing to grant the Kurds limited powers of self-rule and cultural expression. However, attempts to bring this about have failed because of unrest and armed clashes.
Ghareeb first considers the origins of the Kurdish question, noting that Iraq was occupied by the Ottoman Turks in the sixteenth century and ruled for more than four centuries as a buffer zone between the Ottoman and Persian empires. Iraq achieved its independence in 1932 and inherited the legacy of the Ottoman empire as well as problems involving the rise of nationalist sentiment among Arabs and Kurds. The Kurds were among the most vocal that Iraq should form a separate state and not be folded into any other Arab country. In creating such a state, though, the Iraqi gove...