Kurdish Politics in the Middle East analyzes political and social dimensions of Kurdish integration into the mainstream socio-political life in Iran, Iraq, and Turkey. Its central thesis is that ethnic conflict constitutes a major challenge to the contemporary nation-state system in the Middle East. Long vanquished is the illusion of the "melting pot," or the concept that assimilation is an inexorable process produced by "modernization" and the emergence of a relatively strong and centralized nation-state system in the region. Perhaps no single phenomenon highlights this thesis more than the historical Kurdish struggle for self-determination. This book's focus is on Kurdish politics and its relationship with broader regional and global developments that affect the Kurds. It does not claim to cover everything Kurdish, and it does not promote the political agenda of any group, movement, or country.

The changes brought by the Arab Spring and ensuing developments in the Middle East have made the Kurds an important force in the region. Tel-Aviv and Washington place high hopes on Erbil to facilitate their dealings with Baghdad, Damascus, Teheran and Ankara. Kurds living in Turkey, Syria and Iran have been inspired by the successes of their brethren in Iraq who managed to gain significant independence and make remarkable achievements in state building. The idea of a greater Kurdistan is in the air. This book focuses on how the Kurds have become a new and significant force in Middle Eastern politics. International expert contributors conceptualize current developments putting them into theoretical perspective, helping us to better understand the potential role the Kurds could play in the Middle East.

This book provides a detailed survey and analysis of US–Kurdish relations and their interaction with domestic, regional and global politics. Using the Kurdish issue to explore the nature of the engagement between international powers and weaker non-state entities, the author analyses the existence of an interactive US relationship with the Kurds of Iraq. Drawing on governmental archives and interviews with political figures both in Northern Iraq and the United States, the author places the case study within a broader International Relations context. The conceptual framework centres on the inter-relations between actors (both state and non-state) and structures of material and ideational kinds, while the detailed survey and analysis of US–Kurdish relations, in their interaction with domestic, regional and global politics, forms the empirical core of the study. Stressing the intertwining of domestic and foreign policy as part of the same set of dynamics, the case study explains the emergence of the interactive and institutionalized US relationship with the Kurds of Iraq that has brought about the formation, within an Iraqi framework, of an undeclared US official Kurdish policy in the post-Saddam era. Filling a gap in the literature on US–Kurdish relations as well as the broader topic of International Relations, this book will be of great interest to those in the areas of International Relations, Middle Eastern and Kurdish Politics.

Reflecting on seven decades of the Iranian Kurdish movement, this history of its development from 1947 offers a vivid and comprehensive analysis of the politicisation of national sentiments within Iran, and the connections the movement made and developed with Kurdish groups in Iraq.

While dramatic changes taking place in the Middle East offer important opportunities to the Kurdish century-long struggle for recognition, serious obstacles seem to keep reemerging every time the Kurds anywhere make progress. The large Kurdish geography, extending from western Iran to near the eastern Mediterranean, and a century of repression and denial have engendered various Kurdish groups with competing and at times conflicting views and goals. The Kurds in the Middle East: Enduring Problems and New Dynamics, with an emphasis on continuity and change in the Kurdish Question, brings together a group of well-known scholars to shed light on this complex issue.

In Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria, central governments historically pursued mono-nationalist ideologies and repressed Kurdish identity. As evidenced by much unrest and a great many Kurdish revolts in all these states since the 1920s, however, the Kurds manifested strong resistance towards ethnic chauvinism. What sorts of authoritarian state policies have Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria relied on to contain the Kurds over the years? Can meaningful democratization and liberalization in any of these states occur without a fundamental change vis-à-vis their Kurdish minorities? To what extent does the Kurdish issue function as both a barrier and key to democratization in four of the most important states of the Middle East? While many commentators on the Middle East stress the importance of resolving the Arab-Israeli dispute for achieving 'peace in the Middle East,' this book asks whether or not the often overlooked Kurdish issue may constitute a more important fulcrum for change in the region, especially in light of the 'Arab Spring' and recent changes in Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria.

This book examines the Kurds’ rise as new regional actors in the Middle East and the impact this is having on the regional order. Kurdish political activism has reached a new height in the beginning of the 21st Century with Kurdish movements in Iraq, Turkey and Syria establishing themselves as a significant force in the domestic politics of these states. The consolidation of Kurdish autonomy in Iraq and the establishment of a Kurdish de facto autonomous region within Syria is adding to the Kurds’ growing influence in the region and enabling Kurds to forge stronger relations with regional and international forces. The author analyses recent developments in the Kurdish question in Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria to understand the inter-connections and inter-dependencies that exist in the transnational Kurdish political space. The book's policy relevance is likely to attract strong interest from policy makers as well as from academics and students in the fields of Middle Eastern Politics and International Relations.

The twentieth century saw dramatic changes in the once Kurd-dominated Kirkuk region of Iraq. Despite having repeatedly relied on the Kurdish population of Iraq for military support, on three occasions the United States have abandoned their supposed allies in Kirkuk. The Great Betrayal provides a political and diplomatic history of the Kirkuk region and its international relations from the 1920s to the present day. Based on first-hand interviews and previously unseen sources, it provides an accessible account of a region at the very heart of America's foreign policy priorities in the Middle East. In September 2017, Iraqi Kurdistan held an independence referendum, intended to be a starting point on negotiations with the Iraqi Government in Baghdad on the terms of a friendly divorce. Though the US, Turkey, and Iran opposed it, the referendum passed with 93% of the vote. Rather than negotiate, Iraq's Prime Minister Heider al-Abadi issued an ultimatum and then attacked the region. Iraq's Kurdish population have been abandoned, once again, by their supposed allies in the US. In this book, David L. Phillips reveals the failings of America's policies towards Kirkuk and the devastating effects of betraying an ally.

This edited volume introduces the political, social and economic intra-Kurdish dynamics in the Middle East by comparatively analyzing the main actors, their ideas, and political interests. As an ethnic group and a nation in the making, Kurds are not homogeneous and united but rather the Kurdish Middle East is home to various competing political groups, leaderships, ideologies, and interests. Although many existing studies focus on the Kurds and their relations with the nation-states that they populate, few studies analyze the Kurdish Middle East within its own debates, conflicts and interests from a comparative perspective across Iran, Iraq, Turkey, and Syria. This book analyzes the intra-Kurdish dynamics with historically-grounded, theoretically-informed, and conceptually-relevant scholarship that prioritizes comparative politics over international relations.

Since the beginning of 2011, the political situation in Syria has consistently found itself at the top of news broadcasts, newspaper headlines and the agendas of politicians. Little known, however, has been the struggle of the Kurds in Syria to have their voice heard on the political stage and to have equitable access to both economic and political resources. This examination of contemporary Kurdish politics in Syria therefore concentrates on the Syrian-Kurdish political parties which operate illegally in the country. It is these parties and their political leaders, such as Abd -al-Hakim Bashar of the Kurdish Democratic Party in Syria and Abd al- Hamid Darwish of the Kurdish Democratic Progressive Party in Syria, who, despite state sanctions, have attempted to promote their political agendas and to bring about change for the approximately three million Kurds that currently reside in the country. Harriet Allsopp examins Kurdish political parties, how they have tried to negotiate their illegality and how they have developed since 1957 when the first one was established. BY 1960, all political parties were banned, and the Kurds found themselves under increased political pressure from the central state. From 1960 until the present day, this prohibition has been the official position of successive Syrian governments, despite a brief political opening upon the accession of Bashar al-Asad in 2000. It is through a systematic analysis of the history of Kurdish political parties that Allsopp highlights how, on the eve of the Syrian uprising, they were in the midst of a crisis, widely seen as ineffectual and out of touch. Nevertheless, out of the uprising, Kurdish politics has appeared to take on a much more cohesive and effective character. The Kurds of Syria eplores the fundamental issues of minority identity and the concept of being 'stateless' in a turbulent region, as well as the organisation of political parties in Syria, making it vital for all those researching the politics of the modern Middle East.