The Kurdish movement has achieved significant advances: regional institutions, political representation, military experience, international contacts, diaspora networks and global recognition of Kurdish contributions to the fight against ISIS. Yet since the 2017 Kurdish independence referendum, Kurdish self-rule has remained vulnerable.
From the outside, Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria continue to restrict Kurdish political autonomy. Yet the diagnosis is worse, for the problem has been exacerbated by internal divisions.
These are the almost unimaginable challenges preventing a secure and lasting Kurdish self-determination. Yet the dream of Kurdish self-rule will never die. That is the resistance of this important book, serialised for paid subscribers here on Guerre and Shalom. - Daniel Clarke-Serret (Editor, Guerre and Shalom)
Kurdistanî Azad: The Long Dream of Kurdish Self-Rule
by Ann-Catrin Emanuelsson & Khaled Salih
Parts I to IV of the book can be found here (work from the bottom of the list).
Part V — The Dream After 2011
After 2011, the world saw the Kurds more clearly. The question was whether visibility could become protection and protection could become home.
Part V Introduction: The Dream After 2011 // Chapter 15: Rojava and the Syrian Earthquake
Chapter 16: ISIS and the Kurdish Moment
Chapter 17: A Moment of Dignity and the Punishment of Hope
Chapter 18: The Cage has Adapted
Turkey’s cross-border operations, Iran’s pressure, Iraq’s fragility, and Syria’s uncertainty
The 2017 referendum returned Kurdish politics to an old strategic geography.
The dream had reached for statehood, but the punishment of that hope reminded Kurdish politics of a brutal structural fact: Kurdistan remains divided among four states, and each state still has the power to shape, restrict, invade, bargain over, or suffocate Kurdish life. The safe haven, federalism, Rojava, the anti-ISIS war, and the referendum all changed Kurdish history. But they did not abolish the regional cage.
This is adapted-cage fungibility. The surrounding states no longer need to deny Kurdish life in only one vocabulary. They can make it interchangeable with whatever category serves the moment: counterterrorism, border security, constitutional authority, oil dispute, salary dispute, disputed territory, foreign interference, separatism, sovereignty, demographic balance, or regional stability. The cage adapts by changing the name under which Kurdish self-rule is managed. Kurdistanî Azad must therefore ask not only whether Kurds are visible, but whether Kurdish persons and institutions can survive without being exchanged between other people’s categories.
The Kurdish achievement was real, but it remained surrounded by states whose recognition, borders, courts, armies, and alliances could still decide how far that achievement was allowed to go.
After 2017, Kurdish politics again found itself between four states: Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria.
This was not simply geography. It was a system of pressure.
Each state came with its own method. Turkey used cross-border military power, drones, intelligence networks, economic leverage, and the language of counterterrorism. Iran used missiles, proxy influence, party penetration, border pressure, and the language of national security. Iraq used constitutional ambiguity, budgetary control, federal courts, disputed territories, and the language of sovereignty. Syria used uncertainty: collapse, negotiation, Turkish pressure, regime return, and the unresolved status of Kurdish self-rule.
