The Kurds of Iraq and their painstaking quest for legitimacy

Citizens of this region also enjoyed more political, civil and press freedoms than their Iraqi counterparts and were better connected to the rest of the world through neighbouring countries.

Zebari explains that the Kurds — in an effort to gain more political and constitutional legitimacy by reintegrating into the new Iraq — gave up much of the benefits they enjoyed while operating autonomously. 

They had been preparing for this a year before, when they learned of former US President George W. Bush's intention to overthrow Saddam's regime. The Americans had informed them during a secret meeting in Virginia in April 2002 and had asked the Kurds for their help in legitimising their project.

Regional buy in

After obtaining assurances from the US, Kurdish leaders reached out to their counterparts in Syria, Iran and Turkey in a bid to get their buy in. On his part, then-president of Iran, Hashemi Rafsanjani, promised Kurdish leaders that Iran would support Kurdish federalism in the post-Saddam phase through their influence on Iraqi forces close to Iran.

Turkey, on the other hand, had three big asks in exchange for their support: Turkish military deployment in the provinces of Kirkuk and Mosul, the disarmament of the Kurdish Peshmerga forces, and the prevention of the emergence of any nucleus of a Kurdish entity — even in the future.

Outraged by these conditions, the Kurds tried to convince Washington to begin its invasion without Turkey's buy in.

Kurdish political forces — two main parties in particular — began to lay the foundations of the Iraqi opposition that would soon lead the country in the post-Saddam era. To this end, they helped organise two conferences — one in London on 14 December 2002 and one in Salah al-Din on 26 February 2003.

The members of both conferences unanimously condemned all repressive political practices committed by the various Iraqi regimes against the Kurds in Iraq. They pledged to correct them and prevent their recurrence. They also acknowledged that federalism is the solution to the Kurdish issue in the country.

However, it took two and a half years following the US invasion in April 2003 for the new Iraqi constitution to be agreed upon and formally adopted.

A long and painstaking battle

While it was a long and painstaking battle, it was worth it, according to Zebari. For the first time since World War I, the Kurds were an officially-recognised political entity.

During the run up to the constitution, however, the Kurds faced a lot of hurdles. Iraqi political forces, driven by nationalistic and patriotic ideals, were ideologically opposed to federalism, viewing it as a threat to the geographic integrity of Iraq in the future.

Turkey and Syria were supporting this Iraqi opposition, pushing for alternatives that would water down Kurdish ambitions and the pledges they received prior to the invasion.

At the same time, the American vision for what the Iraqi state would look like was not clear, and the US butted heads with the Kurds on more than one occasion — especially in the early days of Paul Bremmer, who demonstrated extreme naivety over the relationship between the Kurds and the Iraqi state.

Behind his rose-coloured glasses, Bremmer pushed for the disarmament of the Kurdish peshmerga forces and the postponement of Kurdish demands until Iraqi was "stable."

The issue of delineating borders of a Kurdish federation was also an obstacle. Would it only be the three provinces which were under Kurdish control at the time — Sulaymaniyah, Erbil and Dohuk — or would it also include disputed areas such as Kirkuk, the northern regions of Diyala, and the northern and western regions of Nineveh (Mosul), which is equal in area and population to those of the three provinces?

Compromise reached

After butting heads with the Americans on several occasions — and even threatening to boycott the political process entirely, as what the Iraqi Sunni forces did — the Kurds were able to resolve the first two points of contention. In exchange, they agreed not to annex the disputed areas for the time being, despite their Kurdish majority.

However, they made sure they added a straightforward article (Article 140) to the constitution detailing the mechanism for solving this problem in the future.

As a result of Kurdish revolts against British occupation of Iraq in the 1920s and 30s, they were purposely excluded from British-Iraqi treaties, which explains why the Kurds were not represented in the Iraqi monarchy.

1958 constitutional clause

This changed through the provisional constitution approved by the republican regime during the rule of President Abdulkarim Qasim, 13 days after the coup against the monarchy on 14 July 1958, which stated that the Arabs and Kurds were partners in the Iraqi homeland and affirmed their national rights within a unified Iraqi state.

Despite their hostility against the Kurds, subsequent Iraqi regimes could not ignore this constitutional clause. Everything the Kurds achieved after that, during the time of presidents Abd al-Salam and Abd al-Rahman Aref and the Baathists Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr and Saddam Hussein, was based on the legitimacy of that recognition.

With the new constitution, the Kurds were able to establish and legitimise what can never be denied in the future — a geographical federal area with a completely Kurdish political identity.

They also managed to achieve constitutional recognition that Iraq comprises Arabs and Kurds — adopting the Kurdish language as an official state language.

All of this turned out to be a huge victory for the Kurds who currently enjoy political, economic and symbolic legitimacy — both regionally and internationally — for the first time in modern history.