Half a century ago, the Algiers Agreement was reached between Iraq and Iran, which ended the latter's support for the Kurdish nationalist movement led by Mullah Mustafa Barzani in Iraq.
At the time, Barzani was faced with two difficult choices: to cease armed struggle and leave Kurdistan with tens of thousands of his fighters and their families or to persevere in a geopolitical landscape devoid of clear support and alliances.
The withdrawal of Iranian support, orchestrated by the United States, coincided with the strengthening of the Iraqi army, bolstered by a strategic treaty with the Soviet Union. This development heralded an impending massacre that threatened the very fabric of Kurdish society and geography and even the survival of Kurdish demographics.
After a 14-year revolution, Barzani drank the "poison of betrayal" (author's phrasing) to spare his people from further bloodshed. He chose self-defeat over resistance.
In Iran, where he was exiled, Barzani died a broken man. Renowned Egyptian journalist Mohamed Hassanein Heikala, who interviewed him in Tehran, called him a "wounded eagle."
Victory in survival
Although politically isolated, the Kurdish nationalist movement persisted over the course of a century. Pragmatism and survival became a cornerstone of Kurdish resistance, even if it meant military and political capitulation.
Before Barzani, Sheikh Mahmoud al-Hafid, in the early 20th century, had also capitulated to the British occupation of Iraq.
Similarly, Sheikh Said Piran in Turkey in the mid-1920s, Judge Muhammad in the mid-1940s with the Iranian authority following the collapse of the Kurdistan Republic in the city of Mahabad, and the Kurdistan Workers' Party experienced a relative surrender and a radical shift in its strategy and demands after the late 20th-century arrest of its leader, Abdullah Öcalan.
