ABSTRACT
In 1993 the portraits of half a dozen Kurds prominent in a century's nationalist struggle faced out onto Sulaimaniyah's main traffic circle from their proud display high up on a building wall. They included locally revered "martyrs who had sacrificed their lives fighting in Kurdistan's cause and men once in the political forefront of ill-starred Kurdish nationalism. All had paid the price for rebellion in Iran, Iraq, or Turkey. The artlessness of the genuflection to the past unintentionally underscores the Kurds' enduring lack of mastery in other, more crucial endeavors. Starting early in the nineteenth century, the Kurds had made repeated efforts to resist direct Ottoman rule and to unify parts of Kurdistan. Much of Kurdistan was laid low by successive Ottoman punitive expeditions dispatched to bring to heel the Kurdish principalities set on perpetuating their privileges. Iranian Kurds had taken advantage of the power vacuum.
