ABSTRACT
Any adequate understanding of the various legal issues connected with oil and gas in Iraq’s disputed territories hinges, at least in part, on familiarity with the forces that have contributed to the extant tension between the central government in Baghdad and the Kurdish Regional Government in Erbil, and with the resource, ethnic, and religious interests that often serve to facilitate that tension. As will be observed below, the very notion of a “Kurdish peoples” has been in existence for some three millennia, and this has from time to time necessarily driven grand thoughts of a pan-Kurdish nation-state. The post-World War I establishment of the boundaries of much of the modern Middle-East political map clearly frustrated these Kurdish ambitions, directly contributing to the hard-feelings and animosities witnessed today, not only between the Kurds in northern Iraq and the authorities to the south in Baghdad, but between Kurds in southeastern Turkey and the government in Ankara, those in northwestern Iran and the government in Tehran, and those Kurds in northeastern Syria and the government in Damascus. While it is only natural for historically distinct ethnic groups to desire independent self-governance, once the boundaries of nation-states have been established, acceding to the legitimate desires of every group for autonomous self-rule can result in irredentism capable of undoing much of the political map of the entire world community. Whether it be the Uighurs (pronounced Weegers) in western China, the Basques in northwestern Spain, the Kosovars in Serbia, the Mayan Zapatistas in Mexico’s Chiapas region, or the Kurds in Iraq, the challenge is to craft a compromise that assures a sufficient sense of political significance to damp-down fervor for violence and secession, while doing so in a way that maintains the basic structures of government necessary for the nation-state to remain a single unit. Obviously, a federal system can be helpful in accomplishing that goal, but even then success can in part hinge on whether the distinct ethnic group tends to reside in a particular region of the nation-state, the degree of autonomy afforded regional units by the nation’s constitutional structure, as well as the level of hostility evidenced in the historical relations between the nation’s majority and its minority populations.
