ABSTRACT
Self-governance has developed from being an ethereal aim of Kurdish political parties to being a reality at the core of the political system. The events of the early 1990s, which commenced with the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and culminated with the defeat of Iraq, the Rapareen, and the withdrawal of the administrative organs and military forces of the GOI from the north of the country, provided the Kurds with a unique opportunity to administer their own region. It is not an exaggeration to consider the establishment of the KRG as being the most important single event in the history of the Kurdish national movement in Iraq. 1 However, criticism of the Kurds’ attempts to govern themselves is widespread both in the academic literature and journalists’ accounts. Academics have questioned the success of the entity particularly in terms of its internal security and order. Michael Gunter, for example, after noting the formation of the KRG in 1992, begins his analysis of the Kurdish Predicament in Iraq by asking ‘how did everything go so wrong?’ 2
