The Future of Kurdistan in Iraq. Edited by Brendan O’Leary,
John McGarry and Khaled Salih. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania
Press, 2005. 384p. $45.00 cloth, $26.50 paper.
DOI: 10.1017/S1537592708080377
— Henri J. Barkey, Lehigh University
This edited volume on the Kurdish enclave in northern
Iraq is a genuinely honest effort at tackling the difficult
issues currently confronting Kurdistan. From the outset,
the editors (two of whom worked for the advisory board
set up by the Kurdistan Regional Government) acknowl-
edge that this work “is not neutral. It takes the existence
of Kurdistan as a political entity as a desirable given”(i),
and most of the authors adopt a sympathetic approach to
Kurdistan and the Kurds of Iraq.
This is not to say, however, that the authors of the
different articles are all of the same mind. In fact, there is
a healthy dose of disagreement. Much of the book is pre-
scriptive: Many of the authors analyze the different con-
figurations best applicable to Iraqi Kurdistan. Whereas
most of the authors see a robust autonomous region within
Iraq, Gareth Stansfield argues that past divisions among
the Kurdish groups will ultimately translate into a divided
Iraqi Kurdistan.
The book’s strength lies mostly in the discussion of
future arrangements, primarily variations on federalism
and the difficulties that Iraq encounters as a result of the
poor planning that went into the U.S.-led invasion in the
first place. The Future of Kurdistan in Iraq, it must be
stressed, was finished before the landmark elections in
2005 that approved the constitution and elected a new
parliament. Hence, the main reference point for the arti-
cles is the Transitional Administrative Law (TAL) that came
to represent an interim constitution. At the time of writ-
ing, the authors were unsure of how many of the TAL’s
provisions would be translated into the final constitution,
especially the ones concerning the future of the Kurdish
region. In fact, the 2005 constitution did refer to the TAL
for many of its provisions, including those relating to the
future of Kirkuk, the oil-rich city that the Kurds have
made clear ought to be part of the future Kurdistan territory.
The TAL had stipulated that Iraq would be a federa-
tion. Some in Iraq have rejected the concept of federation
entirely but, even more problematically, there are many
forms that federalism could take and no agreement on
which is the best for Iraq. Brendan O’Leary’s discussion of
the various forms of federalism is particularly well done
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