Attention Gunther, next time try talking without placing your head up ypur ass! You are not entitled to your own opinion(s) until you learn to distinguish them from factual reality! There IS a Kurdistan indeed, it is just not politically established. It is obvious that Gunther is an Ataturk fascist who wishes to deny the existence of the Kurds (the way some uber-Zionists deny the existence of a Palestinian people), and for that matter a propagandist and a liar!

Even if they are over speculating they will still have the largest reserves.

Just some mental floss Here is a question.... When these reserves are certified, how will the geo-political landscape change... Is Mr Chavez going to be the new enemy? Time will tell.

Tom Joad
http://humanopinion.org - because we should have a voice..

To go into Kurdistan, you'd have to "cross" its border, complete with customs house and passport stamping.

The map delineates the area that is known as Kurdistan. The "border" if you will.

Of course, the issue of nationhood remains a touchy subject, as shown by the comments. Turkey is particularly touchy about this subject, since Kurdistan falls within its border and no nation likes losing land.

Prior to the Europeans imposing administrative borders, the region was akin to a feudal system with regional warlords/kings - somewhat like India prior to British colonization.

Under the Ottoman Empire, there was no strong centralized government that ruled all of the Middle East, and there were no clearly defined administrative borders. The Ottomans, especially in the declining centuries, experienced constant revolts. It wasn't until the Ottoman Empire collapsed and after WWI that borders were imposed.

Saying there is no Kurdistan is much like saying there was no Greece - since really it didn't exist until 1830 or so, and and didn't finalize its borders until the early 1920s. Sure, there was that Golden Age thing (and most of that spent as a region of independent city states) - but for most of its history, Greece has been a colony of one Empire or another... the Romans, the Byzantines, the Ottomans, etc.

So, the question is, how do you define a nation? Is it an arbitrary set of borders that have existed long enough for people to have accepted them as part of the map (then what's Kashmir?) Is it a strong government that exerts control over a specific region (Russia/Chechnya)? Is it a national identity that has some historical connection to otherwise occupied lands(Israel)? Or is it a common cultural, linquistic and racial heritage shared among a number of people who occupy relatively contiguous territories (Kurdistan) that happen to be ruled by another crowd (Romans, Armenians, Turks, Arabs)?

Though it is true that there is no historical nation of Kurdistan (though there was, breifly a kingdom of Corduene), Roman maps acknowledge the region and a distinct culture, and an administrative region named as such.

The Kurdish people apparently had less influence than others at the end of WWI, and no distinct borders were created. Rather, the Eurpoeans were more interested in appeasing the Hashemites and the Turks.

completely wrong. theres has never been a kurdistan. the map shows this mythic country of kurdistan encompasing large chunks of turkey and syria. political opinion about what you want to be true disguised as fact is unethical and irresponsible journalism.

According to Wikipedia, Yazdanism is not non-theistic, it is monotheistic. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yazdanism)

Who is right?

It is articles like this one that exacerbates the problems currently facing the U.S. by rendering Americans wholly ignorant of the geopolitical climate in the Middle East.

Perhaps some day when African-Americans get fed up enough to declare an independent ethnic State on some portion of U.S. soil and China uses military force against the U.S. in an effort to force the U.S. to recognize the African-American State maybe then Americans will understand the true dynamics of Kurdish/Iraqi politics and realize their misgivings regarding Saddam Hussein and mideast politics in general.

http://www.bintjbeil.com/E/occupation/ameu_iraqjews.html

Saddam ran a secular government, and he fought the kurds since they were trying to take some of Iraq away from him and he fought the muslims, because he wanted a secular government... not a theocracy.

Additionally, Iraq had a very modern social structure up until gulf war 1. Women wore what they want, went to university had jobs...

Bullshit. Kurds descended from the Europeans? The Kurds are ethnically Aryan, as are the Persians. Several thousand years ago, a group of the Aryans left Iran and colonized Germany, and subsequently spread throughout Europe.

This author is apparently rather ignorant of these things...

Some ascribe this to the incredible ignorance of local needs and custom by paper pushers thousands of miles away. Myself, I suspect that it's a strategy to keep people in constant civil war which is used to justify never ending UN intervention.

Makes you wonder about the rest of the article.

The contraband cuts down on gas station revenues, and consequently, the government’s cut of gas taxes, so U.S. forces in northern cities such as Mosul are trying to help out by cracking down, sometimes giving away the confiscated gas to motorists for free.