THE KURDS

With a geographical homeland in Eastern Turkey, and parts of Iran, Iraq and Syria, the Kurds are often called the largest people on earth that don't have their own nation state. There was a fleeting opportunity to get one in the aftermath of the First World War, when the Ottoman Empire collapsed; but it faltered in the face of Franco-British opposition. So although Iraq, Syria and Lebanon all became new countries, Kurdistan did not.

Now, however, it is possible that the long-held dream might just become a reality. The reason is that in an area of mayhem and destruction, the Kurds are looking like the only thing holding together. The three artificially created entities above have all shown to varying degrees that it takes more than straight lines on a map to create a nation. Throw into that mix the appalling organisation called Islamic State, and the Kurds are looking attractive. If giving them a country is the price for their stopping IS' mooted caliphate, then that increasingly looks like one that the West would be prepared to pay.

Not everybody is happy, though. In particular, Turkey dislikes the idea of Kurdistan, something it has fought hard (and often brutally) against since the 1920's. That would explain why it is reluctant to help the Kurds battling against IS in the town of Kobane, the heart of a Syrian Kurdish enclave right against the Turkish border. The Turks are letting lots of refugees cross the border, but are unwilling to use tanks and other heavy weapons to help the Kurds break the IS siege of the town.  

A formal declaration of Kurdish statehood is unlikely any time soon. Assuming that IS can be tamed, what will probably emerge is a somewhat bigger version of the de facto state that the Kurds already have in northern Iraq. Nominally part of that country, but pretty much autonomous and left alone by the Government in Baghdad. Most Kurds would probably settle for that. After all, being left alone is a major improvement on being harassed, discriminated against, or persecuted.

Walter Blotscher