Oil and the Kurdish Question critiques the conventional narrative of the Iran-Iraq War and the associated Anfal campaign. It also examines how publicists exploited the myth of the Kurdish holocaust as justification for America to declare war on Iraq.

This work first briefly examines the history of the Kurdish question in Turkey and Iran, then concentrates on the Kurdish question in Iraq - specifically, the Iraqi Baath government's attempts since 1968 to achieve a political understanding with the Kurds concerning their status in northern Iraq.

Oil and the Kurdish Question critiques the conventional narrative of the Iran-Iraq War and the associated Anfal campaign. This narrative claims that in the last two years (1987-88) of the Iran-Iraq War the Ba’thists dominated the fighting using gas attacks. According to this narrative, the Ba’thists also used gas in a fearsome campaign of extermination against the Kurds of northern Iraq. This book argues that, contrary to conventional wisdom, the Iraqis trained hard to turn the tables on Iran in the last months of the war and won by superior generalship without the use of gas. Further, it was only when the Iranians conceded defeat that the Iraqi army went north and—in the space of nine days, using conventional arms—suppressed pockets of Kurdish insurgent unrest. The book also examines how publicists exploited the myth of the Kurdish holocaust as justification for America to declare war on Iraq. It exposes a scheme laid out before the war that aimed to defeat Iraq, deconstruct it, and create an autonomous Kurdish Regional Government which would then let lucrative oil concessions to interests mainly in the west. The intrigue accomplished two things: it subverted Iraq’s oil nationalization law which forbade granting concessions to foreigners, and it ended Iraq’s existence as a sovereign nation-state.

Kurds are the largest stateless people in the world. An estimated thirty-two million Kurds live in "Kurdistan," which includes parts of Turkey, Iraq, Syria, and Iran today's "hot spots" in the Middle East. The Kurdish Spring explores the subjugation of Kurds by Arab, Ottoman, and Persian powers for almost a century, and explains why Kurds are now evolving from a victimized people to a coherent political community.David L. Phillips describes Kurdish rebellions and arbitrary divisions in the last century, chronicling the nadir of Kurdish experience in the 1980s. He discusses draconian measures implemented by Iraq, including use of chemical weapons, Turkey's restrictions on political and cultural rights, denial of citizenship and punishment for expressing Kurdish identity in Syria, and repressive rule in Iran.Phillips forecasts the collapse and fragmentation of Iraq. He argues that US strategic and security interests are advanced through cooperation with Kurds, as a bulwark against ISIS and Islamic extremism. This work will encourage the public to look critically at the post-colonial period, recognizing the injustice and impracticality of states that were created by Great Powers, and offering a new perspective on sovereignty and statehood.

For the first time in their modern history, the Kurds in Iraq and Turkey at least are cautiously ascending. This is because of two major reasons. (1) In northern Iraq the two U.S. wars against Saddam Hussein have had the fortuitous side effect of helping to create a Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG). The KRG has become an island of democratic stability, peace, and burgeoning economic progress, as well as an autonomous part of a projected federal, democratic, post-Saddam-Hussein Iraq. If such an Iraq proves impossible to construct, as it well may, the KRG is positioned to become independent. Either way, the evolution of a solution to the Kurdish problem in Iraq is clear. (2) Furthermore, Turkey's successful EU candidacy would have the additional fortuitous side effect of granting that country's ethnic Kurds their full democratic rights that have hitherto been denied. Although this evolving solution to the Kurdish problem in Iraq and Turkey remains cautiously fragile and would not apply to the Kurds in Iran and Syria because they have not experienced the recent developments their co-nationals in Iraq and Turkey have, it does represent a strikingly positive future that until recently seemed so bleak.

The Kurds, once marginal in the study of the Middle East and secondary in its international relations, have moved to centre stage in recent years. The contributors to The Kurdish Question Revisited offer insights into how this once seemingly intractable, immutable phenomenon is being transformed amid the new political realities of the Middle East.

The Kurds with an estimated population of 25 to 28 million people are arguably the largest nation in the world without its own independent state. The Kurdish population spreads into four countries, in an area referred to as Kurdistan. Since the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime in April 2003, the first free elections in Iraq were held in January 2005, the Iraqi constitution was passed in a referendum in October 2005, and successful elections were held in December 2005. The Kurds are now wielding more political influence over the future of Iraq and the future of Iraqi Kurdistan. These events have given rise to Kurdish expectations of independence; or at a minimum, a federalist Iraq. United States foreign policy can no longer ignore the Kurdish question as it applies to the Middle East and to U.S. creditability on the world stage. This paper will analyze U.S. policy towards the Kurds in the future Iraq. Can Iraq unite with a power sharing agreement between Arab Shiites, Arab Sunnis, and Kurds? If Iraq cannot become united, can a peaceful separation be achieve that will maintain stability in the region? How should U.S. foreign policy proceed?