On March 16, 2006, angry Kurds in Halabja, Iraq, tore down a monument dedicated to the memory of the 1988 poison gas attacks by Saddam Hussein. Why would the Kurds destroy a monument with such symbolic importance three years after the end of Hussein’s brutal rule? The Washington Post reported that rioters, mostly locals, were directing the violence at the governing party of the Kurdish region of Northern Iraq, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. The cause was the party’s misuse of foreign aid funds dedicated to help the region recover from years of persecution by the repressive Baath party.

The destruction of the monument is a perfect example of the difficulty of the Kurdish situation, especially that of Northern Iraqi Kurds, at present. One would think that two years after being freed from the oppression of Hussein, undoubtedly their most violent persecutor, the prospects of a Kurdish state, especially in Northern Iraq, would be better than at any point in recent history. This is not the case. Political infighting amongst the Kurds, the structure of the current Iraqi government, and vehement opposition to Kurdish independence movements in Iran and Turkey are causing the Kurdish independence movement to wither.

In Iraq, Kurds have long been waiting for a chance at autonomous government, but that chance looks especially slim now. The delicate balance of the Iraqi National Assembly means that the Kurds do not have an opportunity to force their own agenda of independence or at least of more autonomy. In the Iraqi National Assembly, the Kurds have joined forces with the secular Sunni group in opposing the more radical Shi’a groups led by cleric Moqtada al Sadr. While the Kurds have become a critical swing group in Iraqi politics, the parliamentary system leaves them without the influence to push their regional political agenda. A strong political representation of the Kurd-Sunni alliance in the National Assembly would probably pave the way for some degree of Kurdish autonomy in northern Iraq. However, many Iraqi Kurds do not trust their own representatives in the National Assembly and accuse them of corruption and of ignoring the pursuit of Kurdish autonomy and compensation for generations of persecution. Othman Ali Gaffur, a Kurd at the Halabja protest, said, “We were demonstrating because the government says we are martyrs but does nothing for us. We do not even have streets in Halabja but only laneways of mud.” If Kurds cannot trust their own elected representatives, their quest for independence in Iraq will hardly become easier.

Prospects for autonomy for Turkish and Iranian Kurds look no better. From 1980 to 1999, Turkey categorically refused to negotiate with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), on the grounds that it was a terrorist organization. However, since the capture and imprisonment of the group’s founder Abdullah Öcalan in 1999, the organization has largely disintegrated. Turkey, however, cites the violence of those years whenever the prospect of Kurdish autonomy is broached and uses it to silence discussion. In Iran it is almost impossible for Sunnis to run for public office because of discriminatory laws, and most Kurds are Sunni. This tactic has been used to disenfranchise Kurdish regions in the west of Iran, especially in the former Republic of Mahabad, a region that fought and lost a brief war for independence against the Iranian government in 1945. In addition, the teaching of Kurdish has been banned in schools. The Kurdish independence movement in Iran is all but dead.

Though prospects for Kurdish autonomy are bleak, achieving autonomy is not impossible. On the surface, the idea of “Kurdistan,” an independent country that would combine Kurdish regions in Iran, Iraq, and Turkey, into one seems very unlikely, because of the difficulty in getting three separate states to cede territory. In Iraq the focus of the US army and the new Iraqi government is binding the nation together, not splintering it into an even more federalized state. However, if Kurds in Iraq can come to consensus among themselves, they may be able to use their influence as a swing voter group to bargain for autonomy from a parliamentary coalition government with the Sunnis. Turkey may be willing to grant Kurds more autonomy if it believed doing so would help Turkey’s chances of entering the European Union. Iran might see fit to publicly grant Kurds a measure of autonomy as an act of goodwill to impress the international community and to take the focus away from its nuclear program.

Though the Kurdish question does not receive very much media attention, it should not be forgotten. The Kurds, separated by diaspora and mostly disenfranchised, have only limited power to affect their own situation. The international community cannot let nationalist, terrorist violence from the PKK or its subsidiaries, for example, be the Kurds’ best way of influencing those who oppress them. The European Union has the power to pressure Turkey, and the United States has the power to pressure Iraq and possibly Iran on the subject of the Kurds. Though the fall of Saddam Hussein has helped the Kurdish cause, the Kurds will need help from the international community in their quest for a sovereign Kurdish state.