Territory, State and Nationalism

The Sykes -Picot Agreement map signed in May 1916 by the Imperial powers of Great Britain and France, constituted the blueprint for redrawing the map of the Middle East after the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire in 1918, by the victorious Allies thus dividing the Arab territories as well as Kurdistan into its current form. In this book, the author makes an ambitious attempt to provide a comprehensive new insight into the Kurdish national movement and its struggle against the mandatory power (the British) and the Iraqi government for achievement of national self-determination from 1918 to 1932. The book explores both Kurdish and Arab nationalism within the context of power relations in international politics at the time on the one hand, and in relation to domestic political development in Iraq on the other. Thereby, salient issues are explored, inter alia, the reasons for the British failure to create a modern national state in Iraq, the reluctance of the Anglo-Iraqi authorities to accommodate Kurdish rights and their policy to incorporate Kurdistan into the nascent Iraqi state, the U.S. interests and implication in the region, and the impact of the principle of self-determination advocated by President Wilson on Kurdish and Arab nationalism. Revised with a new chapter.