Book Review: A Thousand Sighs, A Thousand Revolts: Journeys in Kurdistan

The Kurds are one of the most important political factors in the Middle East. Spread across six countries, they number perhaps forty million-larger than the population of Canada and more pro-American. At the same time the Kurds are mistrusted and discounted. Human-rights groups that once publicized Iraq's genocide of the Kurds now ignore them. When the United States transferred power to the Iraqis in June, the State Department closed down its representation in Iraqi Kurdistan-a slight to a region that opinion polls show is over 90 percent pro-American.

Christiane Bird's well-written travelogue starts to fill an important gap in popular knowledge of the Kurds. Bird describes the suffering of the Kurds, as well as their diversity and frequent disunity. The Kurds have an interest in changing the status quo in the Middle East and a desire to see democracy forced upon the region. And some changes have happened. Since the fall of Saddam, the Kurds of Iran and Syria have openly challenged their regimes. In Turkey, the government has been forced to ease restrictions on the Kurds so that it can start negotiations for membership in the European Union.

Iraqi Kurdistan is now the most peaceful region of Iraq, a place where there has not been a single terrorist attack on American forces. The Kurds often say that they have no friends but the mountains. Read this book and you will understand why in Iraq the Americans need to give the Kurds another friend.

– Andrew Apostolou