Topic: Kurds vote overwhelmingly in favor of independence from Iraq

[Highwind Dragoon]

http://www.cnn.com/2017/09/27/middleeast/kurdish-referendum-results/index.html

So, what happens now?

[Lumi Kløvstad]

My dad spent a lot of time in Kurdistan when he was deployed in Iraq. He has never said a bad thing about the Kurds and instead has endless fond memories of the time he spent there. From what I can tell, the Kurds are some of the world's best people: they're very polite and good hosts to an extent that would make Canadians blush, but also willing to kick ass if pushed. I truly hope this works out well for them. I don't want to imagine a world without such excellent and lovely people in it, but they're also pretty routinely hated and preyed upon by their neighbors.

[Mooning Freddy]

Now, we wait.

Kurds have suffered from oppression by other nations for centuries, and their historical land to this point is separated between Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria. Pretty much all of whom treated them like $#17.
The Kurds bravely fought both Saddam and ISIL. They are not a perfect nation, but many argue their moderate religious views and tolerance should serve as an example to their neighbors. Also it is believed Saladin, one of the greatest Muslim leaders of all times, respected both by Muslims and Christian and Jewish contemporaries, was a Kurd.

The only problem with a Kurdish state is that the international community views this as "a destabilizing development", i.e. a change of international borders that would encourage more conflicts between Kurds and their neighbors and more attempts for separatism by various ethnic/religious minorities in the Middle East. I somewhat understand that logic, but my sympathy lies with the Kurds.

Israel is quite supportive of Kurd independence and Kurds actually have a high level of respect for Israel, which is quite rare in the Middle East. Some of the Kurds' enemies know this and try to draw a parallel between Israel and a Kurdish state as agents of instability in the Middle East; but it's absolute rubbish, what produces instability is the extreme hatred between ethnic and religious groups in the Mideast and their unwillingness to make compromises.