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Having committed ourselves to military involvement in Iraq, we Canadians should be asking ourselves exactly what goals we hope to achieve. Personally, after recently spending three weeks in the region, I am not convinced that “preserving the territorial integrity” of the present Iraqi state should be one of them.

Since achieving semi-autonomous status in 1992, Iraq’s Kurds have succeeded in building a prosperous, largely peaceful quasi-independent state in the northeastern part of the country. The Iraqi Kurds overwhelmingly desire full independence, and there is no compelling reason why they should not have it.

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The three Iraqi provinces formally under control of the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) have little in common with the rest of Iraq. The population is almost entirely Kurdish, and they have little affinity or affection for Iraq’s Arabs. The Kurds’ language is closely related to Persian. Most of the younger generation speak little or no Arabic, preferring to learn English as their second language. Although most Kurds are Sunni, they do not identify with the Sunni Islam of their Arab neighbours which they associate with extremism. The official policy of the KRG is one of religious tolerance toward minority communities such as Christians, Jews and Alevis. They accord even more respect to the much-persecuted Yezidi sect, considering that little-understood faith to be the original pre-Islamic religion of the Kurdish people. Most of the population of Iraq’s Kurdish provinces seems to share and support the regional government’s policy of protecting religious minorities and its aversion to religious extremism.