Kurdistan does not exist as a country, yet it certainly does exist as a nation. A people of great number and antiquity, united by a shared heritage, the Kurds are primarily scattered over five countries-Turley, Iran, Iraq, Syria and Russia. For a great many years they have played the unenviable role of pawns in the Middle East's turbulent power struggles, manipulated by governments using Kurdish troubles as a means of outmaneuvering their opponents. William Rupert Hay was a British political officer who was in charge of the largely Kurdish district of Arbil in northern Iraq from 1918 to 1920....