This Bachelor dissertation will focus on America’s policy regarding the Iraqi Kurds and their quest for autonomy between 1958 and 1975, in the context of Washington’s seventeen year-long Cold War...Show moreThis Bachelor dissertation will focus on America’s policy regarding the Iraqi Kurds and their quest for autonomy between 1958 and 1975, in the context of Washington’s seventeen year-long Cold War competition during these years with the Soviet Union for influence in Iraq. Was foreign policy of the United States towards the Iraqi Kurds contradictory or consistent between 1958 and 1975? What factors determined Washington’s policy towards the Iraqi Kurds between 1958 and 1975? And what factors caused it to change? These are the main research questions which should provide sufficient insight in Washington’s motives and goals which determined its policy on the Iraqi Kurds, and should explain how that policy finally took shape. First of all, Washington’s main policy interests in relation to the Iraqi Kurds during General Qasim’s regime from 1958 till 1963 will be examined. Second, the main U.S. policy interests regarding the Iraqi Kurds during the Ba’athist regime of 1963 and during the presidencies of the brothers Arif will be investigated. And finally, these same U.S. policy interests will be examined during the Ba’athist regime of President al-Bakr from July 1968, until the 1975 Algiers Agreement between Iran and Iraq. During these three separate periods, this dissertation will also focus on how these U.S. interests were eventually pursued.Show less
