Kurdistan: “I will be with the Kurds till the end of my life”
Report by Marc Roussel
In 1916, they were promised an independent Kurdistan, a country that would be theirs alone.
A century later, an overwhelming majority of Kurds made themselves heard in a referendum: Yes to independence! Finally!
Alas. The “international community,” with Iraq and Turkey in the lead, said no. Thanks for defeating ISIS and saving Mosul; thanks for saving the eastern Christians; thanks for rescuing the Yasidis. But no, no independence.
Tending to business, the Barzani family watches from the Qaraqosh hills or the mountains of Barzan, their homeland, as the militias of the Caliphate reassemble, as the Islamist spider spins its sinister web. Who remains to sound the alarm? Who will alert the West?
Erbil, Irak — Bernard-Henri Lévy meets Nechirvan Barzani, President of Iraqi Kurdistan.
On the hills of Barzan, with General Sirwan Barzani, in a cemetery of Peshmerga fighters.
“On the other side of the Tigris, in the other Kurdistan, Iraqi Kurdistan, ISIS is back. Forty kilometers north of Erbil, we are on the ridge of the Qara Chokh range, which has been the Peshmerga’s highest position since October 2017 when, in the wake of the Kurds’ referendum on selfdetermination, General Qassim Suleimani’s pro-Iranian militias pushed the Kurds out of the ‘disputed’ territories.”
Bernard-Henri Lévy, The Will To See
“Sirwan Barzani reminds us—while watching a large bird turning with only the slightest movements of its wings and swooping into the hollows before quickly rising again toward the sea of clouds—of his prediction: that the jihadists would not fail to fill the void left by the forced retreat of the Kurds. And so here he is again, the tycoon condottiere, the founder and president of the thriving Kurdish telecommunications company Korek Telecom, spending his days and nights here, in the rough, with his men, standing guard against the barbarians.”
Bernard-Henri Lévy, The Will To See
On the ridge of the Karachok Mountains, Bernard-Henri Lévy is about to descend along the cliff, to reach a cave, refuge of ISIS…
A meticulous preparation before abseiling on Karachok mountain.
Abseiling towards ISIS caves in the Karakoch mountains…
Under protection of the Peshmerga.
ISIS shelters, hidden in the mountains of the Iraqi Kurdistan. The symbols of ISIS will be destroyed.
“It is this civic heroism that I have always admired among the Peshmerga. I revere this corps of citizen-soldiers composed of men of all ages and stations, the lords of the Barzan hills commingling with the simplest farmers, faces dark with the week-old growth of beards, coming out of the Kurdish night. And it is this same worried but joyous fellowship that, thanks to my friend Sirwan, I find again here today.”
Bernard-Henri Lévy, The Will To See
With general Sirwan Barzani and the Peshmerga.
“I will be with the Kurds till the end of my life.”
Bernard-Henri Lévy, The Will To See (movie)
“And now I find Masoud in the same palace where I had come to urge him to get the green light from the United States to enter ISIS occupied Mosul, just as General de Gaulle did when he convinced Eisenhower to allow a French division to liberate Paris.”
Bernard-Henri Lévy, The Will To See
“He displays the same silent authority he always had. The same imposing presence, despite his small stature. […] I admire his dignity, wandering his deserted palace like an old, fallen king, with nothing left but his pride and glory. And I admire the fact that, like Cincinnatus back behind his plow, or Camillus elevated to the status of a sage after saving Rome from the Gauls, he remains the father of his nation.”
Bernard-Henri Lévy, The Will To See
Salahadin (province) – Bernard-Henri Lévy with Massoud Barzani, Gilles Hertzog and Bernard Kouchner.