MAP CHANGES AHEAD!

Poets wrote songs about it for generations; guerilla fighters, holed up in the mountains, trained for it for decades. But in the end, when a Kurdish army finally took control of Kirkuk in nothern Iraq, they realised the dream of their forefathers within hours, without having to fire a shot. With the Iraqi Army doing a runner from the Islamist onslaught and Obama at the 18th hole, the Kurdish people have began the break-up of Iraq, whatever the international community might say. The 30 million Kurds – the world’s largest stateless nation, divided between Iraq, Iran, Syria, Armenia and Turkey – have sought a state of their own since the mapmakers of the modern Middle East denied them one last century. Just let anyone try stop them now!