All week long, we’ve been focusing on Iraq, where American forces are drawing down this month. We’ve heard mixed opinions from Iraqis and analysts who say Iraq still lacks stability, infrastructure and a functioning government. Now, we turn to Kurdistan, where the view is altogether different from the rest of Iraq. For Kurds, the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 was largely positive. For decades Kurds had suffered repression and abuse under Saddam Hussein’s regime.

But what happens when the U.S. pulls out?

“The Kurds have an old saying: ‘no friends but the mountains,'” says Michael Gunter, a professor of political science at Tennessee Tech who has published several scholarly books on Kurdistan. “The U.S. is their only friend and they are at the mercy of the old enemies when the U.S. leaves.”

And Waria Salihi, and Iraqi Kurd who chairs El Amin Microfinance, an NGO involved in the reconstruction of Iraq, gives us a view of life on the ground in Kurdistan. He joins us from Kirkuk.