Where Iraq Works

Like residents of Berlin during the airlift, inhabitants of Erbil—the capital of the Kurdish enclave in northern Iraq—get a little flutter in their hearts when they see planes coming in to land. Built after the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime, Erbil's international airport is a symbol to Kurds that their years of isolation as an oppressed ethnic minority are over, and that the Kurdish region, unlike the rest of Iraq, is open for business. Passengers flying into Baghdad have to endure a corkscrew landing to avoid possible surface-to-air-missiles. But a trip to Erbil is so safe that I was the only...