While much of Iraq remains mired in war, the semiautonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq has enjoyed relative safety and prosperity, thanks to a no-fly-zone imposed by the United States in 1991 after the first gulf war. So instead of repairing oil fields and burying their dead, Iraqi Kurds have been erecting shiny hotels, opening amusement parks and trying to figure out how to lure tourists.

There is even a Ministry of Tourism, with a staff of more than 400 and a bare-bones Web site (www.tourismkurdistan.com) with color pictures and links to the region’s thin infrastructure. And to show that it means business, it has broadcast a series of television commercials in the United States called “The Other Iraq” that depicts high-tech factories and happy children greeting American soldiers as liberators.

The larger issue, of course, is the continuing violence. As recently as last March, a bomb went off in Sulaimaniya, the second-biggest city in Iraqi Kurdistan, killing a security guard. A truck bomb in May 2007 outside a government office in Erbil left over a dozen dead and several more wounded. And earlier this month, the long-simmering tensions between Turkey and Kurdish separatist rebels erupted again when Turkish warplanes entered northern Iraq and bombed remote rebel bases, killing at least 15 Kurds.