E arlier this month, high in the snow-capped mountains near the border between Iran and Iraq, a Kurdish rebel led me down a foot trail to the opening of a cave. We stepped inside and walked about 50 yards along a dark man-made passageway where water dripped steadily from the rocky ceiling. Then we turned down one of the cave’s branching tunnels and passed through a wood-framed entryway into a brightly lit and immaculate room with a long table and a television mounted on a wall. A dozen men and