He believed the best way to destroy an enemy was to befriend them. His vision was revolutionary for the Middle East when the region needed a constructive and productive way forward. He conserved resources that were usually spent fighting enemies and deployed them for better causes. He was able to turn the enemies of the Kurdistan region and Iraq into friends.

In 1987, Kurdish novelist Muhammad Mukry wrote a derogatory novel on the PUK leaders and President Talabani. Angered by the book, many senior military leaders took the matter to President Talabani. They asked his permission to arrest and punish Mukry.

President Talabani told them, did Mukry shoot anyone?

No, they replied.

Did he hurt anyone? No, they replied again.

And said what did he do? President Talabani said again, he has written against us and the party, they replied.

Then President Talabani gave them his pen and said, write back!

This story sums up President Talabani's democratic and harmonious vision in politics.  "Write back and don't fight back," was Talabani's way. It was revolutionary at the time and foreign to the geography, as every criticism was taken personal. 

Born in 1932 in Kelkan, a village in the Sulaimani governorate, the young Talabani was destined for greatness. In the mid-1930s, his father became Koya Madrasa's supervisor. Their family moved to the city, and the young Talabani received his primary and secondary education there. As a prodigy, his peers began calling him Mam, which translates into "uncle," a word reserved for the distinguished members of the society, and Mam became his nickname. 

Talabani usually attended elders' gatherings and listened carefully and, at times, participated in the topics that generally included the social life and politics of Iraq and the Kurdistan region. At 14, he did his first political activity when he recited a poem in school in Newroz and expressed his grievances about the political situation of the Kurds and Kurdistan. He graduates from high school in Kirkuk and Erbil. 

Talabani joins the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) very young. In February 1953, he organized the first congress of the Kurdistan Students Union and was elected secretary general of the organization. In the same year, he co-founds the Kurdistan Democratic Youth Union. He fled into exile in Syria in 1956 to prevent an arrest charged with activities of the Kurdish Students Union. In Damascus, he was involved co-founded the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Syria (KDPS). He later returned to Iraq and received his degree in 1959 from the College of Law in Baghdad.

Talabani's formative years were in a civilized Iraq where a depoliticized military and security establishment stayed out of politics. It set up Talabani for his grand diplomatic missions that eventually brought democracy to Iraq and liberated the Kurdistan region from decades of oppression and alienation. 

Talabani resorted to all means necessary to achieve democracy. In March 1962, he led an offensive that liberated the district of Sharbazher from Iraqi government forces. When not engaged in fighting in the early and mid-1960s, Talabani went on many diplomatic missions, representing the Kurdish leadership at meetings in Europe and the Middle East.

After the March 1970 agreement between the Iraqi government and the Kurdish rebels, Talabani returned to Iraqi Kurdistan and rejoined the KDP, even though he wouldn't hold office then. The Kurdish separatist movement collapsed in the aftermath 1975 Algiers Agreement; in March 1975, Iran ended its support for the Kurdish revolution in Iraq in exchange for a border agreement with Iraq. The revolution leader, Mustafa Barzani, refused to continue fighting or allow others to lead the revolution. He self-exiled himself to the U.S.  

In the 1975 Algiers Agreement, Iraq gave up claims to the Shatt al-Arab waterway and Khuzestan, which later became the basis for the Iran–Iraq War. Talabani did not give up, believing it was time to give a new direction to the Kurdish separatists and the Kurdish society, with a group of Kurdish intellectuals and activists founded the Kurdish Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK). It was the first party that genuinely worked to unite all Iraqi Kurdish opposition groups. The PUK was an umbrella organization until 1991 when it successfully integrated its member organization into the PUK. When in 1976, the PUK resumed the armed struggle, the Kurdistan region of Iraq was cleaned of weapons. Coming by arms was extremely difficult, let alone purchasing one. Many Peshmerga revolutionaries were unarmed even though they fought the Baathist regime. This historical development sheds light on Talabani's vigorous efforts for national unity. 

During the 1980s, Talabani went on many diplomatic missions and secured the support of many Middle Eastern, European countries and American support. The PUK was able to fight off the Iraqi army and liberate territory in the Kurdistan region. In 1983, Saddam Hussein gave in and agreed to negotiate with the PUK. An agreement was to be announced that included granting autonomous status to the Kurdistan region. However, it was shattered by regional countries that considered the autonomous Kurdistan region a threat to their country as it might spark Kurdish nationalist movements in those countries. 

In 1991 he successfully led the Kurdistan region uprising against Saddam's forces in the region and expelled them, bringing the liberation of the Kurdistan region in centuries. He negotiated a ceasefire with the Iraqi Ba'athist government that saved the lives of many Kurds and worked closely with the United States, United Kingdom, France and other countries to set up the haven in Iraqi Kurdistan. In 1992 he facilitated the founding Kurdistan Regional Government when he previously designed the all-inclusive Kurdistani Front that included Kurdish, Marxist, socialist, Islamist and nationalist armed forces. 

He played key roles in peace negotiations between the Kurdistan Workers' Party and Turkey and was also present as Abdullah Ocalan announced the ceasefire of the PKK on March 17 and prolonged it indefinitely on April 16 1993. 

President Talabani played a vital role as a partner of the U.S.-led Coalition in the invasion of Iraq. His forces were the ones that found the whereabouts of Saddam Hussein in 2005, and P

President Talabani's understanding of the region was of paramount importance to the Americans and the international Coalition after the collapse of Saddam Hussein. Emma Sky, the political adviser to General Ray Odierno, the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq from 2007 to 2010, said in an article, "Talabani was keen to help us understand the country and would go to lengths to explain its history to us. He spoke of how the 1920 Treaty of Sèvres, between the Ottoman Empire and the Allies, had offered the Kurds the hope of independence."

Talabani was elected President of Iraq on April 6, 2005, by the Iraqi National Assembly and sworn into office the following day.

On April 22 2006, President Talabani was elected under Iraq's new constitution and became Iraq's first democratically elected president. 

President Talabani energetically worked towards building a democratic and inclusive political system in post-Saddam Iraq, for his efforts were known as Iraq's safety. He was called Iraq's safety button among the power circles. His endless meetings brought together rival Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish political groups and helped them reach a compromise without letting the rivalries take a toll on Iraq's political process and economy. Economic growth in Iraq was double-digit during his presidency. 

After he departed from Iraqi politics in 2012, the gap he left was felt more than ever. The current political stalemate could have never happened had they heeded President Talabani's advice. In a speech on the fifth anniversary of President Talabani's eventual passing, Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa Kadhimi said we need President Talabani's creative politics to pass through the current political impasse. 

President Talabani was working to represent the marginalized peoples and groups of Iraq. "He [President Talabani] expounded on how the Sunnis had never had political parties in exile and were not represented effectively after the dissolution of the Baath party following the overthrow of the Hussein regime," Sky explains. 

In a video message on the fifth anniversary of President Talabani's eventual passing, Former United Kingdom Prime Minister Tony Blair explained that President Talabani could unite all Iraqi political factions despite the difficulties and the difficult task he faced. 

President Talabani's role was fundamental in helping Kurdish nationalist movements from Turkey, Iran, and Syria preserve their fights for their rights within their countries. In the 1990s, President Talabani helped Kurdish opposition armed groups of Iran and Turkey camp in the Kurdistan region. He helped these groups from their eventual disintegration and elimination. 

At the same time, he maintained and forged closer ties with the respective countries and, through his relations better help the Kurds across the world. 

President Talabani's vision for unity among the Kurds is based on the idea that unity should be territorial and humanitarian. He helped forge closer ties with the Kurdish political groups across the world. His vision is more suitable for today's world, where the world is through the internet and open borders. People could live in different places and hold other ideas but maintain close, productive relations.

His vision could steer Iraq peacefully and relatively harmoniously during a time when Iraq was recovering from war and years of dictatorship.

His answer to violence was unity, and stability that also comes from unity was his answer for corruption and development and a strong democratic and prosperous Iraq.