THE Kurds are back in the news again. While the regime in the Islamic Republic of Iran lamented the death of its supreme leader Ali Kamenei during funeral rites that were much delayed to gather a suitably massive crowd of criers, about a thousand Kurdish fighters streamed out of their mountain lairs in western Iran, causing death and panic in outposts of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) along their way. They have since waged an asymmetric war against the IRGC in city after city, province after province.
The Kurds concerned this time are those living in the Iranian part of Kurdistan, once a single province of the Ottoman Empire that under the post-World War I Treaty of Sevres was meant to be turned into a state for the Kurdish nation. Instead, the successor to the empire, Turkey, convinced the victorious allies to scuttle the treaty and divide Kurdistan among themselves, the victorious territory-greedy allies and itself. In the postcolonial era, the Kurds have come to live in Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey, where many of them are second-class, abused and consequently restive citizens.
The fighters mentioned are the armed forces of seven Iranian Kurdish factions that coalesced in support of the protests that began in December of last year. Many of them come from Iraq, where they fled to escape the “religious,” possibly genocidal, war waged by Ayatollah Khamenei. Among them are combat-tested veterans of the war against Islamists in Iraq and Syria, and of the insurgencies waged against the regime by this or that faction from time to time.
Although the regime considered them treasonous secessionists, the coalition members seek self-determination within the Iranian Kurdistan, expressing preference for a federal form of government. They have not minded marching along with monarchists, remembering that under the late and last Shah of Iran, the Kurds were considered integral subjects and were elected to parliament and appointed to cabinet posts. The Kurdish language is related to Parsi, the language of the Iranians. It’s not surprising that they share the secularism sought by the protesters. The Kurds are a varied lot: most of them belong to the Sunni faith and some to other Islamic denominations and other religions like Zoroastrianism and Christianity.
Many Kurds were among the thousands of protesters shot and killed by the IRGC and executed by the regime.
Actually, the regime has fought two wars: one against the United States and Israel, the other against the Kurds. The latter is not covered by the ceasefire agreements between the US and Iran. The regime engages in the war against the Kurds during the lull in the war with the US and Israel. It attacks Kurdish bases with drones and missiles. It raids and ambushes Kurdish leaders. The initial attack of the Kurds was timed during the funeral not only because the regime was preoccupied with mourning the death of the supreme leader but also because a ceasefire was in place. Rather than be on the defensive, they have chosen to take the offensive.
The news about the Kurds joining the war has the contextual revelation that the Kurdish fighters could have been involved in the war from the beginning. It was Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Mossad, who hatched the idea of the Kurds fighting a second front. President Donald Trump personally called Kurdish leaders to get their approval of the plan. The leaders, perhaps recalling an earlier war where the US abandoned the Kurds in battle, conditioned their approval with the US assuring them of air cover. They approached the plan with caution, knowing that fighting the regime was no child’s play. They could well lose and suffer tragic consequences. In 48 hours anyway, Trump changed his position. Turkey’s President Recep Erdogan reportedly called him to object to the US bringing in the Kurds to its war with Iran. He is ever wary of the Kurds of any country strengthening their military capabilities lest he lose Turkish Kurdistan to a conspiracy to bring about a Kurdish state. Interviewed by the press on the subject, Trump remarked that the war was already so complicated an affair without bringing in the Kurds.
Apparently, by the time of the funeral, the situation had so changed that the Kurds deemed it opportune to fight the regime without getting the green light from the US. US strikes had rendered the IRGC weaker. It could be further weakened, and it’s not late to do so. Any thoughtful analysis of the situation in Iran, as we have pointed out before, leads to the conclusion that the Islamic Republic of Iran is now a military dictatorship with a theocratic façade. The IRGC is the dictator. It will not be enough to kill its leadership. The parts of the body that do the killing must be given as much focal attention as possible.
The original purpose of the US in intervening in Iran has been to help the Iranian people to get rid of its corrupt, repressive and incompetent regime. It has been a waste of time and ammunition to stray away from this objective. Changing to a regime that does not believe in acquiring nuclear weapons solves the problem of Iran acquiring nuclear weapons. Changing to a regime that adheres to international law on the seas solves the problem of Iran closing the Strait of Hormuz.
After the measures and steps have been taken necessary to be of help to the Kurds and the December 2025 protesters, the US could well leave the fight against the regime in Iran to the people.
The problem about ending the war seems to be that President Trump is not interested in ending the war, at least not just yet, because the war has been personally profitable for him. A US senator, charting on a board the times that the president announced the strikes signifying an escalation of the war and the ceasefires or negotiation de-escalating the war, suggested the president had been engaged in insider trading.
After Trump threatened Iranians of sending them “to the Stone Age where they belong,” a US congresswoman demanded that members of the cabinet invoke Amendment 25 of the Constitution, declaring him mentally incompetent and incapable of performing his duties. He threatened more recently to make the Strait of Hormuz a US territory, which is just against international law for the US to appropriate as for Iran. Could madness be the reason he was not ending the war?