Leftist opponents<\/a> of the 1979 revolution tried<\/a> something similar. It was a disaster<\/a>. These groups tried to counter the nascent Islamic revolution by supporting ethnic uprisings, especially among Kurds in western Iran. Instead of bringing the revolution to a close, the leftist opponents of Ruhollah Khomeini rallied his once-fractious ranks and solidified the standing of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps. The Kurdish gambit risks producing the opposite of its intended effect \u2014 internally by handing the regime\u2019s hardliners a nationalist rallying cry, and externally by spreading secessionist anxiety through every multi-ethnic state on Iran\u2019s periphery. Taken together, these dynamics constitute something closer to a strategic gift to Tehran than a knockout blow.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n The Reputational Trap<\/p>\n Barbara Walter\u2019s foundational work on\u00a0civil war and self-determination<\/a>\u00a0establishes that governments facing multiple ethnic challengers cannot afford to be seen negotiating under military pressure. The reputational costs are too high \u2014 accommodation signals weakness to every other minority watching. Governments therefore respond with disproportionate force, not because force is optimal, but because the audience is not just the Kurds. It is the Azerbaijanis, the Arabs, the Balochis, and every minority calculating whether this is their moment.<\/p>\n Iran has already demonstrated it understands this logic. The regime\u00a0pre-emptively struck<\/a> Iranian Kurdish positions in Iraqi Kurdistan\u00a0before any incursion began \u2014 a signal to every ethnic minority inside Iran that the consequences of coordination with external powers will be severe and immediate. Karim Sadjadpour of the Carnegie Endowment\u00a0has called the plan<\/a>\u00a0\u201ca strategy of potentially playing with fire\u201d that would bolster the regime as a defender of Iranian sovereignty.<\/p>\n The mechanism is Persian nationalism. An American-backed Kurdish incursion would hand the regime precisely the narrative it needs to reconsolidate. The operational picture reinforces the skepticism: The CIA has reportedly provided only\u00a0small arms to Kurdish forces<\/a>, whose numbers range from the hundreds to the low thousands. Kurds constitute roughly 10 percent<\/a> of Iran\u2019s population. The incursion would be large enough to inflame Iranian nationalism without being large enough to threaten the regime.<\/p>\n When the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps was founded in May 1979, it was barely an institution. It was a collection of revolutionary volunteers with guns and an ideology but little military coherence. However, it was ethnic uprisings in western Iran among the Kurdish and Arab minorities that made<\/a> the Guards. The suppression of the Kurdish uprising from 1979\u20131980 helped institutionalize<\/a> the Guards by establishing their legitimacy outside of the conventional armed forces. The uprisings also gave the Guards combat experience.<\/p>\n Secessionist Contagion<\/p>\n The more significant consequence runs outward. Iran\u2019s neighbors are multi-ethnic states with their own secessionist vulnerabilities, and Washington\u2019s willingness to arm ethnic minorities as instruments of regime destabilization has not gone unnoticed in Ankara, Baghdad, or Islamabad.<\/p>\n Turkey\u2019s anxiety is most immediate. The Kurdistan Free Life Party, one of the groups under discussion, is closely allied with the Kurdistan Workers\u2019 Party \u2014 the Kurdish separatist movement that has waged a four-decade insurgency against Ankara and whose uncertain dissolution has left a peace process that remains fragile and nascent. Regional complications multiply from there. Iraq\u2019s national security adviser has already ordered the Kurdistan region not to allow Iranian Kurdish militants to cross the border, with Iraqi officials likening American support to CIA backing of Afghan jihadis in the 1980s.\u00a0Sanam Vakil has questioned<\/a> whether Iraqi Kurdish leaders and Baghdad would ever permit the operation: \u201cIt would be a security crisis of epic proportions.\u201d<\/p>\n Iraq\u2019s central government has\u00a0already ordered<\/a>\u00a0the Kurdistan region not to allow Iranian Kurdish militants to cross the border, with Iraqi officials likening American support to the CIA backing of Afghan jihadis in the 1980s.<\/p>\n Pakistan\u2019s position is the most consequential and least visible. Iran\u2019s Sistan-Balochistan province and Pakistan\u2019s Balochistan share an insurgent ecosystem. The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps has historically contained the Jaish al-Adl insurgency on the Iranian side through coordination with Pakistani security forces \u2014 an arrangement that depends on a functional Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps with the capacity to police its periphery. Operation Epic Fury is explicitly designed to degrade that capacity. Jaish al-Adl has already\u00a0merged with smaller Baloch groups<\/a>\u00a0to form the \u201cPopular Resistance Front,\u201d rebranding as a broad anti-regime coalition. The\u00a0United Nations has warned<\/a>\u00a0that Iranian instability could trigger large-scale population movements into Balochistan. Nearly 1,000 Pakistani nationals have already\u00a0crossed into Balochistan<\/a>\u00a0through the Taftan border in recent days, their convoys barred from night travel over security concerns.<\/p>\n If Washington signals it is prepared to arm ethnic separatists to destabilize adversaries \u2014 Kurds today \u2014 Islamabad must now calculate whether Baloch separatists are next. That calculation makes Pakistan less, not more, willing to assist the coalition against Tehran.<\/p>\n
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