Iran’s weakened regime could survive unless Kurdish ground forces are allowed to join the fight, a senior leader of one of their armed groups has warned.
Babasheikh Hosseini, general secretary of the Khabat Organisation, told reporters: “If we are not on this battlefield, the end of the regime will either not occur, or be delayed by a lot…
“If our peshmerga were on the ground, and we told the people of Rojhelat to rise, then the fall of the regime would have been much closer by now.
“We want to understand America’s policy,” he said, adding that at one point, “Trump said, ‘We’re going to stop fighting,’ but then hours later he said, ‘No, the war is going to continue.'”
Speaking from the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region inside Iraq, Mr Hosseini said the cumulative damage had created a rare window of opportunity.
“The regime is very damaged now, but the US needs a strategy to fully overthrow it,” he said. “The conditions are good now on the ground. The conditions are great for us to go into Iran.
“But we shouldn’t forget that we are guests here, and we cannot pose a threat on Iraqi Kurdistan. If we take any action, it could put the Iraqi Kurdistan region [in northern Iraq] under threat.”