A Kurdish uprising in Iran is an uphill battle rife with strategic obstacles

There is now a growing consensus that the US-Israeli coalition is supporting a Kurdish uprising in Iran.

On 2 and 3 March, the Israeli army was targeting Iranian military positions in Iranian Kurdistan. In response, the Iranian-backed militia, Kataib Hezbollah, targeted transport and logistics infrastructure in Iraq’s Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) territory, Kurdish and Iranian sources on the ground have said.  

According to Ali Mousawi, the Tehran-based editor of IR Diplomacy, the opening of an Iraqi front is now also an emerging consensus. However, the KRG on Thursday flatly denied that it is taking part in efforts to arm or send Kurdish opposition parties into Iranian territory.

CNN reported on Wednesday that the CIA has been working to arm Kurdish forces to foment a popular uprising. The hope for the US and Israel is that the Kurdish nationalist movement will provide the boots on the ground that neither the US nor Israel is willing to commit.

“Israeli planners have been scoping the possibility of encouraging Iranian Kurds, which, in effect, means mainly PJAK, the Iranian arm of the PKK, as an armed force in lieu of US ground troops to incite an uprising inside Iran,” Burcu Ozcelik, senior fellow of the Royal United Services Institute, told Middle East Eye. 

PJAK is the Kurdistan Free Life Party, a militant Kurdish group that has intermittently waged an armed struggle for autonomy from Iran.

“This is plucked from the playbook of deploying the PKK and affiliates as a proxy to advance US interests in Syria,” she added.

But the politics and operational realities of this Kurdish instrumentalisation are complicated for two reasons. 

First, because this will garner opposition among partners of Israel and the United States in the region. Second, because the Kurdish political movement is experienced and resists being used as a proxy force.

Consolidation of Kurdish groups

At first sight, Kurdish political and military mobilisation seems irreversible.

On Tuesday, US President Donald Trump held talks with two major political leaders of the Kurdish movement in Iraq, Masoud Barzani and Bafel Talabani. The consolidation of Kurdish leadership has been a process catalysed initially by the 12-day Israel-Iran war in June, and has been accelerating since.

MEE spoke to Golaleh Sharafkandi, a political activist and former vice president of the Socialist International Women for the Middle East, who hopes that this moment is a historic turning point for Kurdistan.

Armed Iranian Kurds weigh role in potential US-backed ground assault

Read More »

Her uncle, Dr Sadegh Sharafkandi, was assassinated in Berlin on 17 September 1992 by Iranian agents while attending the Socialist International congress in Berlin. He was the secretary general of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan.

Sharafkandi notes that five Kurdish parties formed the “Coalition of Political Forces of Iranian Kurdistan” on 22 February.

“The framework agreement commits the parties to a joint struggle for democracy, justice and the national rights of the Kurdish people, who account for nearly 12 percent of the Iranian population," Sharafkandi said.

The alliance brings together the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan, the Kurdistan Freedom Party (PAK), PJAK, the Society of Revolutionary Toilers of Kurdistan (Komala), and the Organisation of Iranian Kurdistan Struggle. 

On Wednesday, an additional Komala faction joined the coalition.

According to Sharafkandi, this coalition establishes a joint diplomatic committee for international engagement, an armed force, and a transitional framework of principles for the administration of areas to be liberated, complete with a plan for elections that will lead to a political transition.

This policy strives to ensure that any military advance is followed by an orderly transition, with the explicit objective of avoiding a power vacuum.

Asked whether these parties can really bring forward a power that could make a difference, she argues that thousands are ready to join.

“This is not just those already enlisted,” Sharafkandi added.

Instrumentalisation and abandonment

Ankara has challenged the emergence of the KRG in Iraq and secured a victory against the Syrian Democratic Forces in Syria in January. It is unlikely that Turkey will accept the emergence of a new Kurdish entity in Iran near its border.

According to Oral Toga, research fellow at the Centre for Iran Studies in Ankara, there is no need to act at the moment. Toga argues that the combined force of 8,000 to 10,000 Kurdish Iranian troops does not look like it could have a meaningful impact against Islamic Republic's security forces. 

'Even if Iran’s security forces were dismantled through air strikes, it would be difficult for the Kurds to secure any active gains'

- Oral Toga, Centre for Iran Studies

“Even if Iran’s security forces were dismantled through air strikes, it would be difficult for the Kurds to secure any active gains,” Toga told MEE. 

Toga notes that the resilience of Kurdish political unity is questionable, as Talabani’s power base in Suleymaniyah has economic ties to Tehran. 

Religion, language and even class differences could divide the Kurdish coalition. Finally, the Kurdish movement itself suffers from painful past experiences of being instrumentalised and abandoned.

The most famous precedent in recent history is when the Kurdish people were urged by the US to rise up in 1991 against Saddam Hussein in Iraq and were famously abandoned when US plans changed. 

On Thursday, Iraqi First Lady Shanaz Ibrahim Ahmed posted a statement on X titled "Leave the Kurds Alone. We Are Not Guns for Hire", where she brought up the events of 1991 and recent events in Syria, urging all parties to leave the Kurds out of it. 

Toga also warns that recent history could repeat itself.

“The fact that the US abandoned the SDF in Syria will be instructive to Kurds in Iraq and Iran. The air strikes will come to an end at some point, but Tehran will always be there,” Toga said.

This view is echoed in Tehran. 

“Syria, Iraq and Turkey will oppose Kurdish independence with Iran. That is the case, this has been the case,” Musawi, the editor from Tehran, said, adding that it was questionable whether the Kurdish movement was ready to burn all its bridges with the Iranian government. 

Opposition in the neighbourhood

There is one power in the Caucasus that has a strategic partnership with both Turkey and Israel, not to mention a sizable minority in Iran, namely Azerbaijan.

Baku has publicly condemned the war against Iran and is, in effect, not supportive of Israel, counting on Ankara to step in to prevent the emergence of a Kurdish sovereign state across the Araks River.

'Ankara, by contrast, is chiefly concerned with PKK-linked Kurdish groups, and would feel the need to step in to protect its interests'

- Konul De Moor, International Crisis Group

According to Konul De Moor of the International Crisis Group, Baku is against this intervention, saying that “Azerbaijani officials expressed serious concern about the escalation and its potential impact on regional and global security."

President Ilham Aliyev expressed his condolences to Iran’s leadership and hopes for peace and stability, while visiting Iran's embassy in Baku this week.

When it comes to the prospect of a Kurdish military offensive, the balancing act is harder.

“Azerbaijan always made clear that it doesn't support any separatist movements… Ankara, by contrast, is chiefly concerned with PKK-linked Kurdish groups, and would feel the need to step in to protect its interests and prevent PJAK from posing a threat to its own security.”

Baku is particularly attentive to Kurdish offensives that could "undermine border stability", particularly in proximity to regions with significant Azerbaijani populations, where unrest could spill over or inspire local tensions, and a refugee crisis, Konul said.

“A large-scale Azerbaijani-Kurdish confrontation in northern Iran remains unlikely.”

Strategic ambiguity 

Wanting the demise of the Islamic Republic is one thing, but it is not the same as having a strategy to achieve it.

Barak Seener, a research fellow at the Henry Jackson Society (HJS), says the CIA has worked with Kurdish groups in Iraq continuously since 2003. However, neither the US nor Israel has a clear vision of what they aspire to: a unitary Iran, a federative Iran, or a dismembered Iran.

Trump's betrayal of his Kurdish allies in Syria should have been no surprise

Read More »

In a recent HJS report, Seener argues that Iran’s neighbours may see an opportunity during a war of regime change “to extend their spheres of influence within Iran via secessionist groups”.

But trying to carve out a piece of Iran would lead to a regional conflict.

Seener argues that it makes sense for the US to "prevent spillovers to surrounding states”. The intention to prevent a spillover to neighbouring states, however, “does not answer how other ethnic secessionist groups will not seek their own autonomous regions, and how this may impact the prospect of establishing a new Iranian state”.

Mobilising a Kurdish movement without the promise of sovereignty and troops on the ground in Iran could be seen as a tactical wish filled with strategic contradiction. The question of where Israel and the US stand on the matter is anyone's guess.

The tendency to prioritise tactical gains over strategic planning is not a new question for Israel. In discussing the rise of Israel as an “asymmetrical geopolitical power”, Seener notes that Israel "substitutes strategy for tactics and operational wins” and, subsequently, “fails to cement its gains”.

The Kurdish movement has experience with this, Sharafkandi notes. “This is a political programme with an army, not the other way around.”