CIA Backing Kurdish Forces to Disrupt Iran
What could go wrong?
WSJ (“Trump Weighs Backing Militias to Dislodge Iran’s Regime“):
President Trump is open to supporting groups in Iran willing to take up arms to dislodge the regime, U.S. officials said, as he continues to mull several options publicly and privately about who should succeed the country’s fallen leader.
Trump spoke Sunday with Kurdish leaders, officials said, and is continuing to engage other local officials who may leverage Tehran’s weakness to make gains. The Kurds have a sizable force along the Iraq-Iran border, and Israel has bombed positions in western Iran, leading to speculation that it is paving a path for a Kurdish advance.
“President Trump has spoken with many regional partners,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement, without explicitly confirming Trump’s aims.
Officials said Trump hasn’t made a final decision on the matter, including whether he would provide arms, training or intelligence support to antiregime groups.
l suppose the President has to consider all options, but I can think of a dozen reasons off the top of my head why sending in Kurdish forces is a bad idea.
CNN (“CIA working to arm Kurdish forces to spark uprising in Iran, sources say“):
The CIA is working to arm Kurdish forces with the aim of fomenting a popular uprising in Iran, multiple people familiar with the plan told CNN.
The Trump administration has been in active discussions with Iranian opposition groups and Kurdish leaders in Iraq about providing them with military support, the sources said.
Iranian Kurdish armed groups have thousands of forces operating along the Iraq-Iran border, primarily in Iraq’s Kurdistan region. Several of the groups have released public statements since the beginning of the war hinting at imminent action and urging Iranian military forces to defect. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has been striking Kurdish groups and said on Tuesday that it targeted Kurdish forces with dozens of drones.
Also on Tuesday, President Donald Trump spoke with the president of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (KDPI), Mustafa Hijri, according to a senior Iranian Kurdish official. KDPI was one of the groups targeted by the IRGC.
Iranian Kurdish opposition forces are expected to take part in a ground operation in Western Iran, in the coming days, the senior Iranian Kurdish official told CNN.
“We believe we have a big chance now,” the source said, explaining the timing of the operation. The source added the militias expect US and Israeli support.
Trump also called Iraqi Kurdish leaders on Sunday to discuss the US military operation in Iran and how the US and the Kurds could work together as the mission progresses, two US officials and a third source familiar with the conversations said, as first reported by Axios.
Any attempt to arm Iranian Kurdish groups would need support from the Iraqi Kurds to let the weapons transit and use Iraqi Kurdistan as launching ground.
One person familiar with the discussions said that the idea would be for Kurdish armed forces to take on the Iranian security forces and pin them down to make it easier for unarmed Iranians in the major cities to turn out without getting massacred again as they were during unrest in January.
Another US official said the Kurds could help sow chaos in the region and stretch the Iranian regime’s military resources thin. Still other ideas have centered around whether the Kurds could take and hold territory in the northern part of Iran that would create a buffer zone for Israel.
Either the President has indeed decided, this report is way off base, or the CIA is over its skis.
The last time the CIA intervened to influence regime change in Iran, it resulted in the 1953 coup against the more-or-less democratically elected prime minister, Mohammad Mosaddegh, that empowered Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. That worked out swimmingly for both the United States and Iran—until it didn’t. Our role in the coup remains an animating force in the country’s anti-American resentment.
We have turned to the Kurds many times, for understandable reasons. Doing so has, to put it mildly, strained our relationship with Turkey, a key NATO ally, and complicated relations with Iraq and Syria. While an independent Kurdistan seems like a no-brainer, no one else in the region wants it. And the last thing we need is to expand the footprint of this war, including the area that needs protection from Iranian missiles and drones.
Persians are only half of Iran’s population, located in the central part of the country. The various border regions are inhabited by ethnic groups similar to what is across the border – Azeris, Balochis etc.
“Longman“
Similarly, while a “two state solution” is very popular in places like the U.S., U.K., Europe etc., no one in Israel wants it. Not after Oct. 7, the trust just is not there.
Yes, while we are destabilizing Iran, let’s destabilize Iraq and Syria and really irritate the Turks. That’ll work.
If that is the case, let’s just come out for creating a new nation for the Kurds and eliminate the post WWI boundaries set up by Sykes-Picot.
Again the world feels the effects of drunken Brits carving up the Ottoman Empire by drawing lines on a map without taking into consideration long standing tribal and ethnic identities. In a more rational world there would certainly be a Kurdistan.
ETA – looks like Scott was having similar thoughts while I was typing. Always happy to be in good company!
Why on earth the Kurds would trust the US at this point, after prior administrations have repeatedly abandoned them, is beyond me. This seems like it could go pear shaped very quickly.
@Jen: While it’s true that we’ve screwed them over repeatedly, it’s also true that they have had an all-but-completely autonomous quasi-state in Northern Iraq since 1991 by virtue of U.S. backing. Additionally, while we may have seen them as our proxies in Syria and here, they were acting in what they believed to be their own interests.
It feels like Dick Cheney and Bolton are back to running our foreign policy. Actually, I guess we should call it neo-con lite until/if they actually send troops in. Or maybe we just call it neo-con Israeli style if we rely solely upon bombing and try to get others to do the dirty work part.
Steve
It feels like Iran-Contra has come full circle.