Using The Kurds Again: Will the Iranian Kurds Enter The Iran War on The Side of The United States and Israel?
The United States has a long record of using the Kurds as auxiliaries when fighting against its enemies in the Middle East. The formula is deceptively simple. Promise the Kurds their autonomy or even independence if they will support the U.S. Usually this has redounded unfavorably upon the Kurds. More than a half a century ago, for example, Henry Kissinger explained U.S. betrayals, “Covert action should not be confused with missionary work.” The reference was to when the U.S. deserted the Iraqi Kurdish movement led by the legendary Mulla Mustafa Barzani in favor of what was then ironically the Shah’s Iran. More recently, the United States deserted the Syrian Kurds in favor of the new Syrian government led by Ahmed al-Sharaa. The United States had successfully used the pro-Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) to defeat ISIS.
On the other hand, the United States used the Iraqi Kurds to the benefit of both as a second front in its attack that successfully removed Saddam Hussein in 2003. Ironically in this particular case, it was the United States that suffered in the war’s aftermath as Saddam’s Iraq proved much easier to defeat than to then govern successfully. In this case it was the Iraqi Kurds who successfully used the United States to form their semi-autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), the first example of a successful Kurdish government in modern times.
And despite all the current criticism of the United States failing to remove hostile governments and replace them by democratic ones favorable to the United States—Saddam’s Iraq, Qaddafi’s Libya, and Afghanistan’s Taliban being prime examples—the United States did eliminate its existential enemies Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan during World War II. Both of these fascist opponents were then turned into two of the most important democratic allies of the United States!
U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s successful overthrow of a pro-communist government in Guatemala in 1954 and U.S President Ronald Reagan’s removal of another Marxist government in Grenada in 1983 are two other examples of successful U.S. removals. So, it is not so hopelessly stupid for U.S. President Donald J. Trump to hope that maybe this time he too will be able to remove Iran’s long-hostile Islamic Republic in favor of something more palatable.
Whatever the outcome, there has long been speculation that the United States would use the Iranian Kurds as a fifth column if it ever sought to overthrow the Islamic Republic. The moment has apparently arrived! Indeed, the approximately 10 million Iranian Kurds are the second largest concentration of Kurds in the Middle East, exceeded in numbers only by some 15-20 million Kurds in Turkey.
There have been numerous Iranian Kurdish uprisings since World War II. Qazi Mohammed’s Mahabad Republic in 1946 is still dearly recalled by all Kurds. However, the Shah defeated and executed the famous Iranian leader in March 1947. Earlier, in 1930, the Shah’s father defeated and assassinated Ismail Agha Simko, another famous Iranian Kurdish opponent.
More recently, the Islamic Republic crushed Iranian Kurdish uprisings when it first came to power in the early 1980s. The Mullahs also treacherously murdered Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou, the famous leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran (KDPI) in 1989, under false pretenses of negotiating with him in Vienna. Sadegh Sharfkandi, Ghassemlou’s successor, met a similar fate in a Berlin restaurant in September 1982. Officially, the KDPI sought “autonomy for Kurdistan, democracy for Iran.”
Even more recently, the jin, jiyan, azadi (woman, life, freedom) captured the imagination of the entire world when the Iranian government’s so-called “morality police” arrested and killed in September 2022 the 22-year-old Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini for improperly wearing her hijab. The deadly ensuing riots in Iran were only exceeded by the ones just put down in January 2026 as the cost of possibly more than 32,000 deaths. The point is that there are many good reasons for the Iranian Kurds to rise up against the current Iranian government now on the ropes before the U.S.-Israeli attacks.
However, despite their relatively large numbers and geographical concentration in northwestern Iran, one of the banes of all Kurds has been their disunity. Indeed, many have long suspected that a rogue chromosome in Kurdish genetics causes what one might call “fissiparous tendencies.” The Iranian Kurds have been particularly susceptible to this malady.
Nevertheless, as war began to look imminent, five dissident Iranian Kurdish groups sheltering in Iraqi Kurdistan, announced the formation of the Coalition of Political Forces of Iranian Kurdistan to fight Iran. This putative alliance consisted of Mustafa Hijri’s Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran (PDKI), Hussein Yazdanpanah’s Kurdistan Freedom Party (PAK), Baba Sheikh Hosseini’s Organization of Iranian Kurdistan Struggle (Khabat), Viyan Peyman’s Kurdistan Free Life Party (PJAK), which is affiliated with the PKK, and Reza Kaaabi’s Komala of the Toilers of Kurdistan (Komala). Citing ambiguities and unclear objectives, the Komala Party of Iranian Kurdistan and the Komala Kurdistan’s Organization of the Communist Party of Iran chose not to join their fellow Iranian parties.
The PJAK, affiliated to Abdullah (Apo) Ocalan’s Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in Turkey, is perhaps the strongest military organization, while the KDPI and PAK are possibly the best politically organized. The primary objectives of the Iranian Kurdish alliance are stated as “the struggle to bring down the Islamic Republic of Iran, the realization of the Kurdish people’s right to self-determination, and the establishment of a national and democratic institution based on the political will of the Kurdish nation in Eastern Kurdistan, among others.
Following Israeli and U.S. bombings that hit some 17 cities across Kurdish areas of Iran as of March 2, the 5-party Iranian Kurdish coalition issued a statement hinting at their imminent attack on Iran and urging Iranian military units to defect and “choose the side of their nation.” However, even united, the Kurdish coalition seems unlikely to pose a decisive threat to the Islamic Republic.
Deciding not to wait for what the Kurds might try, Iran sought to preempt the Iranian Kurdish militias encamped across the border in Iraqi Kurdistan. On March 1, drone and missile attacks struck the KRG region of northern Iraq. The PAK accused the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) of striking its bases. One strike occurred between Erbil, the KRG capital, and Dohuk to the north. An Iranian drone also apparently hit the major KRG airport in Erbil, which also housed several hundred U.S. military personnel.
In addition, Iran struck several other Iranian Kurdish parties sheltering in northern Iraq. The Komala party headquarters in Sulaymaniyah province bordering on Iran was attacked as well as the KDPI in the Koya district 70 miles southeast of Erbil. The Iranian purpose appeared to turn Iraq into a strategic buffer zone against Iranian Kurdish uprisings in the Kurdish areas of Iran. If Iraqi Kurdistan became a frontline, then Iran hoped that resources possibly would be spent there by the United States and others rather than in Iran.
The KDPI’s Aso Saleh declared that “Our resolve remains strong, and we continue preparing for the near future. These attacks will not silence us.” Saleh then even claimed that his party had conducted operations in Iran. “Since last night, and especially today [March 2], the attacks across all regions of Iranian Kurdistan have become much more intense. In these attacks, border bases, intelligence offices, the state broadcasting organization, the judiciary, intercity bases, and urban police stations have been targeted.” However, these claims have not been independently verified and might also simply be referring to the U.S. and Israeli attacks.
Mustafa Hijri, the longtime leader of the KDPI, stated that his party “will continue to fight for the unity and protection of the common destiny of the Kurdish society until free and democratic elections are held.” Abdulllah Mohtadi, the secretary-general of the Komala Party of Iranian Kurdistan claimed that “the breaths of the Islamic Republic regime are running out.” He then called upon Kurdish soldiers who served in the Iranian army to “not betray the land of your forefathers, do not turn your back on your deprived and oppressed people. Stand on the right side of history and keep yourselves and your families proud and safe.”
As of this writing, it remains unclear to what extent the Iranian Kurds might become an important factor in the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran. Indeed, Reza Pahlavi, the son of the late Shah, criticized the Iranian Kurdish alliance, accusing the Kurds of separatism and even threatening military action against them if the Islamic Republic fell. Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu’s claim that the Iranian Kurds are going to come out of the woodwork, that they’re going to rise up,” remained problematic, especially as it came from the leader of the Jewish state.
In addition, one wondered how Turkey might view the empowerment of the Iranian Kurds on its eastern border. On the other hand, the collapse of Iran opened up enormous opportunities for Turkey in a Middle East and Central Asia bereft of its traditional Iranian rival.
Michael M. Gunter is a professor of political science at Tennessee Tech University and the author of the Historical Dictionary of the Kurds, 3rd ed. (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2018.
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