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.
Personal opinion: this news is likely true. I will not tell anyone if this is good or bad news, as it could be both.
Most likely, the CIA has been repeating to Trump and Pentagon like a broken grammophone: “you cannot win by aerial bombardment alone”. It seems that now the CIA got authorization to make promises to Kurds, and have delivered weapons. Kurds however, most likely:
They are likely reluctant. According to the sources, they have asked for air support. The source cannot tell if support has been granted. US and Israeli strikes have certainly been above-average intense in Western Iran.
Judging by the most recent speech by Reza Pahlavi, where he addresses all ethnic minorities and regional tribes and promises extensive safeguards to their identity and culture if a new Iran should form, I would estimate that a rift exists between Pahlavi’s faction (they want an intact but democratic Iran) and the Kurdish factions (56 million Kurds are waiting for an opportunity to set up Kurdistan, 10 million of them live in Iran - this could be a condensation nucleus that starts the formation of a country). Reza Pahlavi obviously cannot promise them that, so he’s willing to promise everything else.
As a note: Kurds will not declare statehood quickly at all - they know they must keep a low profile. They know Turkey will attack them if they declare statehood, Iraq will likely attack them, Syria has recently attacked them for mere ambitions of autonomy. They won’t declare anything, but may try to carve out a highly autonomous province and see what happens in practise.
However, they will fear being betrayed again for the umpteenth time, which may reduce their eagerness to stick their head into fire.
And it won’t help the US break open the Hormuz strait, because there are no Kurds living there. They live in the western mountains. If Trump wants Hormuz, US soldiers will have to set their own feet on ground.
There are two things that get brought up in this topic
The Kurds being betrayed: well there’s of course the situation where during the Syrian civil war they were coming under attack from islamist forces, not in the least ISIS, known for killing all the men and boys and raping and enslaving all the women and girls.
So do you think they have a lot of remorse that they accepted weapons, intel and air support during that time?
Of course they hoped to gain backing for their own state and the US leaving them to fend for themselves could feel like betrayal, but you’d have to weigh in the alternative to the initial ‘deal’ they got.
Wrt Iran: it’s funny that a lot of Lemmings seem to agree that the regime of Iran is horrendous. However, when the question is raised on how the Irani people can topple their dictatorship when they don’t possess any weapons, they just shrug (or start about Israel lol). And then when the first realistic opportunity pops up where the Iranian people could get weapons and could fight the regime themselves, … Well you can see the responses in your topic lol
Excellent summary. The US has used and abused the Kurds over and over again. While they’d be crazy to not take their opportunity to establish some territorial autonomy, they’d have to be utter fools to trust the US not to stab them in the back again.
How our government has treated and backstabbed the Kurds in the last decade or so is an absolute travesty.
“or so” is lifting a lot there, like a couple more decades.
Not that I’m disagreeing with you; rather, a “yes, but also”. heh. :/
Win what?
The peace prize ofcourse.
Netanyahu’s approval? Doesn’t seem like there’s any plan besides that. No goals, no exit strategy, no exercises in democracy, just
1 kill all the leaders 2 ??? 3 Profit.
I imagine they think winning means installing a puppet government. That government being successful? Well that’s the next guy’s problem…