Why the Kurds Hold the Key to Iran’s Future

On February 22, nearly a week before the U.S. and Israel launched joint military strikes on the Islamic Republic of Iran, five Iranian Kurdish opposition parties announced they’d formed a unified front against Tehran. The press conference in the northern Iraqi city of Erbil generated little attention at the time. But as Washington and Jerusalem expand their war against Iran, and the regime’s military forces grow depleted, the Kurdish regions of the country are voicing their intent to be the first to formally break from Tehran.

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“This would clearly open up a whole new can of worms that the administration should carefully consider,” said John Hannah, a senior fellow at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, who served as a top Mideast adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney during the George W. Bush administration. “It would have big implications internally for Iraq as well as for Iran’s future. And the Turks would not be pleased at the prospect of a new Kurdish autonomous area emerging.”

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