Washington, United States. In the two weeks since US and Israeli strikes on Iran began, Donald Trump’s stated war aims have shifted between weakening Iran’s military and seeking regime change. Analysts say air power alone is unlikely to achieve that goal without ground troops.
Shifting objectives and limits of air power
Despite the success of the initial strikes, which killed Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, many analysts believe regime change would be impossible without combat troops on the ground, a step most US military and political leaders have long opposed.
Reports of Kurdish invasion idea and Trump’s response
One idea described as circulating in Washington is supporting an invasion by armed Kurdish groups in Iraq and western Iran to destabilise the Islamic Republic from within. Trump publicly backed away from the idea on March 6, saying: “I don’t want the Kurds to go into Iran … The war is complicated enough as it is.” The text notes that, given Trump’s inconsistency and the conflict’s unpredictability, an armed Kurdish uprising remains a possibility with potential consequences beyond Iran.
Kurdish population and historical roots of statelessness
The Kurds are an ethnic group with their own language and culture who have lived for centuries in a mountainous area of the Middle East. They number around 30 million and live across parts of Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria, and are widely described as the world’s largest stateless people. Their lack of a state is traced to the end of the first world war and the collapse of the Ottoman empire, when Kurdish leaders’ hopes for statehood were not realised and their homeland was divided among new countries, splitting Kurdish communities across borders.
Iran’s Kurdish minority and periodic clashes
About 10% of Iran’s population is Kurdish, with many living in the north-west near the borders with Iraq and Turkey. The Kurdish region of Iran is described as long being the least economically developed part of the country, with Kurdish political parties outlawed. Armed Kurdish groups have periodically clashed with the Iranian state, seeking greater autonomy or independence.
Turkey’s concerns and longstanding conflict with the PKK
The issue is described as especially sensitive in Turkey, home to the world’s largest Kurdish population. Since 1984, Turkey has been in conflict with the Kurdistan Workers’ party (PKK), an armed group seeking an independent Kurdish state, a conflict that has killed more than 40,000 people over four decades. Turkish leaders are described as worrying that strengthened Kurdish armed groups elsewhere could embolden similar movements inside Turkey.
Turkey’s regional military actions and past tensions with Washington
Turkey has previously launched military incursions into Kurdish regions of Iraq and Syria and has fought a counterinsurgency against PKK fighters within its borders, actions presented as showing strong opposition to Kurdish independence in the region. The text also says US support for Kurdish fighters has previously strained US-Turkey ties, including Turkey’s opposition to Washington’s partnership with Syrian Kurdish forces against the Islamic State in the late 2010s, arguing some groups were linked to the PKK.
How might any US support for Kurdish armed groups in Iran affect Turkey’s security concerns?