There’s no doubt that Iran is building nuclear weapons. Yet, many observers believe that Washington needs a deal with the ayatollah’s regime, or else the only viable option would be an American military intervention. However, a third option would avoid the involvement of American troops and at the same time overthrow the regime at Tehran: Backing the armed resistance by Iran’s non-Persian minority blocs.

The problem with Iran, after all, is not only its nuclear ambitions, but its Islamist dictatorial regime and its “Death to America” ideology. Iran’s population is about 89 million, roughly half of whom are Persians who predominantly live in central Iran. The rest are non-Persian minority groups, like Kurds, Balochs, Ahwazis, and others. Several American administrations over the years have decided that the strategy to follow was to support only the Persian population, keeping the non-Persian ancestry groups out of American policy. 

This, however, was a mistake, for a number of reasons. The non-Persian population, contrary to the anti-regime Persian one, is militarily organized. Among the Kurds, there are several armed groups present on the ground ready to fight against the Iranian regime. 

These Kurdish groups include the Free Life Party of Kurdistan, the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan, the Komala Party of Iranian Kurdistan, and the Kurdistan Freedom Party. These are well known political parties and armed groups. The Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan has been around since the 1940s, and the Komala party since the 1960s.

They can gather thousands of people. Balochs have the Baloch Army, which is an umbrella organization that covers the whole of Balochistan and is led by the secular and committed Balochistan Liberation Army. The Ahwazi National Resistance is Ahwaz’s secret armed group. Meanwhile, there are no anti-regime organized militarized Persian groups present on the ground in Iran.

Iran’s non-Persian ancestry groups, having been deprived of their rights, freedoms, and natural resources, are ready to fight and put an end to a regime that they have never recognized. The leadership of the Islamic Republic is more scared of an uprising of its non-Persian population than of its Persians. For this reason, during the 2022 protests, Iranian security forces have repressed non-Persians more brutally.

The 2022 protests were sparked by the killing of a 22-year-old Kurdish-Iranian woman, Jina “Mahsa” Amini. She was killed by the Iranian religious police not only because she was wearing her headscarf “improperly” but because she was Kurdish.

Another reason to back the non-Persian ancestry resistance groups is that these peoples, who constitute half of the Iranian population, will never accept a Persian leader imposed by the West to rule the country after the collapse of the regime. 

That said, past American administrations feared that helping the non-Persian groups would result in splitting Iran into several Islamic states. However, this will not likely be the case. There is a golden opportunity that the West can seize. Secular non-Persian groups are ready to join the West and lead the fight without America sending its troops.

The Ahwazis, under the leadership of the president of the Executive Committee of Ahwaz, Aref Kaabi, are secular and would follow the tolerant path paved in the Gulf by the United Arab Emirates, which embraces an Abrahamic alliance.

The Balochs, under the leadership of the Free Balochistan Movement, headed by Hyrbyair Marri, are a secular nation. Given the importance of the Marri tribe among the Balochs, Mr. Marri can placate the Islamist sentiments. The Free Balochistan Movement also drafted a charter, of which Article 4 states: “The Baloch national struggle is a secular movement. It is for the separation of religion from state and politics. It is for the power of reason and in opposition to any religious and ideological dogma.”

The movement also wrote a detailed “Democratic Transitional Plan For Iran,” to avoid internal conflict in a post-ayatollah Iran. At the moment, this is the only plan that finds a broad consensus.

These non-Persian ancestry groups are ready to coordinate and fight together to end the Islamist regime. They know that this is a matter of life and death — that they will all be liberated or will all continue to be subjugated by the Iranian regime.

These groups do not need the American Army to be on the ground. They make their own fight for liberation. In six months, they can build an army of hundreds of thousands of soldiers. Yet, they need American political and economic support to mobilize the masses. It would be sufficient to have a meeting in Washington with one of the above-mentioned leaders to have the Islamic regime shiver in fear.

There is nothing that the Islamic Republic of Iran fears as much as the non-Persian ancestry groups united. Economic pressure will not be enough to stop Tehran’s nuclear ambitions. Washington needs partners in the region, and America’s proxies are called: Kurds, Ahwazis, and Balochs.

An earlier version of this article was published by the Middle East Media Research Institute.