Trump Reverses Course on Kurdish Forces as CIA Arms Plan Draws Skepticism

President Trump said Saturday he has ruled out Kurdish participation in the Iran war, a dramatic about-face just two days after endorsing the idea and following revelations that the Central Intelligence Agency has been actively arming Kurdish opposition forces along the Iraq-Iran border.“I don’t want the Kurds going in,” Mr. Trump said aboard Air Force One on his way back to Florida after attending a military service for six fallen American soldiers. “We’re very friendly with the Kurds, as you know, but we don’t want to make the war any more complex than it already is.”The reversal caps a week of whiplash that has left Kurdish groups and regional partners struggling to gauge Washington’s intentions. On Thursday, Mr. Trump said he would welcome Kurdish forces entering Iran, calling the prospect “wonderful.” By Saturday, he had reversed completely.The zigzag comes amid reporting that the CIA and Mossad have been coordinating for months to arm thousands of Kurdish fighters positioned along Iran’s northwestern frontier as part of a high-stakes gambit to foment a popular uprising against Tehran.The Arms PipelineThe CIA has been working to arm Kurdish forces to foment a popular uprising in Iran, with the Trump administration in active discussions with Iranian opposition groups and Kurdish leaders in Iraq about providing military support, multiple sources tell the Sun. The initiative originated with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Mossad, with the CIA joining the effort later. Israeli officials promised Kurdish Iranian factions not only military support but also political support for a Kurdish autonomous region in a future Iran.Yet even as arms flow, senior administration officials have sent conflicting signals. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told Congress in a closed-door briefing last week that the United States is not arming the Kurds, adding that “you never know with the Israelis.”Iranian Kurdish fighters have already begun taking combat positions inside Iranian territory as of early this month. President Trump spoke last week with Iraqi Kurdish leaders about cooperation and separately called Mustafa Hijri, president of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan.The strategy aims to stretch Iranian security forces thin while creating space for unarmed civilians in major cities to take to the streets without facing brutal crackdowns that have killed thousands in past protests.The Kurdish Heartland Under SiegeThe Kurdish population of western Iran is concentrated in Kurdistan, West Azerbaijan, and Kermanshah provinces, home to an estimated 9 to 10 million Kurds, representing roughly 10 percent of Iran’s population. Weapons have been smuggled into these mountainous border regions to arm thousands of Kurdish volunteers since late last year.“PJAK fighters began taking combat positions inside Iranian territory as of midnight March 2, with Iranian forces evacuating the border city of Mariwan and establishing defensive positions in and around the area,” president of Defense and Intelligence firm The Ulysses Group, Andrew Lewis, tells the Sun.PJAK, the Kurdistan Free Life Party, is an armed militant group that has waged intermittent conflict against the Iranian government since 2004. The United States designated PJAK as a terrorist organization in 2009, citing its deep ties to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party.Tehran has responded with strikes targeting Kurdish positions, with Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein stating that over 70 missiles and drones had struck Erbil.The Intelligence Assessment“The Kurds represent roughly 10 percent of Iran’s population, concentrated in the northwest. They have genuine organizational capacity and hardened fighters who saw combat against ISIS in Iraq and Syria,” Mr. Lewis explains. “What they lack is reach into the Persian-dominated urban centers where the revolution will actually succeed or fail.”Demographic realities shape the strategic calculus. According to Mr. Lewis, “the Kurds cannot take Tehran.”“What they can do is create a simultaneous multi-front problem that prevents the IRGC from massing forces anywhere,” he continues. “Kurdish pressure in the west, Baloch People’s Fighters Front activity in the southeast, and urban protest movements in Tehran, if those occur in a compressed time window, it forces the IRGC to choose between border defense and internal suppression.”Yet United States intelligence assessments have consistently indicated that the Iranian Kurds don’t currently have the influence or resources to bolster a successful uprising against the government, according to a person familiar with the matter.“They can act as a recovery network, but they can’t topple Tehran. They will get slaughtered,” the insider tells the Sun on background. “Perhaps the Trump team finally realized this.”The Abandonment QuestionHistory also weighs heavily on Kurdish deliberations. American support for Iraqi Kurds during the 1991 uprising against Saddam Hussein prompted thousands to rebel, only for Washington to stand by as Iraqi forces killed an estimated 20,000 Kurds in the north.“While the Kurds are made up of various groups and are not monolithic, the United States has indeed abandoned the Kurds on numerous occasions, including in Syria, when the United States withdrew, giving Ankara a green light to attack Kurdish forces that had just finished defeating ISIS at enormous cost,” Mr. Lewis underscores.Critics accused Trump himself of openly betraying the Kurds during his first term, in 2019, withdrawing United States forces from Syria and allowing Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to attack the Kurdish militia.“It does look like Washington wants the Kurds to rise up in Iran. But that is problematic. In light of what happened in Syria with our abandonment of them, I would think twice if I were Kurds,” a United States intelligence official tells the Sun on background.The Turkish ComplicationTurkey poses another major complication. While the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan is a Kurdish nationalist and less ideologically entangled with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, PJAK has deep organizational ties to the PKK, which Turkey, the United States, and the European Union designate as a terrorist organization.“If weapons flowing to PJAK are perceived in Ankara as ultimately strengthening PKK capacity, and that is almost certainly how Turkish military planners will read it, NATO friction becomes a significant secondary problem,” Mr. Lewis stresses.The Kurdistan Regional Government serves as the only viable transit corridor for American support, yet Iranian intelligence has cultivated deep penetration networks there for years. Iranian-backed Shia militias have conducted strikes inside the Kurdistan Region since the United States and Israel launched their joint attack on February 28.Internal fractures compound the external challenges. “There is little reason to believe that the Iranian Kurds, who are very divided even now despite their recent coalition of five different Iranian Kurdish parties, would suddenly present a successful fighting force against the Iranian government,” Professor of Political Science at Tennessee Tech University, Michael Gunter, tells the Sun.The Kurdish gambit risks producing the opposite of its intended effect by handing the regime’s hardliners a nationalist rallying cry, according to analysis published in War on the Rocks. Iranians who despise the regime may rally behind it if they fear Kurdish separatism threatens Iran’s territorial integrity.The Regime Change GambitThe original strategy appeared designed to create conditions for Iranians to overthrow the regime without American ground troops. The United States, for weeks, worked to activate armed opposition groups among three different ethnic minorities along Iran’s borders simultaneously. Kurdish forces are operating in the northwest, Baloch fighters in the southeast, and Arab populations in the oil-rich southwest could potentially join the fight.One person familiar with the discussions said the idea was for Kurdish armed forces to take on Iranian security forces and pin them down to make it easier for unarmed Iranians in major cities to turn out without getting massacred again, as they were during unrest in January.The success of this strategy, if it does come back to the table, hinges on sustained American commitment. “If that air support is sustained, the Kurdish operation has more runway than any previous attempt. If it isn’t, the Zagros terrain that provides initial tactical advantage becomes a geographic trap,” Mr. Lewis observes.Mr. Trump’s Saturday reversal, however, raises fundamental questions about the viability of the entire operation. Iraqi Kurdish leaders are hesitant to commit their forces, fearing that involvement could trigger devastating Iranian retaliation against their semi-autonomous region in northern Iraq, according to a person familiar with their thinking. Both Masoud Barzani and Bafel Talabani expressed reservations during their Sunday call with Trump, citing massive military response from Iran against Kurdish forces in Iraq as a main concern.“Without continued air cover targeting Iranian armor, artillery, and reinforcement corridors, the IRGC, even degraded, can mass sufficient force to attrit Kurdish light infantry over time,” Mr. Lewis adds.

Trump Reverses Course on Kurdish Forces as CIA Arms Plan Draws Skepticism

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