CNN reports that the CIA is working to arm Kurdish forces hostile to the Iranian government to support the US-Israeli regime-change war against Tehran.
US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have called for a popular uprising after Iran launched strikes against leaders and state institutions last Saturday.
Arming the Iranian Kurds would require cooperation from their Iraqi counterparts, CNN reported Tuesday, citing multiple people familiar with the plan and a decades-long history of Iraqi Kurdish factions working with U.S. intelligence agencies. Axios reported that Trump spoke with Kurdish leaders in Iraq on Sunday about how they could support the war effort.
Middle East experts predict that Washington will try to use Kurdish armed groups as ‘boots on the ground’ in Iran, similar to their previous role in Syria. But the US has to balance empowering the Kurds with possible resistance from NATO member Turkey, which views foreign Kurdish forces as extensions of its own Kurdish separatists who have waged a decades-long guerrilla war against Ankara.
An estimated 30 to 45 million Kurds live across Iran, Iraq, Turkey and Syria, with many seeking statehood. Iraqi Kurdistan enjoys broad autonomy, while Syrian Kurds were recently forced to cede territory and government functions to Damascus. Turkey-allied militants overthrew the previous government of Syrian President Bashar Assad in late 2024.
Ankara has repeatedly condemned Israel for what it accuses of genocidal tactics against Palestinians in Gaza. At an event in the US in February, former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett branded Türkiye “Next Iran” Threatening Israel.
The US and Israel have claimed their strikes on Iran were necessary to prevent it from acquiring a nuclear capability – an ambition Tehran denies. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov recently warned that Washington and West Jerusalem’s lawless approach would encourage more nations to consider nuclear deterrence.
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan warned last month that if the Middle East entered a nuclear arms race, his nation would be forced to participate.
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The US has supported non-Kurdish militants in Iran, including Mojahedin-e-Khalq (MEK), a now-exiled leftist organization that sided with Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s.
