Revision #1

In an exclusive interview with Newsweek, Abdulla Mohtadi, Secretary-General of the Komala Party of Iranian Kurdistan, made a striking offer: "I think if the United States decided to protect and to support the Kurdish parties, then we could play a very, very significant role" [1]. His forces, he said, could "remove the Iranian forces and control cities in Kurdish areas" — opening a ground front in a war that has so far been waged exclusively from the air.

The offer arrived at a moment of extraordinary upheaval. Two weeks into Operation Epic Fury — the joint U.S.-Israeli air campaign that has struck over 5,000 targets across Iran, killed the country's supreme leader, and effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz — Washington has yet to articulate a clear endgame. And for Iran's roughly 10 to 15 million Kurds, the chaos represents both their greatest opportunity in decades and a trap with no bottom.

A Coalition Forged in Crisis

Six days before the first American bombs fell on Iranian targets on February 28, five major Iranian Kurdish armed opposition groups did something they had failed to do in over four decades of struggle: they unified [2].

The Coalition of Political Forces of Iranian Kurdistan (CPFIK), formed on February 22, brought together the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (PDKI), the Kurdistan Freedom Party (PAK), the Kurdistan Free Life Party (PJAK), the Organization of Iranian Kurdistan Struggle (Khabat), and the Komala of the Toilers of Kurdistan [2]. The coalition described its aim as "toppling the Iranian regime" and achieving Kurdish self-determination. The Komala Party of Iranian Kurdistan, led by Mohtadi, initially held off but joined the alliance on March 4 [3].

The timing was not coincidental. Kurdish leaders had been watching U.S.-Israeli military preparations for months and positioning themselves accordingly. By the time the strikes began, the coalition had fighters stationed along the Iran-Iraq border and, according to their own statements, "deep inside Iran" [4].

On March 2, in their first joint statement, the coalition addressed Iran's armed forces stationed in Kurdish areas, urging them to "separate themselves from the remnants of the Islamic Republic" [4]. Two days later, PJAK called on the Kurdish population to form "local governance committees" and "self-defense committees" — language that suggested preparations for a power vacuum [4].

The CIA Connection

Behind the public declarations lay a covert operation. On March 3, CNN reported that the CIA was actively working to arm Kurdish forces with the aim of fomenting a popular uprising against Tehran [5]. The Trump administration had been in discussions with Iranian opposition groups and Kurdish leaders in Iraq about providing military support, according to multiple sources familiar with the plans.

The strategic logic was straightforward. One person familiar with the discussions told CNN that the idea was for "Kurdish armed forces to take on the Iranian security forces and pin them down to make it easier for unarmed Iranians in major cities to turn out without getting massacred" [5]. Others described a plan to have Kurdish fighters seize and control northern Iran, creating a buffer zone.

Israeli intelligence was also involved. Axios reported that both Mossad and the CIA were backing Iranian Kurdish militias, with U.S. and Israeli officials coordinating their outreach [6]. President Trump himself spoke directly with PDKI Secretary-General Mustafa Hijri, in what sources described as an attempt to instigate a U.S.- and Peshmerga-backed ground offensive in western Iran [7].

On March 5, i24NEWS reported exclusively that thousands of PJAK fighters had begun deploying inside Iran's mountainous regions, particularly in the Zagros Mountains around Mariwan [8]. But the report was immediately contested — PJAK, PDKI, PAK, and Komala all denied that an offensive had started, and a Kurdistan Region official stated that "not a single Iraqi Kurd has crossed the border" [9].

Trump's Whiplash Reversal

Then came the reversal that stunned Kurdish leaders and foreign policy analysts alike.

On March 5, Trump told reporters it was "wonderful" that the Kurds wanted to fight and that he'd "be all for it" [10]. Just two days later, aboard Air Force One, he said the opposite: "I don't want the Kurds to go into Iran... They're willing to go in, but I've told them I don't want them to go in... The war is complicated enough as it is... We don't want to see the Kurds get hurt or killed" [10].

The about-face reflected a tension at the heart of the administration's Iran strategy. Empowering Kurdish forces would open a ground front that the air campaign alone could not achieve, but it would also enrage Turkey — a NATO ally whose president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, views armed Kurdish groups as existential threats [11].

Turkey had already condemned the U.S.-Israeli strikes as "illegal" and denied American forces access to its air, land, and maritime space for operations against Iran [11]. A reported CIA plan to arm Iranian Kurds — many of whom have links to the PKK, Turkey's longtime adversary — put Erdogan in what analysts called an "impossible position" between accepting Kurdish autonomy on Turkey's borders or defying Washington [12].

Source: FRED / U.S. Energy Information Administration

Data as of Mar 9, 2026CSV

A Pattern as Old as the Alliance

For the Kurds, Trump's reversal carried the bitter echo of history. The United States has armed, encouraged, and then abandoned Kurdish allies at least four times since the 1970s.

In 1973, President Nixon and Henry Kissinger secretly agreed to funnel CIA aid to Iraqi Kurds fighting Saddam Hussein, at the Shah of Iran's request. When the Shah struck a deal with Baghdad in 1975, the aid vanished overnight. Thousands of Kurds died in the aftermath [13].

The pattern repeated in 1991, when President George H.W. Bush urged Iraqi Kurds to rise up against Saddam after the Gulf War, only to stand by as the Iraqi military crushed the rebellion. It happened again in 2019, when Trump withdrew U.S. forces from northern Syria, leaving the Syrian Kurds who had fought ISIS for years exposed to a Turkish invasion that displaced 180,000 people [13]. And it happened most recently in 2025, when the U.S. tacitly assented to the assault on the Syrian Kurdish autonomous zone [14].

"The Kurds have no friends but the mountains," goes the old proverb — and the mountains of western Iran are unforgiving terrain for those who miscalculate.

Mohtadi himself appeared to grasp the risk. In an interview with the German newspaper Die Zeit, the Komala leader said: "We will not send our forces to the slaughterhouse" [15]. The Chatham House analysis was equally blunt: Kurdish groups "should be wary of relying too heavily on the US for political and military support, especially given the shifting statements from the Trump administration" [15].

Iran Strikes Back

Tehran, meanwhile, has not waited to see which way Washington tilts. Since February 28, Iran has launched approximately 200 attacks on the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, with 82.65% concentrated in Erbil Governorate [16]. The strikes have targeted Kurdish opposition group headquarters, civilian areas, hotels, energy infrastructure, and telecommunications stations. At least four people have been killed and 19 injured [16].

The IRGC has also conducted ground operations inside Iranian Kurdistan. On March 9, the IRGC's Hamzeh Seyyed ol Shohada Operational Base announced it had "dismantled an armed anti-regime group" in Kurdistan Province, killing one person, arresting six, and seizing weapons and ammunition [17].

The message was clear: any Kurdish group that takes up arms against the regime will face immediate and lethal consequences, with or without American air cover.

Source: GDELT Project

Data as of Mar 14, 2026CSV

The Military Calculus

U.S. intelligence assessments have consistently indicated that Iranian Kurdish groups do not currently have the influence or resources to bolster a successful uprising against the government on their own [5]. The groups collectively field several thousand fighters — formidable guerrilla forces in mountainous terrain, but no match for the IRGC's conventional military power without sustained external support.

The most capable fighting force is assessed to be the Eastern Kurdistan Units (YRK), affiliated with PJAK, many of whose fighters are women and who operate from the Qandil Mountains near the Iran-Iraq border [18]. The PDKI and PAK also maintain armed Peshmerga forces, though their numbers are smaller.

The Atlantic Council assessed that a Kurdish offensive could stretch Iranian forces and potentially create a "second front" that would complicate Tehran's military calculations [19]. But without a no-fly zone, sustained arms supplies, and some form of security guarantee, the fighters would be exposed to Iranian airpower and artillery — a scenario that Kurdish leaders are unwilling to accept.

The Council on Foreign Relations struck a cautious note, questioning whether even a unified Kurdish movement could challenge the regime given the scale of Iranian security forces and the fragmented nature of Iran's opposition more broadly [20].

The Broader Stakes

The Kurdish question has become a lens through which the fundamental contradictions of the Iran war are magnified. The Trump administration wants to pressure Iran into capitulating but has not committed to regime change. It wants to avoid a ground war but cannot achieve its objectives from the air alone. It wants allies on the ground but is unwilling to accept the geopolitical consequences of empowering them.

For their part, the Kurdish leaders are navigating between maximizing their leverage and avoiding catastrophe. The coalition's formation was a historic achievement — overcoming decades of internal rivalries and ideological differences among social democrats, Marxist-Leninists, and Kurdish nationalists. Whether that unity can survive the whiplash of American policy remains to be seen.

As Chatham House noted: "It is unclear whether the newfound unity among the Iranian Kurds will endure. Disagreements over strategy, competition for resources, historical enmities and changing conditions could all conspire to undermine their cooperation in the near term" [15].

What Comes Next

As of mid-March, the situation remains fluid. Kurdish armed groups are positioned along the border and in mountainous terrain inside Iran but have not launched a coordinated offensive. The CIA channel reportedly remains open, even as the White House publicly distances itself from Kurdish involvement [5]. Iran continues to pound Kurdish positions in Iraq. And Turkey watches with alarm, threatening to intervene if Kurdish fighters are armed [12].

Mohtadi's offer to Newsweek — to fight if the U.S. provides support — remains on the table. But it comes with a condition that history suggests may never be met: a reliable American commitment.

"A lack of overt assistance from the US may indeed simplify calculations for the Iranian Kurds," Chatham House concluded, "whose stake in Iran's future is not dependent on this mercurial White House" [15].

The mountains, as always, will be there either way.