As the U.S. and Israel continue to batter Iran with bombs and missiles, recent reports suggest Iranian Kurdish militias at the Iran-Iraq border may be...

Experts: Fomenting ethnic strife in Iran 'a recipe for death and destruction' As the U.S. and Israel continue to batter Iran with bombs and missiles, recent reports suggest Iranian Kurdish militias at the Iran-Iraq border may be readying for an attack on Iranian security forces in potential support of a popular uprising that President Donald Trump has expressed hope for. While the Trump administration has denied any direct involvement in such efforts, the president called such a scenario “wonderful” and told Reuters he would “be all for it.” The situation highlights the role Iran’s ethnic dynamics could play in shaping the nation’s future as the war develops, though some say ethnic conflict could prove calamitous. More than 1,000 people have been killed, including six U.S. servicemembers, since the U.S. and Israel launched attacks against Iran on Feb. 28. Iran has long been a multiethnic, pluralistic society consisting of Persians, Azeris, Kurds, Arabs and other groups. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the country's Supreme Leader killed in the Feb. 28 attacks, was Azeri, while Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian is half-Azeri, half-Kurdish. As a result, stoking ethnic divisions could prove a dangerous tactic, said Alex Shams, editor in chief of Ajam Media Collective, a platform devoted to Iranian culture, society and politics. “The idea that Iran is controlled by Persians is not accurate,” Shams said. “All the different ethnic groups are part of the political equation. The idea that they could be separated and turned against each other is not only dangerous, but I don’t think it’s going to succeed, either.” Nonetheless, some of Iran’s ethnic groups may be on the verge of achieving greater global recognition as the situation plays out, said Brenda Shaffer, an instructor at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School and author of “Iran is More Than Persia: Ethnic Politics in Iran.” “Just like when the Soviet Union broke up and people who only talked about Russians discovered Latvians and Georgians, there’s a similar situation with Iran,” Shaffer said. What are Iran's major ethnic groups? Iran is a self-described Islamic Republic with Shia Islam the official state religion. While ethnic Persians make up about half of its 85 million people, several large ethnic groups also live within and mostly along Iran’s borders. Minority groups in Iran have often advocated for more equal treatment and recognition, Shaffer said — for instance, for the right to speak and teach their native tongues in a nation dominated by Persian culture. The largest of them is the Azeri Turks, who represent about a quarter to a third of Iran. Kurdish people are about 10% of the population, while Arabs and Baloch form notable contingents as well. Most of Iran’s ethnic minorities live in provinces that border neighboring countries, Shaffer said: Ethnic Arabs live near Iraq, Kurds near Iraq and Turkey, Azeris near Azerbaijan and the Baloch near Pakistan. Unlike other groups, however, Kurds “harbor separatist tendencies” that have sometimes put them at violent odds with the clerical establishment, according to the Council on Foreign Relations, a nonpartisan thinktank in Washington, D.C. Who are the Kurds? The Kurds are an ethnic West Asian minority group of between 30 and 45 million, according to the CIA’s World Factbook. Kurdish people are indigenous to Kurdistan, a geographic region encompassing parts of southeastern Turkey, northwestern Iran, northern Iraq and northeastern Syria. Kurds are the world’s largest group without a state, according to author Ofra Bengio’s “Kurdish Awakening: Nation Building in a Fractured Homeland.” The result of French and British land apportionment after World War I and the Ottoman Empire’s demise, the situation has fed political tensions over the years. Some Kurdish groups have struggled for autonomy in eastern Turkey for decades, while a Kurdish militia called the YPG forms the bulk of US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces battling ISIS in Syria. An armed uprising by Iranian Kurds could seriously damage Iran's stability, emboldening a separatist movement among Iran's ethnic Baloch minority with links to separatists in Pakistan's neighboring province of Baluchistan. Islamabad is unlikely to tolerate any move toward Baloch independence. Regime 'in a precarious situation' Iran responded to the Feb. 28 attack by lashing out at U.S. military bases and other targets throughout the region, including in countries with whom it has been friendly. On Thursday, Azerbaijan said it would retaliate after Iranian drones wounded four people in that country. “Two weeks ago, Turkey and Azerbaijan were really concerned about stability in Iran and didn’t want the regime to fall,” Shaffer said. “But after Iran attacked all the countries it was friendly with, they’re becoming impatient with them. There’s a growing realization that the regime is falling.” Ethnic resistance efforts have been ongoing, Shaffer said, with Baloch, Kurds and Arabs carrying out attacks on a regular basis. “In Baloch areas, almost every week they blow something up,” she said. “The regime is in a precarious situation.... I think this whole thing is going to come to a head as the center loses more and more power.” That’s especially true, Shaffer said, in less populated border provinces where ethnic minorities are concentrated, since state officials there don’t have the anonymity of walled-off compounds their counterparts in Tehran enjoy. “In the provinces people know where they live and where their kids go to school,” she said. Shaffer said the moment feels similar to November 1991, the month before the Soviet Union collapsed. “It’s hard to imagine those geopolitical earthquakes, but it’s something that can happen,” she said. “It’s hard to imagine people in those provinces will agree to be under new rule from Tehran.” Ethnic strife 'a recipe for death' However, relying on ethnic strife as a strategy may be unwise and detrimenal to Iran's future, Shams said. “All of Iran’s ethnic groups have played parts in the struggle for freedom,” Shams said. “Kurdish Iranians were at the heart of the Woman Life Freedom protests in 2022. The idea that Kurdish Iranians are not part of Iran, or that they could be turned against Iran, is not only simplistic and false but dangerous.” That's not to say discrimination doesn't exist in Iran or that groups haven't fought for greater rights, he said, but weaponizing such grievances is "a recipe for death and destruction." “There’s reason to be afraid of and to oppose the U.S. trying to cause ethnic divisions,” Shams said. “Iranians were busy fighting for their own freedoms before the U.S. attacked. Now, instead of continuing that fight for freedom, they are fleeing the bombs.” With reporting by Reuters and USA Today reporter Kim Hjelmgaard. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Kurds, other ethnic groups could shape Iran's future