By Sivan Gamliel
As we speak, the West continues to negotiate with the Islamic Republic of Iran, a state ruled by President Ebrahim Raisi, the “butcher of Tehran,” which has slaughtered thousands of its own people, terrorized the entire Middle East, and is dedicated to the destruction of the State of Israel. As Syrian Kurdish dissident Sherkoh Abbas put it: “Iran supports many extremist groups in the Middle East, and the Shia Crescent is the only thing keeping the regime going.”
Considering this, would it not behoove the West to try and break up the Shia Crescent, rather than sit down with the number one sponsor of global terrorism? As Sherkoh Abbas noted, “The Kurds are America’s boots on the ground,” and are the “only force that has managed to roll back some of the regional threats.”
With that in mind, the West should help establish an independent Kurdistan and to help other persecuted ethnic minorities inside Iran, such as the Baloch, Ahwaz, and South Azerbaijanis follow in the Kurds’ footsteps. This is the best way to topple the Ayatollahs’ regime and liberate the Iranian people from tyranny.
The world has nothing to lose in this context. Recently, MEMRI reported that Iran’s Tasnim News Agency posted a video parody of Israel’s national anthem HaTikvah. The video shows Israeli soldiers crying and mourning over the graves of fallen soldiers, and proclaims: “The army of the Zionists was built out of wax. It has already melted, and no hope for it remains. The Jews are villains who have been here before. Will someone please tell me what is left of them? Two parts – the first will be returned to its land of origin if it so chooses, while the fools who insist on staying are doomed to be buried in the ground. The name of the holy city will be restored. My capital is Bayt Al-Maqdis, not Jerusalem. The name of the holy city will be restored. My capital is Bayt Al-Maqdis, not Jerusalem.”
Karokh Khoshnaw, President of the Kurdish-American Research Institute, is on the record as saying that an independent Kurdistan can help to break up Iran’s hold over the region, as the number one threat to the State of Israel would disintegrate from within or at least be significantly reduced in size.
Khoshnaw argued that “the safest and most secure region of Iraq today is the Kurdistan Regional Government. The US, Israel, and the Arab countries should help the Kurdistan Regional Government become more powerful so that it can confront the Iranian threat. The best way to help Kurds obtain their independence is to arm the Kurds of Syria, Iraq, and Iran.”
A Kurdish Iranian source who spoke to me on the condition of anonymity concurred: “When the Kurds and other ethnic minorities obtain statehood in Iran, there will be no Iran on the map because presently only a small minority of Shia Persians are ruling over the vast majority, who don’t fall under this category. For the Kurds, Iran is a very dangerous theocratic regime that brutalizes them. Every day there are executions, and activists are locked up. Even ordinary people find themselves in prison. When there’s an independent Kurdistan, it would be a liberal state that brings balance to the region, respects regional diversity, and ends tyranny.”
Sirwan Mansouri, a Kurdish journalist based in the Middle East, added: “The Ayatollahs are now trying to destabilize the entire region. One great force that can change that is the Kurds. I think if their independence is guaranteed, they would do everything to topple the Ayatollahs’ regime. The Kurds constitute one of the main opposition groups in Iran who have experience in both political and military activities. I think they should be armed to fight against the regime. Therefore, the international community should stop negotiating with the regime and start taking the Kurds more seriously.”
With that in mind, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett would be wise to offer Israeli military assistance to help the Kurds to establish a state in their parts of Syria, Iraq, and Iran. This should be followed by Israel providing military assistance to secure an independent Ahwaz nation, an independent Balochistan, and an independent South Azerbaijan.
By having all four of these nations rise against the Ayatollahs together with Israel, the regime would collapse from within and the non-Islamists in Iran would then create a much smaller Persia on the remnants of what used to be Iran. There would no longer be the Islamic Republic of Iran, only Kurdistan, Balochistan, Khuzestan, South Azerbaijan, and Persia. The time has come to implement change if the Israeli government possesses the needed courage.
We should not wait for Iran to go nuclear. Instead, let us help free the majority of Iranian subjects who aren’t Iranians at all.
