A plume of smoke rises near Erbil International Airport in Erbil on Monday. The airport hosts US-led coalition troops in Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region. (Photo / Shvan Harki, AFP)
Air strikes alone will not topple the Iranian regime. It is a message the Trump Administration has heard ad nauseam.
Five days into the war, the Pentagon appears to have its answer: there will be “boots on the ground” in Iran – only they will belong to proxy forces rather than United States soldiers.
From the west, the CIA is working with Kurdish forces to prepare a ground offensive across the border with Iraq, according to CNN.
“Our armed forces inside and outside Iran are ready for anything, but will need external support,” Razgar Alani, a United Kingdom representative of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (PDK-I), told the Telegraph.
From the east, Pakistan-based Baluch Islamist groups have, in an effort to draw wider support, rebranded as the “Popular Fighters Front”, saying their goal is to liberate Iran.
And from the north, the plan to exploit the grievances of Iran’s ethnic patchwork will hope to draw in Azeris, who have led fierce protests against the regime.
Together, these groups make up between a quarter and a third of Iran’s 90 million-strong population.
The US and Israel are inviting them to rise up through airstrikes targeting western border posts, the powerful Iranian police state and any leaders who might be able to co-ordinate an effective resistance.
Missiles have hit the headquarters of Iran’s state broadcaster while hackers disseminate text messages calling for revolution.
An armed uprising would aim to empower the vast number of Iranian citizens whose efforts to overthrow the clerical establishment have only been thwarted, to date, by mass murder carried out by the Basij paramilitary group and Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).
It remains unclear how far the US has prepared for such a strategy. US President Donald Trump elected to pursue regime change having failed to secure his preferred option: a negotiated deal to end Tehran’s nuclear programme.
And analysts warn of risks that the endeavour backfires – and Iran is plunged into chaos and civil war that upends the Middle East for years to come.
The regime, for its part, has already started to gird itself in response.
With the appointment of Ahmad Vahidi as commander of the Revolutionary Guards, it has signalled that the priority will be cracking down on internal dissent.
In 1988, Vahidi became the first leader of the Quds Force, the IRGC’s foreign operations branch. Command for the next decade gave him networks across Iran’s diverse population that other conventional commanders lack.
In 2022, as Interior Minister, Vahidi led the brutal campaign to crush anti-hijab protests, backing the security forces who shot protesters.
That drew fresh US sanctions, highlighting his commission of serious human rights offences against the Iranian population.
Within the past 48 hours, IRGC ground forces have reportedly begun to carry out drone strikes on Kurdish militant positions in northern Iraq. Troops have been deployed west as Israeli strikes pummel the border defences.
On Tuesday the IRGC sent text messages to residents of Sanandaj, a Kurdish-majority city in the west of the country, asking locals to report signs of military activity or movement of weapons, according to the Hengaw Organisation for Human Rights, a Norway-based NGO focused on Iran’s Kurdish population.
The Kurds present America’s readiest, best-armed and most ideologically allied partners, although caution abounds because of the history of Western betrayals.
The US military allied with Kurdish forces during the Iraq war and turned to them again to lead the ground campaign against Isis, where – as may be the case in Iran – they worked in close co-ordination with the American Air Force.
“Given that organised opposition is very weak in other parts of Iran and the regime knows little restraint in brutally repressing protests, the current war offers the Kurds a unique opportunity,” said Dr Kamran Matin, an Iranian Kurdish academic based at the University of Sussex. “But their entry into the fray carries huge risks.”
Trump has this week spoken with both the senior leadership of the new Iranian Kurdish Coalition and leading political figures in the semi-autonomous Kurdish Region of Iraq, which gained its autonomy under US sponsorship in 1992 and would be the key route for any US supply of weapons and resources to Iranian Kurdish forces.
Kurds have suffered long-term repression by the Islamic regime, waging an off-and-on guerrilla war against Tehran since 1979. For decades, Washington has encouraged Kurdish efforts to secure autonomy, only to backtrack and leave its allies exposed at crucial moments.
The four Iranian Kurdish opposition groups contacted by the Telegraph remain wary of bloody reprisals by an Iranian rump state, or the imposition of a new, US-backed order no more favourable to democracy and minority interests than the deposed regime.
“We are not a part of the US and Israel’s war with Iran, but it’s possible the changes they are pursuing will be beneficial for the Kurds,” said Zagros Anderyari, a spokesman for the largest and best-armed Kurdish opposition group, the Kurdistan Free Life Party (PJAK). “If so, we may be able to work with them.”
Kurdish opposition sources contacted by the Telegraph suggested they were poised to begin ground operations within days or weeks.
Strikes on the border have already had an impact, Anderyari said.
“Most of Iran’s military, political and intelligence centres in the Kurdish regions have been bombed,” he told the Telegraph. “This doesn’t mean their forces withdrew altogether, but they have left their bases and set up new, ad-hoc positions.”
But even with the support of dominant US air power, Kurdish militants would need US ground support to have a chance of uprooting the deeply entrenched IRGC, Anderayri added.
“If the US and Israel want regime change, there will need to be boots on the ground, even if only in small numbers.”
In addition, Kurdish operations would be restricted to the majority-Kurdish western provinces, a spokesman told the Telegraph. The US would need other partners to threaten the regime from multiple directions.
While representatives express openness to links with Baluch, Azeri and Arab groups, those connections remain speculative – and in some cases fraught with complication.
Iran’s most numerous minority, the Turkic-speaking Azeris, are likely to pursue Turkish support if the Islamic regime starts to crumble.
But Ankara opposes any fresh regional experiments in Kurdish-led autonomy, especially if spearheaded by PJAK, which has close ties to Turkey’s key domestic enemy in the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
Baluch separatist groups in eastern Iran and across the border in Pakistan have waged a long, violent insurgency.
If the US seeks to empower these fighters, they will face fierce resistance from Pakistan, which only two months ago convinced Washington to designate the Balochistan Liberation Army a terrorist group.
Islamabad’s powerful Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency has long penetrated and suffocated Baloch groups in the dusty, poverty-stricken province bordering Iran.
It also has plenty of experience in directing proxy operations that run against Washington’s interests, most notably in the case of the Afghan Taliban.
Funnelling arms and money into the region could end up supercharging the growth of the Islamic State in Khorasan (IS-K), the Isis terrorist group’s local branch.
What is certain is that American military bombardments will continue to distract, destroy and degrade the capabilities of the Islamic Republic.
While encouraging a multi-directional insurgency within Iran, US strikes are attempting to ensure the passage of oil through the Strait of Hormuz with the destruction of Tehran’s Navy.
At least 10 ships have been destroyed to date, with the US Defence Department releasing footage on yesterday of a submarine’s torpedo strike on the IRIS Dena frigate, one of the country’s most advanced vessels.
Without a functioning Navy, Iran will struggle to assert control over the strait, limiting its ability to pressure Washington into a shortened campaign and quick ceasefire.
Let loose, instead, the CIA would then have another chance to dust off an old playbook with a less-than-sterling track record: backing ethnic groups to topple America’s enemies and deliver a more pliant partner in the Middle East.
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