US and Israel Move to Arm Iranian Kurds for Imminent Western Iran Uprising

Great-power use of Kurdish forces is a recurring gambit: the CIA-Mossad program that armed Barzani’s fighters in 1972–75 was terminated by the US after the Algiers Accord, leaving Kurds exposed; likewise, Washington urged a Kurdish uprising after the 1991 Gulf War but withheld protection when Saddam’s tanks rolled back in. The 2026 plan echoes the 2001 Afghanistan model—Northern Alliance on the ground, US air power overhead—yet risks replaying past abandonments. Strategically it fits a century-long pattern of external powers weaponising stateless minorities to fracture rival states, from the 1918–23 Ottoman carve-up through the 2014–17 anti-ISIS campaign. Success would open another precedent for de-facto border revision in the Middle East, undermining the Westphalian map drawn by Sykes–Picot a hundred years ago; failure could entrench Tehran’s security state and harden regional alignments. On a 100-year horizon, the episode tests whether Kurds remain perennial pawns or finally leverage super-power attention into durable autonomy—an outcome that could either redress a century of statelessness or, if history rhymes, confirm yet another cycle of promises made and withdrawn.