For decades, a recurring fantasy has surfaced in Western strategic thinking about Iran: that the country’s ethnic mosaic could become the fault line along which the Iranian state ultimately fractures.
The logic appears deceptively simple. Iran contains Persians, Kurds, Azeris, Arabs, Baluchis, and other minorities, and grievances exist; therefore, with enough external encouragement, these communities could be mobilised against the government in Tehran.
Amid the US-Israeli war against Iran and speculation about regime-change pressure from outside, versions of this idea have again circulated in Washington and Tel Aviv – that Iran’s Kurdish regions might provide “boots on the ground” capable of weakening the state from within.
Yet, this argument rests on a profound misunderstanding of Iran. It mistakes social diversity for political fragmentation and confuses grievances within the Iranian system with a desire to dismantle it.
More importantly, it ignores the deep historical structure of Iranian identity and the political integration of minorities within the country’s state and society.
Iran is not a fragile post-colonial state whose borders were drawn arbitrarily in the 20th century. Unlike much of the Middle East, whose modern form emerged from the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire and European mandates in the last century, Iran is a civilisational state whose territorial imagination stretches back millennia.
Iranian scholars have long emphasised that what binds the country together is a layered sense of historical continuity. Iranian sociologist Asef Bayat notes that the country’s social structure is defined by “cross-cutting identities”, in which religion, language and local affiliation coexist with a strong national sense of belonging.
Historian Ali Ansari similarly describes Iranian nationalism as being a synthesis of imperial memory, Persian culture, and modern anti-imperialist consciousness.
This helps explain why external attempts to weaponise ethnicity in Iran have historically faltered. While minorities in Iran certainly have grievances, many relating to economic inequality or the lack of cultural recognition or political representation, these demands rarely translate into mass support for secession.
Even among groups often portrayed abroad as potential insurgent partners, the dominant political discourse is one of reform and rights within Iran rather than independence from it.
Iran’s demographic composition illustrates the complexity of this social landscape. Precise ethnic statistics are difficult to come by because the Iranian census does not regularly record ethnicity, but most scholarly estimates converge around similar figures.
Persians constitute roughly 60 to 65 per cent of the population, forming the linguistic and cultural core of the country. The largest minority are the Azerbaijani Turks, who account for around 16 to 20 per cent and are concentrated primarily in the north-western provinces along the border with Azerbaijan and in major urban centres such as Tehran.
Kurds make up roughly seven to 10 per cent and live mainly along the mountainous western frontier bordering Iraq and Turkey. Lurs constitute about six per cent and inhabit parts of the Zagros range in western Iran, while smaller communities include Arabs in the oil-rich province of Khuzestan in the southwest, Baluch in the southeastern province of Sistan-Baluchestan near Pakistan, and Turkmen in the northeast near the Caspian basin.
Religiously, around 90 per cent of Iranians are Twelver Shia Muslims, the doctrinal foundation of the state, while roughly seven to 10 per cent are Sunni, many of them drawn from Kurdish, Baluch, and Turkmen populations, alongside small Christian, Jewish, and Zoroastrian communities.
The Kurdish question illustrates this dynamic particularly clearly. The Kurdish communities in Iran inhabit provinces along the country’s western frontier and share cultural ties with Kurds in neighbouring Iraq and Turkey.
Because of this cross-border identity, outside observers often assume that Iranian Kurds would readily embrace an armed campaign against Tehran if encouraged by foreign powers. But the statements emerging from Kurdish leaders this week tell a far more cautious story.
Roken Nerada, a commander in the Kurdish group PJAK, emphasised that any armed struggle was contingent not on foreign encouragement but on internal developments. “If there is an attack on the Kurdish people,” he said, “we are ready to resist as we always have.”
Yet, he also added a revealing qualification. “I think we can achieve our rights without the help of the US or any other country.”
Another Kurdish figure, Amir Karimi, stated that a military campaign against the central government in Tehran was not under consideration. “From a strategic and tactical point of view… we believe it wouldn’t be a good idea,” he said.
Instead, he argued that any meaningful change in Iran would have to come from within society itself.
These statements reflect not simply caution but also political realism. The Kurdish leaders understand that an externally backed insurgency inside Iran would face formidable obstacles. Iranian security institutions, including the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Basij militia, maintain a strong presence in the border regions, and Tehran has repeatedly demonstrated its willingness to conduct cross-border strikes against militant bases.
Moreover, the Kurdish movements themselves remain divided organisationally and geographically, limiting their capacity to act as a unified military force.
Iran’s rugged terrain, including the Zagros and Alborz mountains ranges and vast central deserts, has historically reinforced national cohesion in ways often missed by outsiders. These natural barriers concentrate populations in defensible areas, create strategic depth, and make sustained foreign invasion difficult.
While preserving distinct local cultures, this geography has paradoxically acted as a protective shell around the state, binding regions together and preventing external powers from using peripheral areas to destabilise the country.
The political landscape within Iran also complicates any attempt to mobilise minorities against the state. Far from existing on the margins of national life, many minority communities are deeply embedded in the country’s political and economic institutions.
Azeris, for example, represent the largest minority group and occupy prominent positions across Iranian society. The country’s late supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, comes from an Azeri family, and Azeri merchants have historically played a powerful role in Iran’s commercial networks and bazaar economy.
Kurdish citizens serve in the regular army, the bureaucracy, and local administrations, while members of minority groups are present throughout Iran’s political system.
This level of integration complicates the narrative often presented abroad that minorities in Iran see themselves primarily through an ethnic lens and stand ready to revolt. In reality, most identify simultaneously with their local culture and with the Iranian nation.
As the Iranian cultural critic Hamid Dabashi has argued, Iran’s national identity functions less as an ethnic category than as a “civilisational imagination” shared across linguistic and regional boundaries.
External geopolitical factors further weaken the feasibility of a Kurdish insurgency strategy. The Kurdish question remains one of the most sensitive issues for neighbouring Turkey, which views militant Kurdish movements as an existential security threat. Turkish officials have repeatedly warned against any development that could strengthen armed Kurdish organisations along their borders. For Ankara, the emergence of a new Kurdish conflict zone in western Iran would risk destabilising the entire region.
Even within the United States, enthusiasm for such a strategy appears uncertain. After initially expressing openness to the idea of Kurdish forces confronting Tehran, US President Donald Trump appeared to retreat from the suggestion, stating that Washington was “not looking to the Kurds going in”.
These hesitations underscore a deeper strategic takeaway: the country’s minorities are not simply pieces on a geopolitical chessboard. They are citizens embedded in a society whose political identity is far more cohesive than outsiders often assume. And that cohesion, more than any security apparatus, is what makes the “minorities card” so difficult to play.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 12 March, 2026 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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