The joint U.S.-Israeli operation against the Islamic Republic of Iran launched on Feb. 28 is targeting Iranian nuclear facilities, military assets and leadership sites. U.S. participation in this operation ostensibly is to destroy the Islamic Republic’s capacity to produce a nuclear bomb that, should the ayatollahs get one, would almost certainly be used against America, the “Big Satan,” and Israel, the “Little Satan.”
Washington’s focus is on Iran’s ballistic missiles, which pose a mortal threat to the State of Israel and the Arab Gulf states. The two countries understand that the regime has been developing long-range missiles whose warheads could accommodate a nuclear or chemical payload with possible reach of the United States.
Beyond neutralizing Iran’s ability to produce a nuclear weapon and destroying the lethal ballistic-missile arsenal of the Iranian regime, Israel is targeting the regime’s personnel facilities used to kill thousands of Iranian civilians in a matter of days.
Eventually, however, it is the Iranian people who must fight for freedom and prosperity. Minority militias, who are battle-tested and experienced in combat, can be of enormous help to the Iranians in overcoming the regime, including the armed gangs of the regime’s Basij forces. The Basij is an armed volunteer paramilitary force subordinate to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), functioning as a primary tool for domestic security and the crackdown on dissenters.
Almost half of Iran’s population is comprised of minorities hostile to the Islamic Republic and its ayatollahs, and all of them possess armed militias. Their role in defeating the heartless regime of the now-eliminated supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is essential.
A decade and a half ago, I met in Washington with exiled leaders of the three main Iranian minority groups: Ahwazi Arabs, Baluchis and Kurds. They expressed their frustration with the Obama administration for refusing to support their efforts to bring down the theocratic Islamic Republic of Iran. They pleaded for arms and funds that the Obama administration never even considered. These same groups had already sacrificed thousands of their fighters in clashes with the regime’s forces, including the IRGC, the praetorian guards of the ayatollahs.
These armed minority groups represent significant fighting forces that pose a demonstrated challenge to the Iranian regime.
Reports in January emerged that thousands of Iraqi Shi’ite militia fighters (including Kata’ib Hezbollah and Harakat al-Nujaba) were deployed to Iran to assist the regime in suppressing and killing Iranian protesters. Nevertheless, with American and Israeli aid, including arms and perhaps cash, they can properly defend the protesters and serve as a spearhead to bring down the regime.
Iranian Kurds formed a “Coalition of Political Forces of Iranian Kurdistan” on Feb. 22, uniting five Kurdish opposition parties. Iranian Kurds have been an active part of the recent pushback against the Islamic Republic, including the 2022 “Women, Life, Freedom” movement, and most recently, the major protests that shook Iran in late 2025 and early 2026.
The PDKI (Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan), a Kurdish opposition group, has fought an intermittent insurgency against Tehran since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. The party supported the nationwide protests in January, which U.S. President Donald Trump has said killed more than 30,000 people. Hossein Yazdanpanah, leader of the Kurdistan Freedom Party (and a friend, I introduced to Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations) has been fighting, along with his militia, the ayatollah’s regime from exile in the United Arab Emirates and KRG.
Hamid Mutasher, leader of the Iranian Ahwazi-Arab Liberal Party, and a prominent Ahwazi dissident and peace activist currently in exile in Vienna, was interviewed on Edy Cohen’s (an Israeli of Lebanese Jewish origin) podcast. Mutasher described the repression that the Arab minority is experiencing under the ayatollahs and the enormous wealth that was stolen from them by Tehran. He said that he is envisioning an independent Ahwazi state that will be Israel’s strategic ally. He pointed out that Ahwaz Arab population numbers 12 million and its territory includes 420,000 square kilometers. According to Mutasher, 90% of Iran’s oil exports comes from Ahwaz, as well as 75% of its water. And, he claimed, Ahwaz sits on one of the largest energy reserves in the world.
The Baluchis of southeastern Iran are a discriminated and oppressed minority, especially since they are Sunni Muslims in the majority Shia state of Iran. They inhabit one of Iran’s poorest regions, suffering from underdevelopment, limited education and poor healthcare, resulting in the lowest life expectancy in the country. The area has experienced significant conflict, with militant groups like Jaysh al-Adl clashing with Iranian security forces, leading to high casualties on both sides.
These three groups have little to lose. They have long been oppressed by the ayatollahs with no equality or rights. These groups would ideally opt for independence or regional autonomy, where they could use their resources to improve the lives of their people.
The ultimate dream of the Kurds is a nation that would bring together some 40 million to 50 million Kurds from Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey. The Ahwazi Arabs want an independent state of their own or to regain the status they had prior to 1925. The Baluchis would prefer joining their brothers in Pakistani Baluchistan.
These groups could be in the vanguard of a takeover of Iran from the mullahs. They would certainly be joined by the Persian opposition forces and, together, could restore to the Iranian people their 47-year-old dream of freedom.
