26 February 2026

Iran’s future venom?

The Crown, the Clerics, and the Crossfire

There is a particularly cruel and predictable irony in watching a theocratic dictatorship enter its long-overdue death throes, only to see the self-appointed champions of “liberation” immediately begin sharpening their knives for the Kurds.

As the clerical regime in Tehran visibly rots from the inside out, the Kurdish population finds itself trapped at a terrifying and familiar crossroads. On one side of this vise are the violent, dying spasms of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), a gang of thugs that continues to reduce Kurdish lives to disposable targets, casually using refugee camps and impoverished border couriers as target practice to distract from their own domestic implosion. On the other side, however, is a threat equally as sinister: the returning ghost of centralized chauvinism, masquerading as a democratic alternative while demanding the complete erasure of all cultural differences in the name of a “uniform Iranian identity.”

If you wish to measure the precise and imminent danger the Kurds now face in this impending power vacuum, you need only listen to the swaggering, unapologetic authoritarianism currently emanating from the pro-Pahlavi monarchist camp. Rather than extending a pluralistic olive branch to a demographic that constitutes over ten percent of the country and has bled for decades, Reza Pahlavi dismisses Kurdish political life as “baseless and vulgar.” He ominously decrees that “territorial integrity” is a “red line,” issuing a threat that sounds remarkably like a promise of a future military crackdown:

“By remaining committed to this fundamental principle, we can expect the Iranian army to also fulfil its national and patriotic duty, to stand alongside the people, and to defend Iran against both the Islamic Republic and the separatists.”

In case the grim subtext of Pahlavi’s rhetoric was somehow lost on the international observer, his loyalist attack dogs are more than happy to spell it out. Saeed Bashirtash, a prominent figure in the far-right monarchist 7 Aban Front, recently took to the airwaves to declare with breathtaking historical amnesia:

“The Kurdish parties have committed war crimes and will be tried in court.”

This is the fascist language of a movement that views basic Kurdish demands for local democracy and decentralisation not as human rights, but as a contagion to be eradicated. It is a chilling, perfect echo of 1941, 1979, and the 1980s—proving yet again that whenever there is a power vacuum in Iran, regardless of whether a turban or a crown sits in the capital, the state’s absolute first reflex is the violent, scorched-earth suppression of the Kurdish people.

We are watching an emerging ethno-nationalism openly plotting to ally with local militias and an “imaginary army” to enforce its autocracy. If the international community greets this racist rhetoric with its usual, pathetic silence, offering only empty words while failing to demand ironclad guarantees for federalism and minority rights, that silence will serve as a quiet, definitive green light for the next Kurdish massacre.

The Existential Intersection

As the theocratic regime in Tehran shows advanced signs of decay, the Kurdish population in Iran stands at a terrifying crossroads. While the world watches the potential collapse of the current government with cautious hope, the Kurds face a devastating two-front threat: the violent death throes of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and the rising, dangerous nationalism of a potential new government.

Right now, the failing regime is using the Kurdistan Region in Iraq as a punching bag to distract from its domestic crises. By painting legitimate Kurdish dissent as a foreign-backed separatist conspiracy, the IRGC justifies a brutal, hair-trigger campaign of violence. This is not a theoretical threat; it is an active campaign of assassinations, kidnappings, and merciless drone and missile strikes on civilian refugee camps. At the heavily militarized border, security forces are arbitrarily gunning down impoverished Kurdish couriers, known as kolbers, even when they are carrying no goods at all. This senseless killing is designed to reduce Kurdish lives to disposable targets, enforcing state power through arbitrary murder.

However, the fall of the current regime will not automatically guarantee Kurdish survival. International policymakers must be explicitly warned that the coming power vacuum could trigger a second wave of ethnic cleansing. Emerging nationalist factions, particularly returning pro-Pahlavi groups, are already employing chauvinistic rhetoric to demand a single, uniform Iranian identity that erases all cultural differences. Under the guise of protecting “territorial integrity” and fighting terrorism, these actors view Kurdish demands for local democracy and decentralization as threats that must be eradicated. There is a severe risk that in mixed provinces like West Azerbaijan, centralized nationalists could ally with local militias to violently suppress Kurdish movements, echoing past massacres that were designed to force demographic changes and crush local governance.

History provides a chilling and highly reliable warning. In every major power vacuum of the last century, regardless of the ruling ideology, the Iranian state has prioritized the violent suppression of the Kurds. After the 1941 transition, the Pahlavi monarchy betrayed local agreements and summarily executed Kurdish leaders to crush their brief autonomous republic. Following the 1979 revolution, Ayatollah Khomeini declared a jihādist war against the Kurds, dispatching “hanging judges” to conduct mass executions of those deemed anti-revolutionary. During the 1980s, the state used the Iran-Iraq war as cover to completely militarize Kurdish lands and wage a scorched-earth campaign against political opposition. Most recently, the brutal crackdowns following the murder of Jina Mahsa Amini proved that the state continues to use extreme violence against Kurdish bodies, women, and language to enforce its control.

The international community cannot afford to offer mere empty words of support while waiting for the next tragedy. We must implement concrete, structural protections immediately. First, global powers must enforce a monitored safe corridor, much like the historical No-Fly Zone, to protect hundreds of thousands of refugees and border workers from military strikes. Second, any diplomatic recognition or support given to the Iranian opposition in exile must be strictly conditioned on their written, public commitment to a decentralized, federal Iran that respects minority rights and rejects racist rhetoric. Third, international human rights observers must be deployed immediately to volatile ethnic fault lines—such as the Urmia-Piranshahr-Mehabad triangle—to prevent localized massacres. Finally, the world must fund digital initiatives to preserve the Kurdish language, medical terminology, and historical manuscripts, ensuring their culture survives any systemic attempt at erasure.

The ongoing violence against the Kurdish people is not an accident; it is the foundation of how Iran’s central authority has historically operated. True stability in a post-theocratic Iran cannot be achieved by forcing everyone to conform to a single identity, but only through a voluntary and equal union of different peoples. If the international community stays silent and ignores the rising tide of militarized proxies and ethno-nationalism, that silence will serve as a quiet green light for the next Kurdish massacre.

Remember: Jin, Jiyan, Azadî started by Kurdish women, in a Kurdish city, after a Kurdish female life was taken away. Not by Pahlavi women in West costs of the U.S. in bikinis.