On the latest episode of The New Region's GeoSpace podcast, Mohammed A. Salih hosted Arash Saleh, former representative of the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran (KDPI) and current scholar at George Mason University. The two discussed the trajectory of the US-Israel military campaign against Iran, the deep-rooted nature of the Kurdish struggle in Iran, and why recent media coverage has fundamentally mischaracterized Kurdish agency and aspirations.

Several weeks into the conflict, Saleh assessed that the campaign has been devastatingly effective against Iran's military infrastructure. “The Israelis and the United States have been pounding Iran very badly,” he observed, noting that missile stockpiles, nuclear facilities, and air defense systems have all been targeted. Most significantly, “the first day, they decapitated the regime and actually took out the head of the regime. And that, I believe, has caused chaos inside them.”

For Tehran, Saleh argued, simply surviving the bombardment would constitute victory. “If they survive, for the regime, if they survive this attack, that will be some sort of win,” he said. However, he cautioned that such survival could take multiple forms—from a failed state where the central government lacks territorial control, to total regime collapse, to remnants holding power in remote areas while opposition groups control other regions.

Saleh pushed back forcefully against the notion that behavioral change from Iran's regime remains viable. “We're way past that paradigm of behavior change,” he stated, explaining that Iran operates as “a revolutionary state” fundamentally challenging the international order. He traced this to deep-seated Persian nationalism carrying “nostalgia of the past, where the Persians were the lords of the world.”

“Any attempt to change the regime's behavior will not lead to any change in the mentality of the regime, and they still are going to pose threat,” Saleh emphasized. He argued this nationalist mentality transcends the current regime, warning that even future Iranian governments with similar military capabilities would likely challenge the regional order. “The only way that the world can feel safe about Iran and Middle East... is that Iran does not have these capabilities.”

Addressing recent media coverage portraying Kurds as potential instruments of Western policy, Saleh provided crucial historical context often missing from reporting. “This struggle has been going on for a long time. It has its institutes, it has its own political parties, it has its own military branch,” he explained. “This didn't start with this campaign, and it's not gonna end with the end of this campaign.”

Saleh emphasized the grassroots nature of the Kurdish movement, noting that in cities across western Iran’s Kurdish-majority Rojhelat region, “every other door, if not every door, you see a connection, a family connection” to the struggle through relatives who have been killed, executed, imprisoned, or serve as fighters. “Tens of thousands of our members so far in the past 4 decades were killed in our confrontation with the Iranian regime and with IRGC [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps].”

The recent formation of the Alliance of Iranian Kurdistan Political Parties, uniting six major Kurdish parties, signals strategic preparation. “The leadership in Kurdistan sensed that Iran is going to be weak, and we need to be prepared for that,” Saleh explained. The coalition increases coordination, legitimacy, and sends “a message of hope to our people.”

Saleh articulated the delicate balance Kurdish leaders must strike. “It's both hope and fear at this time,” he said—hope that the campaign will weaken the state enough to allow territorial gains with minimum casualties, but fear that “all of a sudden this stops, and then we are there with a regime that is... coming out of this crisis... very crazy, and then they want to kill everyone, and then we're in a situation that no one is there to help us.”

“We don't want to exert some sort of damage to our society that is not repairable,” Saleh stated, emphasizing that Kurdish political organizations “exist only because society is able to thrive.”

On coordination with other Iranian opposition groups, Saleh confirmed extensive communication with those who don't label Kurds as separatists or enemies. “We have lowered our bar a lot, in terms of to who we can talk to,” he explained. “We want to be a part of the solution. We don't want to be part of the problem.”

Saleh noted that if regime weakening continues to create vacuums in state control, “other groups can get into Iran and carve something out, and start asking and demanding for more. Just like what happened in Syria, what happened in Iraq.” The path forward depends on careful calibration—acting when the moment is right, but not prematurely risking irreversible damage to Kurdish society.