With every day that passes away from the negotiating table, U.S. President Donald Trump becomes further entangled in the Iranian quagmire. Beyond the absence of a clear strategic vision for managing the rapidly unfolding developments in Tehran, the results of the initial strike—despite eliminating the upper echelon of the ruling hierarchy and several senior commanders—failed to trigger the popular uprising against the clerical regime that Washington had anticipated. Now, in what appears to be his final card, Trump is attempting to activate the “minorities” file in Iran, specifically the Kurdish question.
Historically, U.S.-Kurdish relations have been characterised by a recurring pattern of tactical alliances that ultimately end in what many Kurds perceive as betrayal or abandonment once Washington’s strategic needs shift or regional power balances change. In the early 1970s, encouraged by Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran, and former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, the United States provided covert military and financial support to Mustafa Barzani in his confrontation with the Iraqi government. The moment of deception came in 1975 when the Shah struck a sudden agreement with Saddam Hussein in Algiers to settle sovereignty disputes over the Shatt al-Arab waterway in exchange for halting support for the Kurds. The result was immediate: American assistance ceased overnight. When Barzani appealed to Kissinger for intervention, the latter famously responded with a phrase that encapsulated Washington’s pragmatic calculus: “Covert operations should not be confused with missionary work.” The Kurds were left to face Iraqi retaliation alone, leading to the killing and displacement of thousands and the destruction of more than 1,400 villages.
Following the Gulf War, Washington encouraged Iraqis—particularly the Kurds—to rise up against Saddam Hussein, only to abandon them at the decisive moment. The year of betrayal came in 1991 when former U.S. President George H. W. Bush called on the Iraqi people to revolt. Kurdish forces indeed seized control of most of their cities, but Washington, fearing the fragmentation of Iraq or the expansion of Iranian influence, permitted Saddam to deploy helicopter gunships to crush the uprising. The consequences were catastrophic: a mass exodus in which nearly a million civilians fled toward the Iranian and Turkish mountains under tragic conditions. Only later did Washington intervene by imposing a no-fly zone under mounting international humanitarian pressure.
In Syria, the scenario repeated itself with the Kurdish forces that had served as the spearhead in the fight against Islamic State after 2011. Washington partnered with the People’s Protection Units (YPG) within the Syrian Democratic Forces, promising protection in exchange for defeating the extremist organisation. The major rupture came in October 2019, when, after a phone call with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Trump abruptly announced the withdrawal of U.S. forces from the border region, effectively giving a green light to Operation Peace Spring, Turkey’s military incursion into northern Syria. The decision was widely described in international circles as a “stab in the back.” Kurdish forces were compelled to seek protection from the Syrian government and Russia in order to shield themselves from the Turkish offensive, losing vast territories they had liberated through years of costly fighting.
The pattern repeated once more in Syria at the beginning of 2026, this time with even harsher consequences following the collapse of the Bashar al-Assad regime and the subsequent redrawing of the regional map of influence. Field reports indicated that Kurdish forces once again found themselves alone as armed factions advanced across the region. Washington retreated from protecting Kurdish administrative gains in northeastern Syria, opting instead to coordinate with emerging regional actors—namely Turkey and the transitional authorities in Damascus—in order to secure broader strategic interests. In response to this pressure, Kurdish forces reportedly evacuated detention facilities holding ISIS fighters and ceased guarding them following the withdrawal of American troops from the country.
Although Israeli and American strikes weakened the regime’s capacity to maintain control, they did not eliminate it entirely. Territorial control ultimately requires ground forces—a cost Washington is unwilling to bear. Consequently, Trump has turned once again to the Kurdish card in an attempt to alter the stagnant dynamics on the ground. In coordination with American intelligence services operating in the Kurdistan region of Iraq, a Kurdish group in western Iran has reportedly begun carrying out limited ground attacks.
According to recent demographic estimates, Kurds constitute roughly 12 percent of Iran’s population. They rank as the third-largest ethnic group after Persians—who account for between 51 and 60 percent—and Azerbaijanis, who comprise between 16 and 24 percent of the country’s nearly 100 million inhabitants. Such a proportion is unlikely to dramatically shift the balance of power; at most, it may create localised disruptions, particularly given the long and troubled history between Kurdish movements and the United States.
Indeed, Trump recently invited Kurdish leaders from Iraq to discuss the evolving American military operation in Iran and explore how Kurdish forces might cooperate as the mission progresses. The administration hopes that Kurdish armed groups could engage Iranian security forces and tie them down, thereby enabling unarmed civilians in major cities to take to the streets without facing the brutal repression witnessed during the unrest in January. From Washington’s perspective, Kurdish involvement could help generate instability, stretch the Iranian regime’s military resources, and erode its operational cohesion by forcing it to confront peripheral insurgencies. Such pressure could open wide security gaps and transform northern regions into advanced logistical and intelligence platforms serving American and Israeli strategic objectives against Tehran.
Ultimately, Washington treats the Kurdish question as a temporary pressure card or a field proxy. The persistent American insistence on repeating the same scenario with the Kurds—and the equally persistent Kurdish willingness to fall into the same strategic trap—suggests that the relationship is less a case of deception than of a grim transactional bargain. Washington purchases time and battlefield leverage, while the Kurds purchase the illusion of statehood or international protection.
With the withdrawal of the last American soldier from Syria at the beginning of 2026, the Kurdish tragedy appears to have reached yet another chapter. Once again, the geopolitical landscape confirms that Washington does not merely sell out its allies—it often leaves them as expendable fuel in the furnace of global power politics. In this sense, the old Kurdish proverb remains less a poetic metaphor than a stark political verdict: “The Kurds have no friends but the mountains.” And today, it is the mountains alone that bear witness to the collapse of yet another set of lost wagers.
Dr. Hatem Sadek – Helwan University