- 28 December 2009
- 5 Comments
- Events in Iran, US-Iran War
Apparently because the backlash against Alan Kuperman’s op-ed last week wasn’t harsh enough, the NYT has doubled down with this piece, by Selig Harrison, about US support for ethnic separatist groups in Iran.
The biggest threat to the ruling ayatollahs and generals in multi-ethnic Iran does not come from the embattled democratic opposition movement struggling to reform the Islamic Republic. It comes from increasingly aggressive separatist groups in Kurdish, Baluch, Azeri and Arab ethnic minority regions that collectively make up some 44 percent of Persian-dominated Iran’s population.
This echoes an assertion that Rep. Jane Harman’s made at this year’s AIPAC conference, in which she said it would be a good idea to “separate” Iran’s population along ethnic lines so that stirred up ethnic divisions would weaken the central government.
Now, bizarrely, Harrison says the US should give material support (beyond what it already may covertly provide) to PJAK, Jundullah, Arabs in Khuzestan, and anybody else who might accept it. But he overlooks the complex relationship Washington has with these groups already. For example, Washington has condemned Jundullah terrorist attacks as a gesture to Iran, while at the same time reportedly funneled covert funds to the group and others like it.