As war reshapes the region, Kurds returns to center stage - opinion

This blind spot is not accidental. American and, more broadly, Western strategic thinking on the Middle East has for decades been organized around state actors. Non-state communities have been factored in when immediate security needs demanded it, then bracketed again once the crisis passed. The Kurds represent the most striking example of this pattern.

Yet what is unfolding in Iran today is raising the cost of that habit to a level that can no longer be ignored.

The political statelessness and vulnerability the Kurds face today are not accidental. Their roots lie in the post-World War I settlement, an arrangement that drew the borders of the Middle East largely according to the interests of external powers.

From the Sykes-Picot Agreement in 1916 to the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923, the Kurds were denied the right to self-determination, divided across the borders of four states, and subjected to systematic oppression. Cultural prohibitions, forced displacement, massacres, and political exclusion have been the defining features of the Kurdish experience over the past century.

What matters here is this: these outcomes were not shaped solely by regional powers. The great powers of the era, driven partly by strategic calculation and partly by economic interest, both designed and consolidated this order. The architects of the Versailles system made conscious choices about whether to recognize Kurdish claims. In this sense, Western historical responsibility is not a matter of passive neglect. It is the product of an active design.

Against this backdrop, it is not only the historical role of the US and the West that deserves scrutiny. Their current policies do as well.

Over the past two to three decades, Kurdish identity and political consciousness have been significantly strengthened. From Iraq to Syria, from Iran to the Kurdish diaspora, Kurds are no longer only defending their existence. They are asserting, with increasing force, a demand to be recognized as a political subject in their own right.

Behind this transformation lies not only political organization but a broader social awakening. Shifts in education, media, and cultural production have carried Kurdish identity beyond a posture of defense, reframing it within a political vision that encompasses federalism, women’s rights, and pluralist models of governance. These commitments align directly with the values the US and its Western allies publicly espouse, and that alignment makes their inconsistency all the more difficult to justify.

Kurdish movements have also demonstrated their strategic value in concrete terms, through their armed struggle against jihadist organizations in Iraq and Syria. This resistance, which cost tens of thousands of lives, served not only Kurdish interests but global security more broadly.

The US and several Western governments have nonetheless continued to maintain a cautious distance from Kurdish self-determination, creating both a strategic contradiction and a moral inconsistency that is becoming increasingly difficult to sustain.

The historical record is instructive: from the Cold War to the present, American and Western choices driven by immediate security calculations have at times become the very generators of the instabilities they sought to prevent. Afghanistan is perhaps the best-known example of this pattern. Developments in parts of Libya and Iraq reflect the same dynamic.

Syria is shaping up to be another such test. And among those with the most to lose are the Kurdish communities in the north. The inclusiveness and legitimacy of the structures being built today will directly shape the region’s stability tomorrow.

Iran’s current political structure has long been a primary source of regional tension, imposing repression on its own citizens while generating instability through proxy forces across the region.

What is unfolding today points not only to a crisis of governance but to the possibility of broader political transformation. At this point, a critical question arises: who will be included in such a transformation, and who will shape it?

Kurdish regions have played a leading role in the mass social movements that have swept Iran in recent years, and they have also faced some of the harshest state repression. The defining symbol of this dynamic is the movement that crystallized around the slogan “Jin, Jiyan, Azadi,” Woman, Life, Freedom, a call that rose from Kurdistan and spread across the whole of Iran, becoming a universal symbol that gave voice not only to Kurds but to broad segments of Iranian society.

This reality must be reflected directly in the strategic calculations being made about Iran, calculations in which Washington plays a determining role. Any scenario that excludes Kurdish political actors or reduces them to a secondary role is both analytically incomplete and practically dangerous. The growing search for coordination among different Kurdish political formations signals that these actors are fully aware of the role they could play.

The steps taken by the US and the international community should aim not only to weaken the existing structure but to guarantee the legitimacy and inclusiveness of whatever comes next. Otherwise, the removal of one source of instability may simply clear the ground for deeper crises.

At this critical juncture, shaped by the Iran-Israel confrontation and the American military recalibration in the region, Washington faces a concrete choice. Treating the Kurdish question solely as a humanitarian or historical problem is no longer sufficient. It is also a strategic reality.

The recognition of Kurdish rights and the securing of Kurdish political status matter not only for regional peace. They are of critical importance for global stability. Any transformation that emerges in Iran will be shaped by whether it takes an inclusive and rights-based form, and that outcome will be among the most consequential for the future of the Middle East.