Iran is not a country in the conventional sense—it is a contained fracture. ‘Persia’ is held together not by cohesion, but by force, timing, and the constant prevention of alignment.

Today, roughly 60% of Iran’s population is Persian; meanwhile, the remaining 40%—Azeris, Kurds, Arabs, Baloch, Lurs, Turkmen, alongside Armenians, Assyrians, Jews, Zoroastrians, and Baha’is—exist outside the Persian core or along its borders.

Nevertheless, this is not incidental—it is geostrategic. Azeris dominate the northwest (≈16–20%), anchoring Iran to the Caucasus. Kurds stretch along the western frontier (≈10–15%), embedded in Iraqi Kurdistan’s militant ecosystem. Arabs in Khuzestan (≈2–3%) sit atop Iran’s energy backbone, while the Baloch (≈2%) secure the southeastern corridor into Pakistan. Smaller minorities—especially the Baha’is—remain under sustained repression precisely because they function as embedded pressure points within wider regional systems.

Maliciously, the Ayatollah’s regime has never integrated this map—it has managed it. From Khuzestan (2005), to Mahabad (2015), to persistent insurgency in Sistan-Baluchestan, the pattern is consistent: repression and force. Thence, the assassin Iranian regime does not resolve fractures—it contains them. However, containment is breaking.

The protest cycles of 2017–2019 and the 2022 uprising following Mahsa Amini’s death exposed the regime’s limits. In November 2019 alone, around 1,500 people were killed. By 2022, over 500 had been killed and nearly 20,000 arrested—many from minority regions. On September 30, 2022, during Zahedan’s “Bloody Friday,” at least 90 Baloch protesters were killed in a single day.

That trajectory did not slow—it deepened. During the 2025–2026 protest wave, arrests again ranged from roughly 7,000 to over 20,000, concentrated in those same peripheral regions. Repression of Baha’is intensified as well, with more than 1,200 facing prison or legal proceedings, building on earlier measures such as the coordinated raids and property confiscations of August 2022.

At the same time, repression evolved. It is no longer only coercive—it is extractive. Families of those killed have reportedly been forced to pay so-called “bullet fees,” ranging from 700 million to 2.5 billion rials (roughly $500–$1,700), for the ammunition used against their own children. Violence, in this sense, is no longer just a tool of control—it has become monetized domination.

Strikingly, this reveals the underlying pattern: force concentrates where control is weaker. This regime does not fear protest as much as it fears alignment. Foolishly, Kurdish unrest remains disconnected from Baloch insurgency; Arab dissent does not trigger Azeri mobilization. Smaller minorities stay isolated—either co-opted or suppressed—and it is within these gaps that the Islamist regime sustains itself.

This is why external pressure matters—but only under certain conditions. In my opinion, a United States–Israeli strike alone would not collapse the regime. What it would do, however, is compress time, accelerate internal reactions, and force simultaneity—undermining the regime’s core advantage: fragmentation.

Because in Iran, pressure does not remain confined to Tehran—it radiates outward, into the periphery, where state control is weak. And that periphery is anything but sealed.

Kurdish regions connect directly to Iraqi Kurdistan, effectively turning the frontier into an active security zone. In the southeast, the Baloch corridor extends into Pakistan, where groups such as Jaish al-Adl exploit vulnerable state control—a pattern reflected in repeated attacks on Iranian forces between 2023 and 2024. From there, pressure moves inward. Khuzestan, critical to Iran’s energy infrastructure, becomes a direct vulnerability. Concurrently, the Azeri northwest links into the South Caucasus, a region already destabilized by the Nagorno-Karabakh conflicts.

Taken together, these are not isolated flashpoints but a connected arc, where internal vulnerabilities and external linkages reinforce one another.

In effect, this is a multi-front system waiting for synchronization. And yet the regime endures—because those fronts remain disconnected.

However, there is a model. In Iraqi Kurdistan, rival factions have coordinated under pressure, generating both territorial control and political leverage. The question is why this has not occurred in Iranian Kurdistan. If Kurdish groups align with Baloch insurgents, if Arab unrest coincides with Azeri mobilization, the regime no longer faces protests—it faces converging fronts. Across domains, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps could potentially suppress isolated uprisings, but recent cycles have already exposed its limits under synchronized, geographically dispersed unrest.

In my assessment, a strike can weaken the system—but only internal alignment can break it.

And here lies the regime’s deepest contradiction. The Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, is Azeri—elevated in 1989 in part to preserve unity and prevent fragmentation; nonetheless, the result has been the opposite. Minority regions are now more securitized, more marginalized, and more alienated than ever. What was intended to unify instead hardened division, leaving a state that is less cohesive and increasingly reliant on coercion.

Under the current system, the regime has purchased stability by preventing coordination, but it has never eliminated the conditions that make coordination possible; and that is the strategic reality. Thus, if minorities remain fragmented, the regime survives. If they align—even partially—the system begins to fracture through overextension and territorial loss.

What follows will depend as much on these regions as on the regime itself. Consequently, Kurdish areas could potentially shape security outcomes, Khuzestan could anchor energy, Baluchistan could define connectivity and Azeri territories could enhance Iran’s position in the Caucasus. In turn, smaller communities—Baha’is, Armenians, Assyrians, Jews, and Zoroastrians— could prospectively shape legitimacy and reintegration.

Ignore them, and Iran fractures. Bring them together, and they can bring down the Islamist regime itself.

Tehran chose control, and time is no longer on its side. Pressure accelerates events and forces convergence. When that happens, Iran’s future will not be decided in Tehran, but at its edges—once they begin to act together.

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)