Former Ukrainian Ambassador to Japan and Turkey Serhiy Korsunsky has laid out what he considers the ideal outcome of the ongoing military operation against Iran: an internal regime change driven by Kurdish and ethnic minority formations within roughly two months.
Korsunskyy shared his assessment during journalist Yuriy Romanenko's broadcast on March 5, as "Hvylya" reported.
"The ideal scenario is a change of power, a change of regime that should happen as a result of internal action," Korsunsky said. He stressed that a prolonged Iraqi-style campaign would be a completely different - and far worse - story. The two-month window, in his view, is what separates a swift strategic success from a drawn-out quagmire.
The diplomat explained that after the death of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps - numbering around 300,000 - lost its centralized command. Individual unit commanders were granted authority to act independently, a decision made by Khamenei himself after the 12-day war. This decentralization, Korsunsky argued, created openings for armed opposition groups.
"All intelligence resources of both Israel and the US are working to ensure these formations receive weapons and have the ability to act," he said. The primary bet, according to the diplomat, is on Kurdish peshmerga - Iraqi, Iranian, and Syrian Kurds - along with other ethnic armed groups inside Iran that have long opposed the regime.
Korsunsky drew a sharp distinction between Iran and Venezuela, where regime change was achieved by removing a single leader. In Iran, "religious fanaticism of absolutely cosmic proportions" among Shia loyalists makes the process far more complicated. Ground forces will ultimately need to seize power physically - no amount of air superiority alone can achieve that, he said, citing Ukraine's own frontline experience as proof.
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