The American and Israeli plan to arm Kurdish militants for an incursion into Iran is "almost guaranteed to end in a failed state," a leading Washington-based analyst has warned, as opposition figures across Iran's political spectrum voice alarm over the operation.

As "Hvylya" reports, citing The Atlantic, Behnam Ben Taleblu, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, called the plan "the mother of all strategic, moral, and political mistakes." He said the Kurdish parties' appeal is "limited to their own ethnic constituencies" and that the Iranian regime has "played ethnic minorities against each other for quite some time."

The fear is not hypothetical. Many cities in western Iran are inhabited not only by Kurds but also by Azeri Turks and other ethnic groups who could be mobilized against a Kurdish advance - producing exactly the kind of internecine violence the Middle East knows all too well.

Amir Hossein Ganjbakhsh, a pro-democracy activist based in the US, said Washington and Jerusalem would "commit their biggest mistake" if they pursued this path. "This would unite many Iranians who cherish Iran's territorial integrity above all," he told The Atlantic. "A large coalition of Iranians, whether they are monarchist or republican, whether they are religious or secular, would unite against these parties."

Kurdish leaders have tried to preempt such criticism. Shukriya Bradost, a Kurdish Iranian security analyst, claimed that Kurds and Azeris would unite over their "shared non-Persian identity." But defining coalitions along ethnic lines is unlikely to reassure the many Iranians who see territorial integrity as non-negotiable - regardless of their stance on the Islamic Republic.

The operation's opponents also point to a deeper structural problem: the possible involvement of the Mojahedin-e-Khalq (MEK), a group once designated as a terrorist organization by the State Department. Many Iranians view the MEK as a cult whose ideology is "easily as unpalatable as the Islamic Republic's," making its participation a potential deal-breaker for any broader opposition coalition. Analysts caution that none of the post-war scenarios for Iran come with high confidence.

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