Remember the Kurds have zero interest who is in charge in Tehran, Baghdad, Damascus or Ankara. If Tehran does a deal with them for autonomy, they'll do it. They won't be fighting and dying for Iran. 2 million Iranians fled immediately after the Islamic Revolution. Now, many of the adults of that generation are now elderly. There are 12 opposition parties in exile, everything from dissident clerics, monarchists to communists. The People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran carried out some armed opposition until giving up in 2003. They are basically communists, who backed Saddam Hussein. The main opposition coalesces around Hassan Shariatmadari, Reza Pahlavi and Maryam Rajavi, who hold lots of conferences, meetings, workshops, explaining how they want change and basically disagreeing with each other. If the Americans genuinely want to help the opposition on the ground, rather than the exiled grandchildren of the ancien regime, they should be conducting good old fasioned Psyops; love bombing the country, now they control the skies (apparently), with air drops of 1.1kg Star Link Minis. 6000 were covertly supplied, but that sounds like a drop in the ocean. A Starlink terminal is about $400. For $10bn, the US could have supplied every single household in Iran with free internet. Right now the regime is able to point to external threats, and using that to unite people. The Blitz united the British people, even those who didn't think much of Churchill. Even the League of Fascists came on board. If people were receiving s counter message, from their country men, that would force the regime to focus more on internal dissent, diverting resources, and which would probably send it in a panic. You can see from the regional results of the last election the areas which are most fickle (there are areas, such as Qom, where the regime is genuinely supported). Focus on areas of least support, and start a domino of cities, provinces dislocating from government control, Libya style (the uprising to Gaddafi started in Benghazi, where it went wrong was the style of Gaddafi government, which was structured to prevent coups. We shoukd have learnt from that) The US is allowing the Iranian government, via digital TV, to give a message to the Iranian people. Its not using its undoubted capabilities to shut that down and provide an alternative message. Instead, its wasting effort trolling IRGC members with SMS messages saying "You're Next".
