Sohrab Rezvani analyses the changing strategic and political situation in Rojhelat in the wake of the US-Israeli attack on the Islamic Republic.
The Islamic Republic of Iran, the government of clerics and military generals, is fighting an existential battle with two enemies: the US-Israel joint military machine and its own people. On the one hand, the US, worried about losing its dominant position in the global economy to China, has decided to put drastic pressure on the flow of cheap oil from Iran to China (12-15% of China’s crude oil import is from Iran); and the Zionist regime of Israel, dreaming of Greater Israel, is backing the agenda to balkanise Iran. On the other hand, the popular majority in Iran have broken with the Islamic Republic’s ideologies and political programs and are striving to overthrow the government. In both battles, the Kurdish region of Iran plays a strategic role.
Kurdish nationalists call this region Rojhelat, meaning the eastern part of Greater Kurdistan. During the 1979 revolution, the Kurdish region of Iran did not vote ‘yes’ to support the Islamic Republic in the referendum (30-31 March 1979) and resisted the military occupation by the Iran’s national army and the young Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Kurdish left and communist forces like Komala (the Society of Revolutionary Toilers of Iranian Kurdistan) organised military and civil resistance, and made the region the last stronghold for other left and communist forces across Iran who were being repressed and searching for a place for refuge. Between November 1979 and May 1980, the city of Sanadaj (Sene) was under the control of left and communist organisations and revolutionary councils, while in liberated rural areas cadres and party members were developing peasant armed committees and recruiting young members into guerilla units. The resistance against the Islamic Republic carried on even after its occupation of cities and liberated areas. The spirit of struggle crystallized in the creation of several political parties with their own military wings. These parties are still fighting the Islamic Republic, hand in hand with the complex network of civil organisations which have grown through waves of social movements and uprisings.
In relation to the Islamic Republic’s external enemies – the imperial US and Israel – forces in the Kurdish region of Iran have great importance. It is an open secret that several Kurdish parties are in regular communication with the Americans and Israelis and, directly or through mediators, receive material support from them. US-Israeli forces have benefited greatly from the development of Kurdish regions of Iraq and Syria. The Kurdish parties and military organisations had an important role in the destruction of the two Baath parties of Saddam and Assad. Both historical events and the current increase in collaboration have made the Kurdish region of Iran a possible entry point for any US-Israeli land operation.
However, the Kurdish region of Iran is not simply a battlefield for bigger global players and Kurdish political and military actors are not mere foot soldiers for American grand plans for the Middle East. There is a sharp distinction between political projects of the working class and bourgeoisie in Rojhelat, more than in any other part of Iran. Political parties within ‘The Coalition of Political Forces of Iranian Kurdistan’ represent the bourgeois-nationalists, social democrats, democratic socialists, liberal democrats and in general the centre-left to the centre-right of the political opposition in Rojhelat, who are seeking a sort of regional government with a regional parliament that would serve the interests of the Kurdish bourgeoisie and middle classes. Several of the parties in this coalition are not shy about their collaboration with US or Israeli forces. Some of them are still maintaining a gesture of having no communication with the US and Israel. On the other hand, political parties and organisations associated with “the Cooperation Council of Left and Communist Forces” represent the far left and communist forces in Kurdistan that are fighting for governance by Shuras (i.e., workers and neighbourhood councils). These forces are explicitly anti-imperialist and pro-Palestine.
The Kurdish region of Iran is therefore of major strategic significance, as the Islamic Republic of Iran battles against both US-Israel attacks and the majority of disenchanted Iranians. This is the context in which the left in Scotland should support and show solidarity to the left and communist forces in Rojhelat who are fighting both against US imperialism and for governance by Shuras in Iran.
The Political Opposition in the Kurdish Region of Iran
Six days before the US-Israel attacked on Iran, on 22nd of February, five Kurdish political parties announced the formation of the ‘The Coalition of Political Forces of Iranian Kurdistan’. They include the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (PDKI), Kurdistan Freedom Party (PAK), Kurdistan Free Life Party (PJAK), Organization of Iranian Kurdistan Struggle (Khabat), and the Komala of the Toilers of Kurdistan. After a few days, The Komala Party of Iranian Kurdistan also joined the coalition.
However, the right wing faction of Komala, the Kurdish branch of the Communist Party of Iran, which was maintaining tactical dialogues with these organisations, decided to reject the invitation to join the coalition. (Since 2022, the left and right wings of the Kurdish branch of the Communist Party of Iran have been acting independently). In an official statement, this Communist Party faction mentioned several reasons for not joining the coalition, including their principal disagreement about collaborating with US forces to realise the coalition’s objectives. They stated that building a coalition to realise Kurdish people’s right to self-determination under the support of US imperialism was a historical mistake which they would not be part of. One of the main provisions of the Coalition was the establishment of a joint command centre for the military wings of all parties. This made provisions for the Coalition to coordinate their operations through the Coalition’s structure. The Kurdish branch of the Communist Party of Iran also criticized this decision, and argued that creation of a popular army under the command of a popular and democratic establishment was necessary to prevent civil war between armed parties who might fight against each other, in the same way that Kurdish parties in Iraq (KDP and PUK) had fought each other for several years.
The Coalition predictably ignored those critiques and carried on preparing for the escalation of tensions between US-Israel and Islamic Republic of Iran. The parties began to call their members in the diaspora to come back to their camps in Sulaymania and Erbil, in Kurdish region of Iraq, and prepare for the upcoming fight. Military mobilisation and training increased in different camps. Journalists from Europe and Israel made dozens of reports and short documentaries about the Kurdish forces and their readiness to liberate their lands. And then the war started. Based on the recent report from Jyar Gol, a BBC journalist, the Coalition was preparing to start a ground invasion on the third day of the war. The plan didn’t happen. However, the movement of Kurdish forces, as well as US signals indicating that the Kurdish front would be activated in this war (such as the telephone call between Trump and the leader of PDKI), were enough to redirect a significant amount of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ military resources from the south, near the Persian Gulf, to the west and north west.
However the war resolves, the forces of the Coalition parties will have ended up with a stronger position. The war not only unified their organisations and pushed them to make an umbrella platform, but also significantly increased their membership and resources. Among these parties, one of the main winners was PJAK, which is privileged to share experience and resources with the network of PKK-related organisations struggling for development of “autonomous regions” in Kurdish-majority regions of southeastern Turkey, northern Iraq and north-eastern Syria. PJAK encroached into Iran’s mountainous border and took over several abandoned outposts. Social media campaigns managed to present PJAK as a progressive force which wants to bring democracy not only to Rojhelat, but to the whole of Iran. In early May, PJAK was elected as part of the leadership of a recently formed Iran-wide opposition platform called “Iran Freedom Congress” funded by bankers who were involved with the disintegration of Yugoslavia. The spokesperson of PJAK is now confident enough to welcome the idea of No Fly Zone supported by US forces, so that they can start a land operation.
Yet this is not the full story. The ‘Cooperation Council of Left and Communist Forces’, by lifting the flag of “No to Imperialist War, No to Islamic Republic” and actively building solidarity networks among the people in Rojhelat, has raised another voice in Rojhelat. The people of Rojhelat are tired of war and have already seen the result of empty promises of Kurdish bourgeoise-nationalist parties in the Kurdish region of Iraq. They do not want a period of violent chaos within which parties would decide about their lives over their head, without people’s control or say. They are aware of the destructive role of US interventions in the Kurdish region of Syria that diverted the popular revolution that was unfolding there. For these reasons, most of the organised movements of people in Rojhelat – the teachers’ unions, workers’ associations, environmental movements and women’s organisations – are searching for political solutions that would ensure their own direct participation in political decision-making processes, and control of their means of production. The popular base of the Cooperation Council is strong: more than ten cities in Rojhelat rose to the Cooperation Council’s call for a general strike in January 2025. Although Cooperation Council organisations, such as the left wing faction of the Communist Party of Iran, have their own camps and armed wings, they are advancing a civil strategy for socialist revolution which first and foremost relies on developing mass organisations, workers councils and a general strike that would end in occupation and control of military and state apparatus by the masses, and creation of a Congress of Councils. In an era of disconnected internet Iran, the 24-hour satellite channel of the Cooperation Council is one of their main means of media communication with people.
The class struggle is more visible in the Kurdish Region than elsewhere in Iran. The Kurdish bourgeoisie and middle classes either sided with the central government in Tehran or supported the Coalition. Working class people in Rojhelat are trying to survive against the US-Israel attack and fight against the Islamic Republic through their social movements, workers organisations and political parties in the Cooperation Council. In the grand scheme of historical struggle against the world capitalist order, the Scottish left’s natural allies in Rojhelat are neither the American-baked Coalition forces, nor the forces of Islamic Republic of Iran. They are the Cooperation Council and the organised, socialist section of the working class in Rojhelat.
The Politics of International Solidarity
Movements in solidarity with the liberation of Palestine as well as anti-war movements in Scotland are right to mobilise people to disrupt the imperialist military interventions of the Westminster government. The left in Scotland is right to focus on the enemy at home, and organise all sorts of actions, demonstrations, and political campaigns to stop the war machine of US, UK and Israel. But the enemy’s enemy is not our friend.
The left and communist movement in Rojhelat has persistently demonstrated an anti-imperialist, pro-Palestine position. 70% of people in Iran live under the poverty line, the Islamic Republic is losing the zeal that won people’s hearts, and every revolutionary wave is bigger and more organised than the last (December 2017, November 2019, the Jina Uprising in September 2021, and December 2024). It is not absurd to think that the Islamic Republic will inevitably crumble. We should be prepared to support those in Rojhelat and across Iran advancing anti-imperialist, pro-Palestinian socialist struggle.
This does not mean that the anti-war or Palestine solidarity movements in Scotland should adopt an anti-Islamic Republic position in their public narrative. That, no doubt, is the position of Iranian left and communist forces whether they are inside Iran or among the diasporic communities. In Scotland, I am not suggesting the slogan, “No to Imperialist intervention, no to Islamic Republic”. But I am suggesting active intervention to stop the any public narratives that states: “No to Imperialist intervention, Support Islamic Republic”. It is important to actively minimize opportunities for pro-Islamic Republic forces to gain space and visibility within demonstrations and public events. In black and white stories about Iran or Rojhelat, there are only imperialist evil forces (the US, Israel, Pahlavi monarchists, Kurdish bourgeois nationalists) and forces of “Resistance Axis”. It is critical to learn about the nuances of the geopolitical shifts in the Middle East and the ongoing class struggle in Iran and Rojhelat. This learning is an act of care, both for our comrades in Iran and Rojhelat who can benefit from new relationships and various forms of material support, and also for our comrades in Scotland.
Sohrab Rezvani is a researcher of social movements in Iran. He lives in Edinburgh and is currently researching the politics of the Kurdish region (Rojhelat).
