Could the Kurds Help Bring Down Iran’s Regime? | Uri Zaki

Support the podcast and keep it independent.
👉Subscribe on Patreon for $10/month:
 

Iran’s regime may not fall from the center first. It may begin at the edges.

In a moment of war, regional upheaval, and collapsing old assumptions, the Kurdish question is no longer peripheral. It may be central to what comes next.

In this episode of EylON the Record, Eylon Levy speaks with Uri Zaki, policy fellow at Mitvim – The Israeli Institute for Regional Foreign Policies, about whether the Kurds could play a decisive role in weakening or even helping topple the Islamic Republic. They discuss the strategic logic behind Israeli interest in Kurdish alliances, the risks of backing minority forces inside Iran, and why the post–October 7 Middle East is forcing Israel to think like a regional power — not just a country defending its borders. The conversation explores what regime change in Iran could actually look like, and what it would mean for Israel, for the region, and for the wider democratic world confronting authoritarian aggression.

In this episode, we discuss:

• Why even a prominent voice on the Israeli left sees the war against Iran’s regime as justified
• What the Kurds in Iran can realistically do — and why backing them is essential if the regime somehow survives 
• Why Israel may need a coherent long-term Kurdish strategy across Iran, Syria, Iraq, and Turkey

This conversation goes beyond the immediate military campaign. It gets at a deeper question: what kind of regional order could emerge if Iran’s regime weakens, and whether minority alliances, federal structures, and political realism can succeed where slogans and diplomacy alone have failed. Understanding that matters not just for Israel’s security, but for the future of the Middle East after the old order begins to crack.

Click here to read Uri Zaki’s policy paper and learn more about Israel–Kurd relations in the Middle East after October 7.