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Radio War Nerd EP #614 — Iranian Kurdish Groups and the Iran War, feat. Kamal Chomani (Patreon)

Published:
2026-06-20 19:20:32
Edited:
2026-06-24 00:29:26
Imported:
2026-06
Tags:

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Content

Guest: Kamal ChomaniRecorded: June 18, 2026

We talk to researcher Kamal Chomani about the Iranian Kurdish groups that were, according to various reports, supposed to act as the ground force for the US-Israel War on Iran. We discuss the real reasons why the Iranian Kurds didn't join Trump-Netanyahu's trainwreck, who the different groups are, and what their goals are. Kamal also answers questions about Kurdish politics and strategies in Iraq and Syria.

Brief glossary-PKK: Kurdistan Workers Party, largest and most influential Kurdish political-military organization, based in Turkey, led by jailed Abdullah Öcalan.Iranian Kurdish groups:-PJAK: Kurdistan Free Life Party, closely tied to PKK, largest Iranian-Kurdish military force-KPDI (or PDKI): Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran. Oldest Iranian-Kurdish force, maintream-socialist.-KPIK: Komala Party of Kurdistan. Leftist rivals of PJAK, smaller.Iraqi Kurdistan:-KDP (Kurdish Democratic Party) - led by Barzani clan. Capital: Erbil-PUK (Patriotic Union of Kurdistan) - led by Talabani clan. Capital: Sulaymaniyah*Maps-Kurdish regions across western Asia

*Iranian Kurdish regions

*Iraqi Kurdistan divided between PUK and KDP

Total time: 1:20:59Direct link to this episode's mp3 here

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Buy & review John Dolan's new book, They Should Have Been Hanged: War Nerd Essays on the U.S. Civil War

Subscribe to Radio War Nerd at patreon.com/radiowarnerd

Sound production by Telescope Audio

Files

Comments

CR

Shorter: Iranian Kurds surrendered before they got curb stomped.

Scott H

This hasn’t shown up in the RSS feed. Anyone else have an issue?

CR

Check the note at the top. RSS is borked.

JJ

The “we sent guns to the Iranian uprising in January but the Kurds kept the guns” story is bogus then? I don’t recall Mr. Chomani addressing it specifically. Was there any coordination in January 2026 between the Iranian Kurdish militant groups and the armed uprising that occurred within the larger protests?

Carter Adams

This is related to the topic at hand but is a broad question: Are mechanized infantry tactics even viable in the cheap drone swarm era? The New York Times comments are full of people who think that once President dumbass is gone we’ll be able to just go back to Iran with the marines and “Mission Accomplished” them like it was 2005 and is that even theoretically true on a tactical level? Do soldiers invading a moderately resourced country just get zapped now? I have heard a lot about drones as part of larger discussions but I’d really like to know what the current state of play is with what even works on a battlefield now. Are 20 year olds with rifles riding around in humvees just obsolete?

a clash of purple

The only reason the big blitzkrieg on Iraq worked the way it did, it turns out, is because we went in ahead of time and bribed a bunch of Saddam's officers to stand down and not fight. Which is smart, of course, don't get me wrong. But if the Iraqi military put up a serious fight, who knows how things would have turned out. Anyway, I assume the answer is "It depends."

Tom Warner

Assuming the defending forces fight back (it's safe to assume the Iranians would, based on how the last few months went) any invasion currently is a slow and miserable and bloody process. See for example Ukraine, Lebanon, even Gaza. Drones allow even heavily outnumbered defenders to inflict massive casualties on an attacker, and drag out fights for every tiny hill and scrap of structure. There's not much evidence the US military has even started adjusting to this new reality.

Carter Adams

What manufacturing base do we even have to adjust? We could become a consumer of Chinese military hardware but I don’t know if Washington is capable of adjusting that much.

NewTooshFatoosh

The Kurds seem to be waking up to the idea that working with the Americans is a really bad idea.

CR

Planting the Iranian Kurds story didn't spur on the Kurds to fight, it didn't cause IRI reallocation of resources for more than a day or two, didn't encourage The Loser King to provide them any further material support, and it vaporized the element of surprise and secrecy that is one of the only advantages guerrilla forces possess, but it did accomplish the goal of getting IRI and Iraqi Shia militias to kill Kurds.

CR

It seems like your foreign guests really need a lesson on American Legalism. It helps that the U.S deserves Trump because he is the apotheosis of this system in a person: a born-wealthy, double-dealing, bad-faith actor in every transactional relationship (which is every relationship) who reads every deal in bad faith and who will always violate any transaction when the political, legal, and financial systems that were designed to protect people like him (those who already have amassed significant wealth and power) make violating the deal more beneficial than honoring the deal. If the legal and financial circumstances are such that it's to one's benefit to bankrupt a casino, then so be it. Contract good and services then be a deadbeat, because it costs the other guy more money to litigate than eating the loss and there will always be other suckers for the next deal? Do it. Obviously, the history of the U.S. double-dealing with Native American tribes should be obvious that this has been a fundamental practice of the state and society from the beginning, but this isn't just a plot point of U.S. settler-colonialism, it's a trait of the American state and society. There's a line once attributed to Trump that if you owe the bank $100,000, they own your house, but if you owe them $100 million, you own the bank. That is how the U.S. operates, and has explicitly operated the dollar. The U.S. has made itself so indispensable to the global economic and can be a bad actor/bad-faith actor over and over again when it's to the state's interests to do that instead of acting like a country that assumes following the Rule of Law means following it in good faith. When there is no consequence for violating the law, and it is in one's interest or even benefit to do so, then it would be stupid not to. That is who you are dealing with. And the U.S. will continue to be indispensable and above the law for a long, long time. In fact, the U.S. remains so indispensable that it is in the rest of the world's interests, and specifically China's and the GCC states' interests, to prop up the U.S., which is what they are doing now and will continue to do because no institution is Too Big To Fail more than the U.S. state. This is what has fucked over Vladimir Putin for 27 years and will fuck over the rest of Russia because the old man keeps needing to be taught this lesson. Hence the terrorist attack on Moscow this weekend. Not only will the U.S. always choose to act in bad faith, with Russia in particular, it's personal. America hates Russia. It doesn't matter why. There is no "Why" here. There is only our interests, and our willingness to do anything so long as the consequences for the doing the wrong thing outweigh acting in good faith. There is also the distinction between spirit of the law and letter of the law, but that just circles back to the point of fidelity to the system.

Sex With Ted Cruz

There’s only two types of vehicles used in assaults in Ukraine now, warhammer orc cathedral tanks with giant plates and rebar and grates welded on, or dirt bikes and cars with the doors tipped off for easy escape. No in between

CR

Drone warfare is the epitome of attritional warfare, for now. American doctrine is built around the assumption of aerospace domination, so that's where the conflict is. How do you own the airspace when having the best horse doesn't mean shit against a Maxim gun? The obvious answer is to build your own Maxim gun, but the U.S. cannot or will not mass produce interceptors, let alone offensive weapons. The U.S. had to rely on standoff weapons, but there is a shortage of those because they are only so effective and eventually the expectation is that eventually the enemy will be suppressed. No one has discussed what IRI's own interception capacity was during the war. It obviously missed some big fucking hits, but so did the U.S. and Israel. Between the sides, my money is on IRI to be able to out-produce interceptors and also to learn from practice on standoff weapon tactics and capacity. John has mentioned for years the DOD's Star Wars dream of lasers for air defense, The selling point of lasers is the speed of light, but the speed of light only matters if you are aiming at the right target. The most practical effect of "AI" and time is that processing speed has increased to track and predict where the attacker will be when the bullet or missile gets from the launcher to the target. Robotics could feasibly function as automated perimeter and air defense, but right now the best tactic is by dumping as much shit into the air as possible. The U.S. does not have that capacity and hasn't even tried to build capacity for attritional warfare since the Supreme Court killed Truman's efforts to restart a wartime command economy during Korea. Russia and IRI lack the computing capacity. You can see where this is going.

CR

It’s a secret …

a clash of purple

Larger point: If you're talking about some kind of large-scale invasion of Iran... I mean, the U.S. can't mobilize enough troops to do that. So the whole discussion is moot. Imagine the modern U.S. government trying to draft, train, and equip a million or so troops to deploy against Iran. The idea is laughable. Everyone they try to conscript would just fly to Canada, or tell their commanding officer that they hate Israel. And who would be left to work as Uber Eats drivers to deliver treats? It's not happening. I'm sure they could get some operators somewhere for a photo op. Maybe even Tehran. But what's the point? If they vaporized the entire Iranian military and government tomorrow, so what? They don't need much to maintain control over the Strait of Hormuz and their ballistic missile deterrence, and I'm sure if they somehow ran out then China and Russia would be happy to re-supply them. This is seriously the most pointless, futile war I have ever even heard of.

Paul Socolow

For anyone who can't figure out how to download the mp3: the three dots menu didn't have a download option when I viewed the post in my feed. When I clicked on the episode title and had the post on its own page/tab, the three dots had the download option. Problem solved!

radiowarnerd

RSS feed + direct download should be fixed now. Thanks everyone for being patient!

Seth Aronovich

For those interested in another perspective, you may be interested in checking out Sahar Kurdish radio. https://kurdish.sahartv.ir/ Of course, you will need to understand Kurdish- it seems that some mischievous scamps within the Islamic Republic of Iran's Broadcasting service are maintaining a Kurdish language radio station despite the Kurdish language being 'banned' by the 'regime'. Curious