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Since the beginning of the war in Iran, there have been suggestions that U.S. and Israeli bombardments from outside the Islamic Republic may be accompanied by insurrection within.
To that end, there has been talk of Washington encouraging Iran’s Kurdish minority to rise up, as well as giving military support to Kurdish fighters over the border in Iraq. On Sunday, President Donald Trump appeared to pivot away from his earlier support of such a move, saying that the war was “complicated enough as it is.”
That is an assessment with which John Calabrese, an expert on the Middle East at American University, may well concur. While the appeal of using Kurdish fighters is clear – the community has long suffered at the hands of Iran’s clerical leaders and has long been seen as a Washington ally in the region – arming a Kurdish insurgency would be “deeply risky,” he writes.
For the U.S., it raises the prospect of angering NATO ally Turkey, which has long battled a Kurdish insurgency within its borders and would loathe any encouragement of greater Kurdish autonomy at a time when its own “Kurdish question” was seemingly on the way to being resolved. Moreover, the Kurds have been burned before by betrayal from backers in Washington and may not, in any case, be able to successfully mount a campaign against Tehran.
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Matt Williams
Senior International Editor
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The Kurdish flag is hoisted during a demonstration in Erbil, northern Iraq, on Jan. 21, 2018.
Osama Al Maqdoni/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images
John Calabrese, American University
Washington has long worked with Kurdish groups in the Middle East. But without sufficient support, encouraging Iranian Kurds into an uprising now could be dangerous.
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Smoke billows after an Iranian missile struck an oil refinery in Haifa in northern Israel on June 16, 2025.
AP Photo/Ariel Schalit
Michael Klein, Tufts University
Risks for the US economy grow as the war in the Middle East continues to escalate.
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Economy + Business
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Jim Franklin, Western Governors University School of Business
Those who stand to benefit from the changes in tax code include workers who earn tips, those receiving overtime pay, purchasers of US-made autos, and seniors.
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Politics + Society
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Casey Ryan Kelly, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Why does Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth brag and gloat in his statements about the Iran war? In the MAGA media world, war is a game, a test of masculine fortitude.
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Science + Technology
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Yaw Edu Essandoh, Indiana University
From wearable samplers to passive environmental monitoring, new research is changing how scientists observe chemical exposure – without invasive sampling.
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Phil Starks, Tufts University; Lilia Goncharova, Tufts University
The appendix has independently evolved at least 32 times across 361 mammalian species. What makes it an evolutionary darling when it’s more of a medical liability today?
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Environment + Energy
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Wangda Zuo, Penn State
In Pennsylvania, new data centers could require enough electricity to power 11 million homes.
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Allie Mazurek, Colorado State University
The answer has to do with the air we breathe and that bright white snowpack, as an atmospheric scientist in Colorado explains.
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International
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Arnaud Kurze, Montclair State University; Eric Wiebelhaus-Brahm, Binghamton University, State University of New York
Scholars studied hashtag campaigns in Canada and Syria.
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Ethics + Religion
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Corey D. B. Walker, Wake Forest University
For Madison, religious freedom was not a tool for political domination. Rather, he saw it as a constitutional safeguard for liberty and democracy.
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Health + Medicine
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Adetola F. Louis-Jacques, University of Florida; Arielle Ayotte, University of Florida; Michelle Nall, University of Florida
Mobile health clinics are a practical but underused solution to the growing number of maternity care deserts in the US.
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From the archive️
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Beth Ann Malow, Vanderbilt University
Americans are divided on their preference for daylight saving time versus standard time. But research shows that our bodies fare better when aligned with the natural light of standard time.
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