The Achilles heel of Iran

On those Obama pallets of cash: Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, when asked about the payment by a local Denver, Colorado, television station, said it was "old news."

Peter Skurkiss "When it comes to Iran, most analysts and commentators speak as if the country were a homogenous monolith comprising Persians.  It is not.  In fact, the seldom mentioned Achilles heel of Iran is its diverse ethnic and religious make-up.  This is highlighted by Brenda Shaffer of Georgetown University, who is a leading expert on Iran's ethnic minorities.

Shaffer projects that Iran's current population of more than eighty-five million is made up of forty-two million Persians, an estimated twenty-seven million Azerbaijanis, and roughly eight million Kurds, five million Arabs, two million Turkmen, and one-and-a-half million Baluch.

 . . .
 "As luck would have it, there is civil unrest in the Khuzestan province, which is located at the center of Iran's oil production.  This gets the regime's attention. 

To get an idea of how fragile Iran might be, Berman writes that average Iranians are so fearful of national fragmentation that they mute their criticisms of Tehran's brutal treatment of the non-Persians in the outer provinces even as they themselves suffer under the regime's lash.

"It does not take a geopolitical genius to see that Iran is internally vulnerable.  Its enemies could take the county's ethnic divide as an opportunity to sow the seeds of rebellion within Iran.  This would be poetic justice.  Since the 1970s, Iran has been attempting to export its Shia Islamic revolution to other countries in the region, creating murderous mischief in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Israel, and the Gulf countries through its proxies. 

"To date, these countries have spent their energy and resources responding to Iranian initiatives.  This has essentially been a one-way street and a draining exercise for those on the receiving end.  A country with resources — say, Israel — could decide that it is time to return the favor and take serious aim at destabilizing Iran.  The rationale here is clear.  If Iran is tied up with armed civil resistance at home, it will be far less capable of causing trouble far afield.  Given the current environment, this might not be that hard to accomplish."