The propaganda campaign by Iran against the secularists (made secular, of course, by the Russians, and by all those Azeris who studied in Moscow and accepted, quite rightly, not only the gift of Russian but the gift of the modern, rational world) needs to be reversed. It is Azerbaijan's secularists who must whip up sentiment against the cruel Islamic Republic of Iran, for suppressing the Azeris under their rule, and pointing out that those Azeris deserve to be reunited, and the lands under them as well, with Azerbaijan. That appeal to an Azeri identity, if done right, can be offered up as an alternative, possibly superior, to that of the Muslim identity that the Iranians stress.

Why should this have a chance of success?

Two reasons. One, the Islamic Republic of Iran is 50% Persian, and contains four identifiable minorities: Kurds, Arabs, Azeris, Baluchis. There has long been trouble for successive Iranian governments with the Kurds, and were an independent Kurdistan were to come into existence, there would be even more, and the Americans have the ability not only to protect Kurdistan, but to supply it with weaponry some of which might find its way to Kurds in Iran.

In Khuzistan, Arabs have intermittently agitated and two were sentenced to die just the other day. The Islamic Republic of Iran will have to be fiercest in crushing any revolt there, for most of its oil comes from that area, and without that, Iran is no longer a threat, or even a middle-sized power, but is reduced to what it was before the oil came along. And while speculation goes on about the Shi'a Arabs of Iraq turning to Iran, the effect of the ethnic Arabs within Iran openly attempting to leave Iran, which might be seen as the remnant of the Persian Empire, and what's more, taking with them the source of great wealth, it is understandable that a debilitated Iranian army (that can also suffer attacks from the sky by all kinds of outsiders, including Sunni Arabs determined to crush Iran in the easiest way possible -- ending its possession of oil wealth) would have to concentrate most of its efforts in Khuzistan.

One assumes, however, that the Arabs would refrain in this case of re-naming themselves, or being renamed by other Arabs, as the "Khuzistanian people," lest that other re-named group of Arabs be seen, by the West, for what they are.

Then there are the Baluchis, which for most Westerners is a name that confuses, for two reasons: one, it evokes an oriental rug gallery ("over here are the Baluchis") and two, there is a Baluchistan in Pakistan, and few Westerners are sure about whether the Baluchis in Iran are the same, or different, from the Baluchis in Pakistan, and so the usual voluble commentators tend to shut up at this point. They really needn’t. The Baluchis are in southeastern Iran, and they are the same Baluchis as live, equally mistreated and in equal poverty, in Pakistan (which is where the admirable and colorful Baluchi tribal leader was recently murdered by the Pakistanis), with some Baluchis also in Afghanistan. They are not only Sunnis in Shi’a-run Iran, but also are, and have been, the poorest people in Iran, but were for a long time left largely alone. But under the Shah, and even his father, an attempt was made to centralize authority and, while the Shah used the carrot of some improvements in living standards, the Islamic Republic has simply used force to suppress any Baluchi unrest, and unrest there has been, underreported or not reported at all, by a Western press that doesn’t know how to cover so many things, and chooses what is important (ten thousand articles on the “Palestinians” and their “legitimate rights” for every one article devoted to the Baluchis, the Azeris, the Kurds, and even the Arabs of Iran) and what it deems unimportant.

There’s a lot that could be done by the Azeris to turn the tables on the Iranians. They could be conducting a campaign against the troglodytes of Iran, they could be running articles on the medievalness of Iran, and on the mistreatment of Azeris by Iranians, and they could not only let those two journalists out of jail, but accept and repeat their argument, which happens to be true, that links Muslim backwardness, Muslim failures in political and economic and social development, to Islam itself.

And whether or not the secularists in Azerbaijan do this sufficiently (or for that matter if the beneficiaries of Kemalism in Turkey do this sufficiently to beat back Erdogan and to make sure that the Islamic parties are blamed for Turkey’s being kept out of the E.U.) may depend on the intelligence of the American government in figuring out that it has to weaken, to soften up Iran by encouraging all of these minority peoples within that state, in order that it will be easier to deal with its nuclear project.

Why would it be easier to deal with – i.e., destroy or damage it sufficiently to put it out of commission for a long time – that nuclear project, if local revolts were taking place? For many reasons. First, there may even be people of Azeri, or possibly (more unlikely) Kurdish descent, who have some useful knowledge about that project, or the placement of the facilities, and who might now have better reason to weaken the central authority if they see a chance for their own minority to gain its independence. Second, any large-scale uprisings, especially if they were to take place simultaneously, from several different peoples, all over Iran, would preoccupy the regime and force it to divert resources and attention. And in that diversion, it is possible that the regime will have to stop putting so much effort into its nuclear project or, alternatively, that it will be easier for the West to attack that project in an atmosphere of local mayhem and revolt.

Does the Pentagon have an office devoted to helping increase the sense of identity, and the sense of resentment, of Azeris, Kurds, Baluchis, Arabs in Iran? If it doesn’t, that is one more telling failure. If it does, I will be glad to stand in the corner, dunce cap on my head, happily corrected.