Evil internal empire

Congratulations to Seth J. Frantzman for his important article about Iran’s oppression of its Kurdish minority (“Kurds in Iran demand rights as regime cracks down,” October 1).

The article rightly points to the other minority groups in Iran – Arabs, Azeris and Baloch, just to mention the larger ones, as shown in the adjoining map. In fact, all together they are close to half of Iran’s population oppressed by the ruling ethnic Persian power structure. Especially aggrieved are Iran’s many Arab subjects along the northern littoral of the Arabian Gulf.

It is, therefore, time to recognize that Iran is not just under an evil regime, it is even illegitimate as a unitary state. For the peace of the world, it needs be branded as an evil internal empire that must be reformed. This would not necessarily have to be by dismemberment, but surely by its federal restructuring to give an equal voice to all its ethnic groups. Such constitutional reform would also allow ethnic Persians to breathe free.

Reading Frantzman’s article, one must ask why US policy is so focused on Islamic State and solely on Tehran’s nuclear weapons capability. It could be that Washington wishes to hide the fact that it has no real policy visa-vis a collapsing Middle East threatened by Iran’s evil, which now extends way beyond its borders.

America would be well advised to undertake a psychological warfare campaign worldwide against Tehran as an evil internal empire. Indeed, the struggle of Iran’s Kurds for freedom and human dignity is just the tip of a melting iceberg of the country’s oppression of its many minorities. AARON BRAUNSTEIN Jerusalem