The Rest Is Classified - 135. Is The CIA Arming Kurdish Militias In Iran?

Episode Date: March 7, 2026

Former CIA analyst, David McCloskey, is joined by CNN's Chief International Correspondent, Clarissa Ward, live from the ground in northern Iraq as she breaks the story of a reported CIA operation to arm Kurdish militias to sow dissent in Iran. Listen as David and Clarissa discuss what it's currently like operating in Iraq amidst the escalating conflict, what the US serves to gain from toppling the Iranian regime and sowing unrest, and how this conflict compares to ones Clarissa has reported from before. ------------------- Sign-up for our free newsletter where producer Becki takes you behind the scenes of the show: https://mailchi.mp/goalhanger.com/tric-free-newsletter-sign-up ------------------- Join the Declassified Club to go deeper into the world of espionage with exclusive Q&As, interviews with top intelligence insiders, regular livestreams, ad-free listening, early access to episodes and live show tickets, and weekly deep dives into original spy stories. Members also get curated reading lists, special book discounts, prize draws, and access to our private chat community. Just go to ⁠⁠therestisclassified.com⁠ or join on Apple Podcasts. ------------------- Get a 10% discount on business PCs, printers and accessories using the code TRIC10. Visit https://HP.com/CLASSIFIED for more information. T&C's apply. ------------------- EXCLUSIVE NordVPN Deal ➼ ⁠⁠https://nordvpn.com/restisclassified⁠⁠ Try it risk-free now with a 30-day money-back guarantee ------------------- Email: [e-mail] Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@restisclassified Social Producer: Emma Jackson Producer: Becki Hills Head of History: Dom Johnson Exec Producer: Tony Pastor Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Podcast listeners benefit from a 10% discount on all business PCs, printers and accessories using the code TRIC-10, Terms and Conditions Apply. Greetings, rest is classified, listeners. We have a special treat for you in this very special episode of The Rest Is Classified, and it is not just because Gordon Carrera is absent. He has been deposed for this episode. He is on vacation somewhere in Europe, and we are joined today for a very, I think will be a very enlightening conversation

about the war in Iran, and in particular, the emerging potential Kurdish angle, to that conflict. We are joined today by a very special guest, Clarissa Ward, who is CNN's multi-award-winning chief international correspondent who is based in London, but is now, as we will soon discover in the northern parts of Iraq. She has spent the last two decades reporting for frontlines around the world from Syria, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Gaza, and Yemen, all the way to Ukraine and Georgia during the Russian incursion in 2008. Clarissa is also a good friend. And I was willing to join even though I sound like I have a frog in my throat.

So, Clarissa, thank you so much for being with us today. Oh, it's my pleasure. It's my pleasure. And you are currently, I guess, on the ground in Urbiel, if I'm not mistaken, in northern Iraq, which is maybe a 12- or so hour drive from Tehran. You've been doing some great reporting from there over the past week. And I guess maybe we just start with a bit of what are you seeing on the ground right now in northern Iraq? So what we're seeing at the moment, a number of things. Firstly, I would say we're seeing a number of drone attacks, missile strikes.

Primarily, they have been focused on the remnants of the U.S. military presence in Iraq. So in January, the U.S. officially completed its withdrawal of troops from Iraq. But here in Erbil, which is in the Kurdish autonomous region, there are still U.S. troops here. And they're concentrated in a couple of different places, most notably the Erbil International Airport, but also some at the U.S. consulate and a couple of other smaller bases that are a bit more off the radar, let's say. And so since we've arrived, we have seen regular attacks on all of these locations. What's been interesting in the last few nights, I would say, is that we have seen a real uptick in the number of attacks as well on Iranian Kurdish camps here in Iraqi Kurdistan. And this is obviously where it all starts to get really complicated for many of your listeners, I'm sure, because you have these Iranian Kurdish groups who basically have been living in. in Iraqi Kurdistan, in camps along the border with Iran for many decades and who are now potentially poised to get involved with this conflict in a very real way on the ground.

We're going to talk a lot about the Kurds. But it might it might be helpful, actually, if we just like zoomed a way out and just said, like, who are the Kurds and why do they seem to pop up whenever we talk about seriously? Syria, when we talk about Turkey, when we talk about Iraq, we talk about Iran. It's like there's a Kurdish kind of question embroiled in all of these different countries. So maybe it could help set the table a bit for like who they are and kind of why they matter so much. Sure. So the Kurds are a group of the estimates are between 30 to 40 million people who are spread for the most part between Syria, Iran, Iraq, and Turkey.

who were promised after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire a state of their own, but that state never really materialized, and who have historically often been engaged in a struggle for recognition, for autonomy, in some cases, for a state of their own. I think it's important for people to understand that the Kurds are, not a monolith, their policies. The opposite, maybe. Whatever the opposite of a monolith is.

That's what they are. That's what they are. Their policies and their loyalties very widely. But they, many of them share this sense of being disenfranchised, often oppressed, and really seeking recognition. So when you talk about the fact that the fact that they're not a monolith. I mean, perhaps one way to illustrate that is to talk about the Iranian Kurds here in Iraqi Kurdistan. There are six different groups of Iranian Kurds in Iraqi

Kurdistan, and all of them have different leadership, different policies, different outlooks. Some of them are separatists. Some of them would like to see Iran become a federal state and have a semi-autonomous zone. And they've formed a coalition in recent months, perhaps in preparation for this moment. But suffice it to say, they are not a monolith. And then that's not even to mention the Iraqi Kurds, who also have a completely different perspective on what's going on. So it has always been incredibly challenging as a journalist to try to explain and lay out. the history and the plight of the Kurdish people. One other thing that I think is really notable to mention for those who haven't been following

closely is that the Kurds have often been a close ally of the United States historically, but most recently in Syria, fighting ISIS, particularly in the northeastern part of the country, in Iraq, in Mosul, again, fighting ISIS. So there is a long history of cooperation with the United States. But this story is a little bit different because there are deep divisions about whether the Iraqi Kurds in particular should be working with the United States right now or whether they should be staying way out of this. Just one note on the complexity of it.

I distinctly remember co-authoring a piece at the C. when I was a very young analyst, and it was a, it was prior to the Syrian Civil War, and it was a primer on Syria's Kurdish groups. And the feedback that came back on it from someone at the NSC was there was literally, the one word was, this is confusing. Confusing was written on the draft. It's because there were so many different groups and sort of like political parties' expressions. It's like Gordon is probably on his way to Iraqi Kurdistan to set up another Kurdish party.

Like, that's how, that is how fragmented it can, it can get. And I guess fragmented and they all have acronyms. And the political parties have different acronyms to the militias or the fighting groups, which means you're talking multiple acronyms for the same group. And at the end of the day, I think we all need to be a little bit humble. Well, certainly I do and say, I could not possibly tell you every single acronym for every single group and historically where they have stood on on each and every conflict throughout the region. So I guess let's get to your, the reporting that you and the team at CNN have put out in the last few days because I think it's

really striking. And I mean, essentially it seems like, and I want you to kind of lay it out for us if you, if you'd be so kind. But essentially it seems like the idea that has emerged from the Trump White House and been handed over to the CIA to figure out what to do with is arming some of these Iranian-Kurdish groups. We had a meeting about three nights ago now with a senior Iranian Kurdish official. And I was very surprised. The meeting was on background, so we're not going to reveal his name or which group he's affiliated with. But he basically said to me, this is going to happen. there's going to be a ground offensive. We are going to go in to Western Iran with a number of other Iranian Kurdish groups. We are going to do it with the support of the U.S. and Israel. He wouldn't say exactly what that support would look like. And we have been in touch with the White House. I immediately called some of my colleagues in D.C. and got talking with Natasha

Bertrand, Elena Trine, and Zachary Cohen, who had at the same time new reporting that the CIA has been supporting some of these groups with a view to effectively fermenting unrest in Iran and destabilizing Iran. And honestly, David, I was kind of flabbergasted by this. whole thing because anyone who has spent a long time in this region and who is watching this conflict closely can see the manifold reasons why this is fraught with risk, with complexity. There was a real question mark around why exactly the U.S. would be seeking to foment unrest in Iran, by which I mean.

What is the strategic objective of facilitating or supporting some kind of a Kurdish insurgency, let's say? Is the objective to bog down the Iranian military in a fight, which then, first of all, draws them to a certain area. Maybe you have a window of opportunity to strike them. Maybe you're also creating other spaces where protesters could have the potential. to come out onto the streets, or are you talking about factionalizing a country, essentially trying to foment discord to the point where we could be talking about a failed state? And if you are thinking along those lines and you are looking at all the different possible scenarios, are you not concerned that this could backfire?

Because when you speak to many Iranians who were dancing, with joy at Chaminet, the Supreme Leader being killed, they are not interested in signing up for their country being factionalized and split apart and having different groups played off of each other. Do you see any return on it? Like, is there actual upside here that could be driving the calculation, even if it's sort of fraught? Do you see any potential gain from this policy?

or this covert action effort? Honestly, from where I'm standing and the conversations I have had, that upside, if it is there, is not immediately clear to me. Also, one of the reasons I say that is because I had the impression talking to these Iranian Kurdish forces

that they're not totally clear on what they are being led into potentially. And I don't want to see being led into, into because they're autonomous in this as well, right? So what they are walking into. And, you know, I had a conversation with another senior leader today who said, we're going to need air cover, we're going to need heavy weaponry, we're going to need this, we're going to need that, all of which makes sense. And my question was, well, if you haven't extracted any kind of promise or guarantee of those things, then what exactly is the support that you have been offered

that you feel already comfortable enough to be considering going in on some kind of a ground offensive. And I think we also have to consider the possibility here, David. And if you'll permit me, I may just turn the tables for one second in a moment, that a lot of this can be siops on some level. Sure. Let's start making noise about a Kurdish ground offensive. Let's get everybody exercised about that.

Let's get everybody focused. Let's get everybody distracted. Because here's what I can't quite understand. I have been covering these types of stories for decades. This type of information doesn't get leaked unless somebody wants to leak it. And so my question to you is, why would? One way questions on this show. Why would the CIA want?

to leak this. Is, so are the, we obviously don't want to reveal any of the specific sources that your colleagues had, but are they citing CIA sources or are they citing White House or sort of broader national security community sources? I think the language we agreed to keep it to was sources familiar with the issues. So it may well be White House sources rather than CIA sources, but I still have this nagging feeling here. And I'm not saying it's the CIA. I'm not saying it's the White House. It could well be the Israelis. But somebody is wanting this in the public domain. Yeah. That's, I think,

apparent just by the virtue that your reporting exists to begin with because someone leaked it. I guess I'd offer a couple thoughts. One is, and this is perhaps I'm a bit biased in this regard, but as a general rule, the leaks don't come from inside CIA on these kinds of things. They come from the policy community. They come from Congress, Congressional, A. It's like CIA tends to not be the source of most of these kind of leaks. So that's just be one general thought. It doesn't mean they don't ever do it.

Just in general, it's much more likely on just an odds basis that it's coming from elsewhere. Second point, the CIA would absolutely, which is this, I guess I'll speak a little bit out of both sides of my mouth here because I do think the agency, there could be people who would have an incentive to leak it here for this reason, which is if I'm a CIA officer and I get handed a finding from the president to go and arm Iranian Kurdish groups in northern Iraq, I'm probably not going to want to do that. I'm not going to see that as a covert action program that has a high probability of success, right? And frankly, we all, we've seen this movie. before. It does seem like sometimes there is just an arm the Kurds button that's like right there

and you're like, ooh, I'm tempted. Let's go and arm the Kurds. But then it inevitably has followed. Abandon the Kurds. By abandon the Kurds. That's the next button, right? So everybody has seen this movie before. And in particular, you know, I think one of the things I wanted to talk about was sort of potential parallels to Syria, which is a conflict that you and I both know very well. And, you know, the reason that the covert action program that eventually became overt to arm, you know, the Syrian Kurds against ISIS, the reason that worked was because there wasn't a massive gap between the resources that we were going to put toward that and the objectives. Whereas if the goal here is not fighting a terrorist group in the northwestern part of Iran,

but is more broadly regime change or some open-ended, you know, sort of cycle of violence you want to create to just keep the regime and Tehran off balance? Like, I can't see a lot of CIA officers wanting to sign up for that kind of program. And one of the thing that's notable, the New York Times falling up and sort of building upon our reporting said, and again, I can't confirm this. This is just they're reporting that the arming so far, it's been so far. small arms that's been coming in to these groups. Well, I don't really understand what small arms is going to achieve. And I had an extraordinary nugget that I came across last night. Again, I couldn't quite believe it. We spoke to a car dealer, a car dealer who said that two nights ago, well, now three nights ago, one of these Iranian Kurdish groups came into his dealership and

bought 50 Toyota Land Cruiser LC-71s. 50, 50, 50. And I was kind of flabbergasted by this, because, again, if you're talking about some kind of a ground offensive in the coming days was what we were originally told. And then there was a moment of hysteria the other night where a number of Israeli and a couple of US outlets were saying that it had already begun. And these guys are just trying to buy some land cruisers? Like, the whole thing is, I can honestly say in all my years of reporting, I've never, I've never come across anything quite like it. And I did, by the way, speak to the militia that bought the Toyotas. I mean, this is a true story. They don't want to be identified, but they definitely bought the land cruisers. It's Gordon's, it's Gordon's militia,

Gordon's Kurdish militia that he's established. Yeah. And my brain is like, okay, this doesn't sound like it is deeply researched and gamed out and prepared. It sounds like a last minute, potentially hairbrained, improvised, fatho kind of, let's see what the reaction is. Well, doesn't that feel to you? I mean, I literally had written down on my notes here, spaghetti against the wall of like, let's just kind of see. this is from the Washington perspective.

Like, let's just kind of see what sticks and what works and get a whole bunch of things kind of going. And then some of them will peter out and not work. And we'll figure out that way how we're going to approach this conflict. Because it does seem to fit with the general vibes of like, you know, we're now almost a week into this. And I still cannot quite figure out why we're doing it in the first place. So it fits with that vibe.

It fits with that vibe, but what is sort of astonishing to me is it belies a level of just total oblivion to the very fragile lattice work of alliances and agreements that this whole region is predicated on, but particularly the state of Iraq. I have had senior Kurdish officials here blowing up my phone because they are so freaked out by this whole thing. They don't want to get involved. They don't want their territory to be used as a launch pad for some of these Iranian Kurdish groups to launch any kind of offensive because they understand that President Trump might change his mind today, tomorrow and then another three times next week about whether the goal is regime change or not. but they are still going to be Iran's neighbor at the end of it. And they are the ones who are going to pay the price. One official I spoke to said, he's had the Iranians on the phone saying, if you let one foot across that border, there will be severe repercussions. And you had this statement from Iraq's first lady who was, I forget the exact words, but it was like, leave the Kurds alone. We are not your

guns for hire. And I think a lot of people, here feel that way. They're uncomfortable even with the reporting around it because for them, this is their livelihoods. This is danger. This is ballistic missiles falling on their city. They don't want to be involved. They want to be neutral. And then we hear these reports that President Trump is calling the Iraqi Kurdish leadership and saying pick aside. But how are they expected to pick aside? What do you think is the Israeli angle in this too? Because that's kind of the quiet part here that's said a little bit out loud is that this is being done with the Israelis. And do you see this is this a JV between the CIA and Mossad or is this two kind of separate efforts that are going

in parallel? I can only speculate. But from the conversation, please. I don't get to do that for my day job. So this is so fun. From the conversations I am having, Mossad is definitely a very big part of this. Yeah. One Iranian Kurdish official I spoke to said, this is Israel's war. Those were his words. And I do think it's interesting that a lot of the leaks have come from Israeli media or Israeli sources. Yeah.

And I absolutely have the sense. For example, when there was this brouhaha the other night where it was announced that the ground incursion had already begun, it was I-24 TV, which is an Israeli channel. So I definitely have the sense that Mossad is absolutely a very big part of this. I can't speak to whether they would be doing it in a joint capacity or on their own. I have noticed people kind of using their language quite in quite a circumspect way when you ask them about who's the support coming from and you know it's not the U.S. for some groups okay but could it be somebody else but I would be curious to hear your thoughts on this because obviously you might have more insight into how

common it would be to see a kind of joint venture like this or whether that would be unusual Well, I'm trying, yeah, I'm trying to think about, you know, the sort of the types of Iran kind of covert action work that we've done together with with Assad and that's been sort of broadly publicized. And I think in a, you know, in a case like this, it makes more sense to me that it would be done kind of in parallel. Like there might be a broad alignment of interest between Trump and Beebe and doing. this and that that, you know, there's kind of a directive that gets passed down to sort of load share that way. But obviously the Israelis have their own, you know, they have their own station in an Arbeil, Massad does, and longstanding relationships with obviously the Iraqi Kurds and probably with Iranian Kurds do. So it feels to me like, you know, both parties, both CIA and Mossad be well positioned to run something sort of broadly together. I think what I don't, what I have a hard time squaring is that I actually see why it's in the

Israelis interest to do this. I have a harder time seeing why it's in ours, just to be blunt about it. Because I think that if I were, if I were an Israeli security planner right now, chaos in Iran actually isn't bad. It's better than what we had before. So you'd rather have bits and pieces of the country on fire and a central government that's not really able to kind of project power outside of its borders. Whereas I think from the U.S. standpoint, you'd probably rather have a relatively unified central government in Iran that's capable of controlling its entire territory. I don't know how you think about that, but I kind of see a divergence there from a strategic standpoint that's not being

reflected in obviously the way the policymakers are thinking about this program. I can see that. And I also, I just shuddered to think about Iraq as well as a state. I mean, you're talking about the Baghdad government here ordering the Iraqi Kurdish leadership to send Peshmerga to the border to stop Iranian Kurdish forces from going in and getting involved. And perhaps, again, we forget, like, this is a fragile state. You have a scenario now where you have Iraqi security forces facing off potentially against Iran-backed militias in Iraq who have been trying to force their way into the green zone, who have been staging protests in Kherbala.

All of this is incredibly and profoundly destabilizing. And I sometimes wonder if we forget this. pottery barn rules, you break it, you buy it, you own it. And that, I think, is what is so startling to me covering this story, having covered Iraq from 2003. It was my first war. It just feels like have we not learned any of the lessons, of the many ways this can go very badly wrong. And what Donald Rumsfeld called the unknown unknowns famously, right? There's the known unknowns, and then there's the unknown unknowns. There's a lot of unknown unknowns here. That's right. That's right. And we should say, of course, the Peshmerga, the kind of internal

security forces of the Kurdish region, the autonomous region of northern Iraq. So on the point of sort of going back to this Iraq experience. I mean, and maybe this historical context would just be helpful for our listeners as well. We were joking kind of earlier, darkly joking about how we have an arm the Kurds button and then abandon the Kurds button. But the historical experience of Kurds in Iraq and Syria and even in Iran, I mean, there's examples of Iranian Kurdish groups having sort of semi-autonomy in the 40s that gets vaporized. And there's, of course, the example of Iraqi Kurds being encouraged by George H.W. Bush to rise up in 1991 during Desert Storm and then being abandoned.

And then we have the example most recently in Syria of, you know, Donald Trump in his first administration, Arm encouraged the Kurdish groups in northeastern Syria and the Syrian Democratic forces to fight ISIS and then more or less abandoning them very recently. you know, in the face of kind of demands from both the Turks and the government in Damascus. So we have this long and rich history of abandoning the Kurds. Why are Kurds even interested in signing up for these kind of efforts? And why do they continue to deal with us as a partner when we so obviously view this as a very transactional guns for higher relationship? It's such a good question. And actually, it's something I've been thinking about.

a lot. And I think sometimes the Kurds would turn that around on their heads and they will say, you know, you're always sort of casting us as the victims. We're abandoned. We're used in abuse. We're using you too. Yeah. Yeah. We're getting what we want to. And I thought that was such an interesting way to kind of shift the paradigm on its head. And I also think it speaks to this idea that we've been discussing, which is that, you know, there isn't one Kurdish thinking on this. although I will say the famous Kurdish proverb, no friend but the mountains, right? I mean, that is the kind of Kurdish adage,

which speaks, I think, to this idea of constantly being betrayed, abandoned. But I think some Kurds will see it as when we get an opportunity, we use it for what we can get. And the Iranian Kurdish that I have spoken to here, they understand that this is not some grand promise of eternal no-fly zone or anything like that, but they are determined to go back to Rajalat, as they call the Kurdish-Iranian heartland, and to protect their brethren.

And I think another thing that's important, they have no interest in going into Tehran or taking over Iran, nothing like that. None of the groups I have spoken to want to see that happen. They want to work with the Iranians as well. All of the six groups in the coalition, with the exception of one, want to see some kind of a federal state. Only one is a separatist group. And again, I think this speaks to the Kurdish mindset. They're very focused on their own Kurdish piece of things. They are not expansionist or maximalist in their ideals.

Having said that, of course, for the Syrian Kurds to have to give up town and city after town and city that they had bled for and to see these Kurdish SDF Syrian Democratic Forces statues being pulled down by an angry mob, of course, that's galling and that's painful. But it doesn't mean that their Iranian Kurdish brothers in Iraqi Kurdistan don't still think, you know what? If I got a window of opportunity here, I'm going, Brett. Yeah. And you figure this is just, you know, if you don't take this, you know, it doesn't happen. And you don't get the opportunity to potentially increase your power inside northwestern Iran, I guess. It's kind of that maybe it's that simple. I think it's a sense that there is a once in a many decade opportunity here.

But one thing I would also add, we don't know if this is going to happen. We really don't. It is very possible. And oh my gosh, if our reporting has been some part of sounding the alarm that maybe this is getting a little wacky, I would be delighted if the knock-on effect of that is that this wouldn't happen. Because obviously, it's not my job to dictate policy or anything like that or even voice my opinion about it. But I don't think anyone in their right mind, would be so cavalier as not to see how profoundly destabilizing in danger is something like this could be. Well, what's the return policy on those land cruisers? Is he going to be able to give those back? If we back off, I mean, the poor dealer, this is the Iraqi Kurdistan car dealership guy is really the winner in all of this. Well, he actually hasn't been fully paid yet. Oh, okay. All right. So TVD on that front. And I guess, I mean, Clarissa, just as we kind of close, give us your, your, your take. I mean, just you, right? Your view of where this is headed and maybe obviously

the Kurdish side, but even more broadly, just where, where is this going? And in particular, maybe for some of our listeners who are obviously not sort of at the doorstep, what does it, what does it feel like right now to be so close to the conflict and what is the kind of on the ground feeling? It feels like an unraveling. It feels very out. It feels very out. of control. Normally, when you cover war, you quickly understand the objectives and there's a rhythm, and you kind of can settle into that and cover it in such a way with some level of always humility, but also confidence that this is probably where this is going and this will probably happen if that thing happens. This war is a surprise every single day.

and I can honestly say it's the first conflict I have covered where I have no idea where it's going and how it ends. And that is precisely why it is so scary to me on a certain level. In terms of the casualties and the violence and the warfare, I have seen far bloodier, uglier wars, although hundreds of civilians have been killed in Iran. But it is the lack of clarity, the lack of understanding about what the endgame is, what the metric for success is, how long Iran can keep fighting for. Some officials are saying they've got a few days. Some analysts are saying they can go for years.

Does anybody really know? Does anybody really have the answer? And the delicate balance of this region is just, it's like a, you've played Jenga, David? I do. I actually play. My kids love playing Jenga. So you know with Jenga, you can't just pull one out. I mean, and if you're going to do it, you're going to do it,

you're going to do it like this in like really slow time, making sure that you're watching all the other pieces and that you can be sure that the whole thing isn't going to collapse. And I'm just, I'm a little concerned that we're not playing Jenga to the best of our ability here. No, I feel like we're playing like hungry, hungry hippos or something like that, a much more sort of brutal kind of, you know, sort of chaotic game. And I think that's that's very well, very well said, Clarissa. I want to thank you for being with us today.

This has been really enlightening and also good fun amid kind of dark and uncertain time. So thank you for joining me. And I will just want to commend your reporting and the CNN teams reporting on this and more broadly because as someone who oftentimes does scroll through what is now increasingly a bunch of AI slop on X to kind of try to understand what's going on. You guys are bringing a lot of clarity to a really kind of murky situation. So I'd commend your reporting to everyone who has listened to this pod. But Clarissa, thanks, thanks for being with us today. Thank you so much for having me. To some, he is the revolutionary hero who restored China to its rightful place on the global stage.

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