Before, and more so after the autonomous Kurdish government in northern Iraq concluded a historic referendum on a path to independence, many Iranians, including the genuine opposition to the Islamist fascist rule in Iran, are joining the chorus of those condemning the move toward establishing a new Kurdish country.

What eventually becomes of the independence aspiration of Iraq’s Kurds in a landlocked country remains to be seen, but one thing is very clear, it will be opposed by neighboring states with Kurdish population, which might even lead to armed conflict.

That said, to my mind, Iranians who oppose the Kurdish independence do so because of the fact based fear of Kurdish secessionist aspiration in Iran.

Economist reports:

“THE Kurds of Iran are calling for independence just as lustily as their cousins in Iraq, perhaps even more so. While the mood in the streets of Iraq’s Kurdish cities was generally subdued and nervous after their referendum on independence on September 25th, wilder celebrations erupted across the border in Iranian Kurdistan. In the Kurdish cities of Baneh, Sanandaj and Mahabad demonstrations lasted for two days, even as armoured cars drove through the streets heralding a wave of arrests. Crowds sang the anthem of the Republic of Mahabad, the Kurdish state that briefly held sway in north-western Iran in 1946. Kurdish flags flew from lampposts.

Some Iranian Kurds talked dreamily of a state they call Rojhelat*, or East Kurdistan, which would slough off the “occupation” by Ajamastan, a pejorative term for Iran. “There’s a new self-confidence among Kurds,” says Luqman Sotodeh, a prominent Iranian Kurd. “The whole world stood against the referendum, but the Kurds held it regardless.” Kurdish officials say that over 90% of voters backed independence.”

I like to take this opportunity to remind those Iranians who fear secessionist aspirations seeping into Iran, which is not limited to Iranian Kurdish region, the biggest cheerleader and motivator of such calamity is the existence of the brutal, unreformable Islamist fascism rule in Iran.

In other words; removing the cause, will eliminate the effect.

Airtight sanctions, a la against the despicable South Africa apartheid, works. U.S. lawmakers get to it.

Picture above; like thousands upon thousands of other Iranians in the Kurdish region of Iran where abject poverty and lack of work is rampant, an elderly Iranian woman is forced to earn a meager living by acting as a mule to ferry goods over the mountains from the affluent Iraq Kurdistan into Iran.

*Rujhelat, means "East" in Kurdish dialect.