threat presented by Iran to the global community has been on the rise in recent years, and security concerns remain heightened just days after Israel struck Tehran.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu suggested last month that regime change in Tehran was on the horizon.

But it is not just Iran’s involvement in state-sponsored terrorism, its apparent drive to develop nuclear weapons, its increased ties to major Western adversaries or its direct attacks on Israel that could bring down Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Tehran’s oppressive practices within its own borders could be the key to the regime’s demise, says an analysis for the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI).

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, left, and Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (Getty Images | Ma’ayan Toaf (GPO))

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Himdad Mustafa, a researcher and expert on Iranian and Kurdish affairs for MEMRI, argued that minority groups in Iran make up about 50 percent of the nation’s population, and while they are often the target of extreme oppression, some living in conditions he described as ” open air prisons,” are uniquely positioned to unite against Tehran.

Mustafa said ethnic minority groups such as the Kurds, who make up 10%-15% of Iran’s population and live mainly in border regions near nations such as Iraq and Turkey, as well as the Baloch people, who make up about 5 % of Iran’s population. population and live on Iran’s shared border with Pakistan, could play a significant role in overthrowing the oppressive regime.

“If the entire country rises, the regime will withdraw its forces from border regions such as Kurdistan to central Iran and Tehran,” he wrote in a report this month. “This is the time when the West should support the Kurds, Baluchi and other ethnic groups to overthrow the regime.”

The expert told Fox News Digital that these groups are located in resource-rich areas that are not only important to Iran, but also to the other main adversaries of the US: Russia and China.

(Encyclopaedia Britannica/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

“If there is prolonged war and instability in Iran, countries like Turkey, Russia and China would intervene, either directly or through proxies, to occupy territories in Iran that they consider important to their national interests,” Mustafa said.

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The expert explained that Beijing has long eyed Balochistan, which extends to Pakistan and Afghanistan as an important strategic region for its Belt and Road initiative.

“In case of regime change in Iran, it is very likely that Pakistan and China would intervene in Iranian Balochistan to prevent the establishment of a Baloch state and to secure the region for their interests,” Mustafa said. “Therefore, the US should support these minorities both militarily and politically to secure their regions, which, in turn, protected the interests of the West.

“If Balochistan remains under the control of US-backed Baloch forces, they could protect US interests and its mega-project, the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor,” he said.

Mustafa said there was growing concern among political elites in the Islamic Republic that the foundations of a “hybrid war” can be puta scenario where internal dissent could collide with external military threats.

Protesters chant slogans during a protest in downtown Tehran, Iran on September 21, 2022. (AP Photo)

Although the 2022 mass protests were brutally suppressed by the regime, they revealed the level of discontent in Iran.

The death of Jina Amini, a Kurdish woman who in September 2022 was arrested by Iran’s moral police and later died in a hospital from her injuries, sparked not only outrage over institutional discrimination against women in Iran, but also caused a unified response from oppressed minority groups.

Just days after the initial demonstrations broke out, one of the bloodiest events of the months-long protest took place in Iran-Balochistan, where Baloch people took to the streets in the city of Zahedan to further protest the alleged rape of 15 years. -old girl by police commander col. Ebrahim Khouchakzai.

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A protester holds a photo of an Iranian Kurdish woman Mahsa (or Jina) Amini while another waves the former flag of Iran during a demonstration against the Iranian regime in Istanbul on October 2, 2022. (BULENT KILIC/AFP via Getty Images)

But the event, which was dubbed “Bloody Friday” or the “Zahedan Massacre”, turned violent after Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps showed up to stop the demonstrations and more than 100 people, including 17 childrenthey were killed.

Despite the immense danger posed by the regime option, Mustafa said the desire to unite to topple the regime remains.

“They have a common enemy who persecutes, imprisons and executes and even denies minority students the right to education in their mother tongue,” he said. “This led them to see their struggle for self-determination as a common struggle for national liberation against this common enemy, and it is this common struggle that unites these minority groups.”