President Donald Trump is open to the idea of backing militia groups inside Iran willing to help topple the regime, according to reports from The Wall Street Journal and Axios. No decision has been made, but the conversations are already underway.

As reported by Fox News, Trump spoke with two leaders of the main Kurdish factions in Iraq, Masoud Barzani and Bafel Talabani, a day after the Saturday bombing campaign began. The outreach to Kurdish leadership represents a concrete step in what appears to be an expanding strategy to squeeze Tehran from multiple directions simultaneously.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed the diplomatic activity in a statement to the Journal.

"President Trump has spoken with many regional partners."

Officials told the Journal that Trump hasn't made a decision on the matter. But the fact that the conversations are happening at all tells you where the strategic thinking is headed.

The Kurdish Factor

The Kurds have long been one of the most capable and Western-aligned fighting forces in the region. Their positioning along the Iraq-Iran border makes them a natural pressure point against Tehran, and their history of resistance to Iranian influence is well documented.

One official described the prevailing assessment to Axios:

"It is the general view, and certainly Netanyahu's view, that the Kurds are going to come out of the woodwork ... that they're going to rise up."

That view reflects a calculation shared by both Washington and Jerusalem: the Iranian regime is weaker than it has been in years. U.S. and Israeli military strikes have killed several key Iranian leaders and officials. The infrastructure of command is degraded. The question now is whether internal forces can capitalize on that vulnerability.

A Regime Running Out of Friends

Trump himself seemed to acknowledge the attrition already underway when he noted the toll the strikes have taken on potential interlocutors inside Iran.

"Most of the people we had in mind are dead. And now we have another group, they may be dead also. Pretty soon we're not going to know anybody."

That's a blunt assessment, but it also reveals something important: the administration is actively identifying figures and factions within Iran's power structure and opposition. This isn't abstract talk about regime change. It's operational thinking.

Trump has urged the people of Iran to overthrow the country's regime. That rhetoric now appears to be moving toward something with teeth. Supporting militias in the western part of the country, where Kurdish populations are concentrated, would give those words material backing.

What This Means Strategically

For decades, the Iran debate in Washington has oscillated between two poles: containment and appeasement. The Obama administration chose appeasement, delivering pallets of cash and a nuclear deal that gave Tehran a glide path to a bomb. The Biden administration tried to resurrect that framework. Both approaches treated the regime as a permanent feature of the Middle East, something to be managed rather than confronted.

This is a different posture entirely. The combination of military strikes, Kurdish outreach, and openness to arming opposition groups amounts to a multi-front strategy aimed not at managing the regime but at creating the conditions for its collapse. That's a meaningful shift.

The Israeli dimension matters here too. Netanyahu's assessment that the Kurds will rise up suggests coordination between Washington and Jerusalem that extends beyond the current military campaign into the political endgame. Both capitals appear to be working from the same playbook: degrade the regime's military leadership, empower internal opposition, and let the Iranian people do what their government has spent four decades preventing them from doing.

The Risks Are Real, But So Is the Opportunity

Critics will inevitably invoke Iraq and Afghanistan. They always do. But the comparison is lazy. Nobody is talking about a ground invasion or a twenty-year occupation. The model here is closer to what worked against ISIS: identify capable local forces, provide support, and let them fight for their own country. The Kurds proved they could do exactly that.

Iran's regime has survived for over four decades by crushing dissent ruthlessly and exploiting the West's reluctance to support opposition movements with anything more than tweets. If the administration follows through, it would mark the first time in a generation that American power is actively aligned with the Iranian people rather than their oppressors.

The mullahs have fewer allies, fewer commanders, and fewer options than they did a week ago. The window is open. The question is whether Washington walks through it.