The transcript will be available here. 

As the possibility of the war with Iran widens, President Trump has called upon Iran’s domestic opposition to generate onslaughts against the Islamic regime. President Donald Trump has offered “ extensive air coverage” to Iranian Kurds and other forms of support to defeat the regime. President Trump is calling on Iraqi Kurds to open the way for Iranian Kurds, ant not to obstruct them on their path. As Bafel Talabani, of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan relates about a phone call with President Trump,  “Trump was clear in his call. He told us the Kurds must choose a side in this battle — either with America and Israel or with Iran.”  Another faction of the Kurds is led by Masoud Barzani of the Kurdish Democratic  Party. He had said that “It’s not about who has more active armed militias. It ‘s about who has more support from the inside.” A statement from another Kurdish party read, “All Iranian Kurds must abandon their bases and with draw support from the regime’s armed and repressive forces.”

On Thursday, the Iraqi Kurds reported attacks on their “political bases and headquarters” and a number of fatalities. They later  called Iran’s attack on their bases in Northwestern Iraq a sign of Iranian “weakness and deep fear.”  The Iraqi Kurds are substantially more organized than the Iranian Kurds. The statement from the Iraqi Kurds read that “the coalition will strengthen our resolve to continue to fight for the overthrow of the Islamic Republic of Iran.”

It has also been rumored that the CIA might provide training and weapons for an internal military exercise against the regime.

Here to shed light on all of this is Diliman Abdulkader.

About our speaker: Diliman Abdulkader is the founder of American Friends of Kurdistan (AFK), an advocacy and education organization established to strengthen, protect, and promote U.S.-Kurdish relations. AFK supports policies that advance the national security and prosperity of Americans, Kurds, and our other allies. Diliman comes from a foreign policy and national security background, where he invests his time on Capitol Hill educating lawmakers and staffers about the plight of the Kurds. Diliman received his M.A. in International Peace and Conflict Resolution from American University in Washington, D.C.