Objective: The independence of the Iraqi Kurdistan Region has elevated the discourse of Kurdish nationalism to a political level and raised concerns about its security implications for the Kurdish regions of Iran. This study seeks to explain the scenarios of the impact of these developments on Iran's military security
Methodology: The present research is an applied-developmental research with an exploratory-explanatory nature and a futures research approach. In the qualitative phase, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 11 experts including military commanders, security experts, former ambassadors and consuls general of Iran in the Kurdistan Region and the data were coded using content analysis. In the quantitative phase, a questionnaire was distributed among 89 commanders and senior experts of the armed forces and experts in the field of diplomacy and analyzed using descriptive statistics. Validity was confirmed with a CVR of 0.8 and reliability with a Cronbach's alpha of 0.957. Uncertainties were identified with the Scenario Wizard software and scenarios were validated.
Findings: The five drivers of strengthening symbolic Kurdish nationalism, motivational role modeling, cross-border ethnic solidarity, the capacity of party networks, and the moderating role of domestic variables, and the two uncertainties of Iran’s domestic strategy and the level of external support, formed four alternative scenarios: active security resilience, gradual security erosion, hybrid challenge, and acute crisis. In the validation, the “gradual security erosion” scenario was determined to be the most likely future with 64% expert consensus
Results: The impact of Iraqi Kurdistan’s independence on Iran’s military security is a contingent, multi-layered, and nonlinear process that is influenced by the interaction of identity drivers with domestic strategy and external intervention. The likely scenario of gradual erosion is a strategic warning about increasing security costs and intensifying low-intensity insecurities. A way out of this scenario requires a transition from a purely security-oriented strategy to a convergence-development-oriented approach.