With a U.S. carrier strike group slated to arrive in the Middle East this weekend, President Donald Trump will soon decide what to do next with Iran. But first, he must grapple with an unanswerable question: Is Iran a multiethnic nation or a Persian-dominated empire? Even Iranians cannot answer authoritatively.
History offers a warning. Yugoslavia long presented itself as — and was widely understood to be — a pluralistic, multiethnic state. Many Yugoslavs embraced that identity sincerely. Yet when the regime collapsed in the early 1990s, the identity dissolved almost overnight. People called themselves Yugoslavs one day only to wake up the next as Serbs, Croats or Bosnians. Such arrangements can persist for decades — until, suddenly, they do not. Long-suppressed ethnic identities surfaced, and politics turned violent.
In Yugoslavia, the hegemonic Serbs made up roughly 36 percent of the population. In Iran, Persians account for a larger share but are almost certainly still a minority. A 2010 Iranian government study put them at 47 percent.
Iran’s ethnic geography sharpens the stakes. Persians dominate the central plateau around Tehran and Isfahan. Minority populations concentrate along the borders — more accurately, astride them — bound by language, culture and history to communities just across the frontier. Azerbaijanis cluster in the northwest along Azerbaijan and Turkey; Kurds in the west face Kurdish regions of Iraq and Turkey; Arabs in the oil-rich southwest look toward Iraq; Baluch in the southeast connect to kin in Pakistan and Afghanistan; Turkmen in the north border Turkmenistan.
Neighboring states therefore have a direct interest in how Iran manages — or fails to manage — its diversity. And one neighbor matters more than any other: Azerbaijan.
There are more ethnic Azerbaijanis in Iran than there are in Azerbaijan proper. According to that same Iranian government study, Azerbaijanis account for roughly 23 percent of Iran’s population (the true figure may be higher) and are concentrated in a geographically contiguous enclave. While Azerbaijanis have been better integrated into the Iranian state than any other minority group, signs of restlessness are growing. They increasingly consume Turkish and Azerbaijani media, show greater interest in their Turkic-Azerbaijani roots and demand schooling in their own language. It’s not hard to see why. Turkey and Azerbaijan enjoy European-level development. The Islamic Republic presides over economic failure and isolation.
The last time Iran reordered itself, during the 1979 revolution, Azerbaijan was sealed inside the Soviet Union. After independence, it remained weak, consumed by war with Armenia and largely irrelevant to Iran’s internal balance. That is no longer the case. Today, Azerbaijan is a rising regional power with a NATO-standard military, deep ties to Turkey and a close security partnership with Israel. In a scenario of violent internal conflict in Iran, Azerbaijan might feel compelled to intervene to protect its kin — possibly with Turkish backing.
Ethnic fragmentation in Iran is not a foregone conclusion. But the possibility is real and something Washington cannot afford to ignore. The best way forward is to not embed too many assumptions, one way or another, about what Iran would look like should the current regime implode.
For U.S. policymakers, betting on a stable, centralized Iran may prove as risky as betting on fragmentation. That caution matters now because a strong movement is emerging in Washington, and among parts of the Iranian diaspora, to recognize Reza Pahlavi, the son of Iran’s shah who was deposed in 1979, as the representative of the Iranian nation. His appeal is real, but his legitimacy is contested. Many within Iran’s ethnic minorities view him as a symbol of Persian chauvinism rather than of national unity, and Azerbaijani Iranians are no exception. Elevating a single figure as the embodiment of Iran risks predetermining an internal settlement that Iranians themselves have not yet reached.
In recent weeks, Azerbaijanis have repeatedly described to me a scenario that troubles them. In this vision, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei falls but the system does not. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps survives the transition, sheds its clerical skin, and reemerges as enforcers for a Persian nationalist dictatorship — potentially welcoming Pahlavi as a symbolic figure while retaining real power behind the scenes.
A Pahlavi-for-Khamenei swap would look attractive in Washington: a clean decapitation, an end to the nuclear program and seeming moderation without the chaos of regime change. But for Iran’s minorities, it would register as regime continuity at best, and perhaps something much darker. A government that relies on Persian nationalism to legitimize itself could quickly turn even more oppressive.
Whether Iran is a multiethnic nation or a Persian empire remains unknown — and indeed will remain unknowable until events force a reckoning. Trump’s next steps — whether to pursue strikes, sanctions or negotiations — could kick-start that process. Washington should consult broadly with Iranians of all ethnic backgrounds. It should also consult with leaders in the neighborhood who will live with the consequences of the coming crisis — especially President Ilham Aliyev in Baku, Azerbaijan.
But above all else, Trump should resist anointing successors in Iran and design policy for uncertainty, not stability. It is going to be a turbulent time.