Trump might want “boots on the ground” in Iran. Just not American ones.

Last week, President Donald Trump spoke with Iraqi and Iranian Kurdish leaders, reportedly offering “extensive US aircover” and logistical support for armed groups to cross the border from Iraq into Iran to push out regime forces. As one of these leaders put it, his message was that “Kurds must choose a side in this battle — either with America and Israel or with Iran.”

Turning to Kurdish ethnic minorities, who are spread across multiple countries in the region, to be America’s frontline fighters is a formula that’s worked before, most recently in the fight against the Islamic State. But the plan seemed to fizzle out this time, and over the weekend, Trump changed his tune, telling reporters, “We don’t want to make the war any more complex than it already is. I have ruled that out, I don’t want the Kurds going in.”

The Kurds are not yet in a position to launch an attack, according to Abdullah Mohtadi, an Iranian Kurdish leader in an undisclosed location outside the country, who I spoke with over the weekend. Mohtadi, secretary general of the Komala Party of Iranian Kurdistan, said there were “several thousand” fighters or peshmergas under their command in Iraq, and “tens of thousands” of young people in Iranian Kurdistan who would be willing to take up arms if they were given protection.