For an Iranian to reach Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, or Oman, it would take a speedboat, a jerrycan of gasoline, and a few hours.By Michael Rubin, Middle East ForumThe body count continues to grow in Iran. Initial reports suggest the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps or the various non-Iranian mercenaries it supports have killed up to 20,000 Iranians, but the toll could be even higher once news from provincial cities and smaller towns filters in.While President Donald Trump might follow through on his promise to respond militarily to the regime’s slaughter, it is unclear what he might target that could stop it, at least in the short term, absent troops on the ground, a Rubicon that Trump will not cross.Unless Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei surrenders or dies and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps stands down, it is likely that thousands more could die before the dust settles.If the Islamic Republic falls, chaos likely will reign for days, if not weeks. If the regime restores control, however, it will simply shift tactics as it continues its reign of terror.Khamenei is angry and has vowed revenge upon those whom he believes have betrayed his Islamic Republic and act as “corruption on Earth” and “enemies of God,” both capital charges in Iran.This means that when the guns fall silent, the public executions will begin, with protestors slowly strangled as revolutionary courts order them hanged from cranes.Whether they seek escape from chaos or repression, there is growing likelihood that Iranians will flee. At the start of Syria’s 2011 revolution, Syria’s population was approximately 21 million; nearly a third of this population fled as refugees to escape the country’s violence.Iran’s population today is more than four times that of Syria, and so the potential refugee flows from Iran, in a worst-case scenario, could reach over 10 million and transform the region.Syrians flocked to Lebanon and Turkey. Indeed, Lebanon won the distinction of having the highest proportion of refugees on Earth, with nearly one-in-four people in the country a refugee.This became not only a humanitarian issue but also a social and economic one. Syrian children overwhelmed schools, and a surplus of cheap labor depressed salaries.Because many refugees leased apartments, rents skyrocketed for everyone. The same dynamics were true in Turkey, albeit on a more localized level.Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, meanwhile, weaponized refugees by threatening to unleash floods of migrants unless European officials acceded to his ever-shifting array of demands.Should Iranians flee repression or civil war, the impact on neighboring states will be greater. When Syria descended into chaos, wealthy Arab oil emirates rejected refugees, who therefore turned toward Turkey, Lebanon, and onward across the Mediterranean and into Europe.The same Gulf states will again reject Iranians but may not be able to keep them away as easily. For a Syrian to reach Saudi Arabia would mean traversing Jordan, a country that fiercely guarded its borders.For an Iranian to reach Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, or Oman, it would take a speedboat, a jerrycan of gasoline, and a few hours.Consider their impact: Kuwait has a population of approximately 1.5 million Kuwaiti citizens and perhaps twice that number of foreign workers.The population of Khuzestan, the oil-rich province less than 100 miles from Kuwait, is also 5 million people. Should they flee en masse, the crisis in Kuwait will be huge.Add to that the fact that Kuwait already struggles with sectarian tension within its population, and an Iranian influx could lead to violence.The same could be true for Saudi Arabia’s oil-rich Eastern Province, which, like Kuwait, is perhaps 30 percent Shi’ite.Past waves of repression have disproportionately targeted Iran’s Kurds and Baluch because they are both ethnic and sectarian minorities.A resurgent Islamic Republic bent on revenge likely would cause waves of Kurdish refugees to cross into Iraq and Baluch to flee into Pakistan, where a low-grade Baluch insurgency is already ongoing.The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has previously fired ballistic missiles at Iranian Kurdish camps and settlements in Iraqi Kurdistan; such targeting will become much more frequent.Iranian efforts to pressure the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan to follow its diktats could also become more strident and lead to a further break between the Talabani family’s Kurdish faction and the United States.Although Iranians need a visa to enter Iraq, the border is porous and difficult to police. Iraqi Kurdistan, meanwhile, still allows visa-free entry for Iranian passport holders.Nor would the Caucasus be spared. During the Twelve-Day War with Israel in June 2025, hundreds of Iranian families fled into Armenia; they were largely upper middle class or dual citizens with European countries, simply wanted to wait out the war in safety, and quickly returned to Iran.A new wave fleeing repression or civil war will strain Armenia economically, especially as it still seeks to absorb Russian and Ukrainian migrants and weathers an economic blockade from Azerbaijan and Turkey.Iranians can acquire a tourist or business visa to Turkey on demand for up to 180 days or receive a fifteen-day visa on arrival for Azerbaijan’s Nakhchivan exclave.Both countries will receive a flood of Iranians seeking immediate safety amidst a crackdown or civil war unless they close their borders. Azerbaijan might, but Turkey’s border is longer and porous.While the 1951 Refugee Convention prevents the return of refugees to countries where they will face threats to life or liberty, it does not, despite the handwringing of Western European leaders and human rights groups, allow refugees to choose onward destinations.Once a migrant has crossed a border and escaped danger, he should receive refugee services in that country. This will once again make Turkey the destination of choice for millions of Iranian refugees.With its own collapsing currency and inflation, though, Erdoğan will be reluctant to accept Iranians. He tolerated Syrians because he could use Syrian Sunni Arabs to dilute Turkey’s own Kurdish and Alevi populations.He would not welcome Shi’ites, however, and so would force them onward into southeastern Europe, regardless of international refugee law.The time to prepare for refugee flows is before they arrive. Barham Salih, the new United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), began work just two weeks ago.With budgets declining and a refugee crisis looming, he might face a trial by fire. While Trump is right to vow to protect Iranians from slaughter, slashing the budget of UNHCR now may make a bad situation worse.The post Is the world ready for waves of Iranian refugees? – opinion appeared first on World Israel News.