Here’s what a post-Ayatollah Iran could look like if war with Israel leads to regime’s fall
As the Iranian regime reels from sustained Israeli strikes on military and nuclear infrastructure, debate is intensifying over what could come next.
Experts say the end of the Islamic Republic is no longer unthinkable — but warn that what replaces it could either lift the country toward a freer future or plunge it into instability.
Reza Pahlavi, the exiled crown prince of Iran and a prominent opposition figure, posted yesterday, “Sources inside Iran say that the regime’s command and control structures are collapsing at a rapid pace. Meanwhile, the international community is beginning to realize that the Islamic Republic has no future. Our discussions about a post-Islamic Republic Iran have begun.”
“The first thing is revolution is too broad a word,” said Behnam Taleblu, senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. “The better words are evolution and devolution, meaning if you get something better or something worse. Because this is the Middle East, and fundamentally, things can get worse, not better, when you introduce an exogenous shock.”
Taleblu cautioned that both the Iranian opposition and Western governments have failed to prepare for regime collapse because of a long-standing reluctance to engage with the idea of regime change. “By not being able to articulate the necessary political strategy… we are most unprepared,” he said.
This is an excerpt from an article by Efrat Lachter and Caitlin McFall.