Ex-CIA officer Reuel Marc Gerecht, who infiltrated Iran in the 1990s said that Iran’s regime, strained by war and sanctions, will use lethal force to crush any bid to topple it.
The Islamic Republic is fundamentally weakened yet determined to preserve its rule through deadly repression, former CIA officer Reuel Marc Gerecht said on Monday in an interview with Iran International.
Gerecht, who has studied Iran for four decades and covertly entered the country in the 1990s, assessed that the leadership in Tehran will fight to the bitter end rather than flee. His comments followed months of instability driven by sanctions and the fallout of recent conflict with Israel.
Gerecht said Tehran remains in a state of basic instability and is deeply suspicious of extensive intelligence penetration after shocks from the recent war. He added that Israel’s surprise air campaign in June exposed broad intelligence failures and caused hundreds of military and civilian deaths, eroding the authority of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, 86, who has appeared less frequently in public since then.
The former intelligence officer questioned whether Khamenei is managing daily governance. He suggested that proxies inside the system are handling key decisions, noting that the leader’s reduced public visibility has become a barometer of declining control.
Nuclear impasse and economic pain
On Iran’s disputed nuclear program, Gerecht said the stalemate continues despite claims that strikes destroyed key facilities. Meanwhile, international sanctions are worsening living costs and weakening public support for the regime, even as it retains loyalists willing to use force.
An Israeli man walks past a new graffiti of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei following the 12 days war between Israel and Iran, in Tel Aviv, Israel July 8, 2025 (credit: REUTERS/NIR ELIAS)
No external push for regime change
Gerecht argued that Washington will not seek to overthrow Tehran by force, saying US leaders lack a coherent regime change strategy and bureaucracies oppose such a course. Any transformation of the nearly half-century-old Islamic system, he said, must come from within.
He added that the “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement, sparked by the 2022 death of Mahsa Amini, was met with lethal force and could not topple the regime without broader participation by young men, including within the security services. Gerecht concluded by recalling how some Soviet security officers tired of lying to their children, wondering whether a similar reckoning could emerge within Iran’s security apparatus.