War, succession and the perilous test of two myths about Iran

SINCE THE Islamic revolution in 1979, the relationship between America and Iran has often been one of competing myths. The Islamic Republic saw enmity with the “Great Satan” as crucial to its survival. America saw a regime perpetually on the brink of collapse and a country primed for change. Never mind that Iran’s fight with America was a source of constant woe, or that the regime survived for almost half a century. The myths endured.

The war that began on February 28th will test which one is correct. America hopes that it can quickly replace a regime weakened by years of protest, war and economic crisis. Donald Trump urged Iranians to “take over your government”. Israel and America assassinated a number of political and military leaders, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, among them. Iran, for its part, thinks it can endure once again: better to weather a war than to make concessions to its longtime foe.

This is only the second time post-revolutionary Iran has picked a new leader (the first was in 1989). Today it may have to navigate succession under sustained American and Israeli fire. After its previous war with Israel in June, the regime began preparing for the next round. The supreme leader designated backups for key jobs, and then backups for the backups. As for the ayatollah himself, the constitution spells out a clear process for succession: a three-man committee takes power after the supreme leader dies, and then a separate body chooses a replacement.

That process kicked into motion hours after Khamenei’s death was confirmed. Power now temporarily rests with the president, Masoud Pezeshkian; the judiciary chief, Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei; and a cleric, Alireza Arafi. Mr Arafi had recently been mentioned as a possible candidate to succeed the supreme leader (perhaps his appointment is a stepping-stone to the top job). Mr Pezeshkian appeared on state television to refute rumours that he had been killed in an Israeli strike. Even so, it is unclear whether this triumvirate can safely meet in person, for fear of being targeted themselves.

If the regime hoped that war would produce a rally-round-the-flag effect, it may be disappointed. After Khamenei’s death there were scenes of Iranians cheering and dancing in the streets of Tehran, Isfahan and other cities. Still, the next morning also brought rallies to mourn the ayatollah. There has been no sign of Iranians heeding Mr Trump’s call to rise up. Plenty of them loathe the regime, but plenty of others support it, whether out of conviction or self-interest—and the latter camp is the one with weapons.

America and Israel have struck at Iran’s security forces, including the basij, the regime’s brownshirts. But there are presumably many thousands still willing to fight for the Islamic Republic, arrayed against a disorganised opposition that has little to go on except the word of an unreliable American president.

At times Mr Trump has already backtracked on talk of regime change. In an interview on March 1st with the Atlantic he said Iran’s new rulers were eager to negotiate, and so was he. “They want to talk, and I have agreed to talk, so I will be talking to them. They should have done it sooner,” he said. It was not clear who he plans to talk with, or about what. A nuclear deal—the focus of pre-war diplomacy—may no longer be enough to satisfy America.

The hope seems to be that America will find an Iranian version of Delcy Rodríguez, the pliable regime insider who took over Venezuela after America snatched its president, Nicolás Maduro, in January. Yet that probably misreads the regime. No one person is strong enough to seize power, and it is risky to look too deferential to America or its allies.

Over the past few years Ali Larijani, a powerful regime apparatchik, has led Iran’s outreach to its Arab neighbours across the Gulf. Some officials in the region came to view him as a businesslike politician they could work with. In an Arabic social-media post on March 1st, though, Mr Larijani sought to excuse two days of Iranian strikes on Gulf states. “We are not seeking to attack you. But when bases in your country are used to attack us,” he wrote, “we will target those bases.” That was an exercise in gaslighting: the regime has lobbed drones at civilian airports, luxury hotels and high-rise residential towers. Perhaps he is telling them something different in private, but his comments led some Arab diplomats to wonder if pragmatists can ever hope to wield power in today’s Iran.

There are hints that the regime is already struggling to exercise control across the country. At the start of the 12-day war in June it was paralysed by an Israeli strike that killed and wounded top political and military leaders. It took the better part of a day to organise a meaningful counter-attack. When it came, though, the riposte was big and focused, with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) firing around 200 ballistic missiles in several big waves over the course of one night.

The response this weekend has been substantial, but more scattershot: smaller volleys against Israel, random attacks on civilian targets in Gulf states. It looks to many analysts as if the regime has delegated decision-making to commanders in the field. Abbas Araghchi, the foreign minister, admitted as much in an interview with Al Jazeera on March 1st. “Our military units are now, in fact, independent and somehow isolated,” he said.

That raises a larger question. The pre-war assumption was that the IRGC, the regime’s praetorian guard, might swoop in to take control after Khamenei’s death. The Guards are Iran’s strongest military force and preside over a vast economic empire. Yet their military record is hardly impressive. Over the past two years Israel sliced through their proxies in Lebanon and Gaza—none of which has yet joined the war. The Assad regime they propped up in Syria collapsed. And in 2024 they launched two ineffective ballistic-missile attacks against Israel, a strategic blunder that shattered their deterrence.

Diplomats in the Gulf fret about a “fragmented, unstable state” plagued by militias and chaos. The fear is that both myths about Iran prove incorrect: that a weak, unpopular regime is less durable than it thinks, and that America has no workable plan to replace it. ■