At the moment, the scenario of the regime in Iran falling is unfeasible - despite the assassination of Ali Khamenei. He will probably be replaced by hardliners from the Guard. This is what the Bulgarian journalist Ruslan Trad believes. Here is what the analyst wrote on Facebook after the US and Israeli strikes on Iran, in which the ayatollah was eliminated.
A number of politicians believe that if Khamenei and the Iranian president are killed, some of the lower-ranking members of the Revolutionary Guard can be convinced to work with the US. This is a truly optimistic - even rosy - expectation. Both I and colleagues who have been following Iranian structures for years are of the opinion that such a scenario is unfeasible at the moment. i.e. Venezuela-type scenarios, in which a bribed government official from the leader's inner circle agrees to work with Washington and push through policies that were previously impossible.
On the eve of the US and Israeli strikes, the CIA's internal assessment indicated that even if Khamenei were killed, he would likely be replaced by hardliners from the Guard. This is an important detail: the intelligence community's own analysis did not support the optimistic picture that was spreading in some advisory circles. And so it turned out - Khamenei died, and in his place Alireza Arafi, who is completely ideologically bound to Khomeiniism, was appointed interim leader.
The Revolutionary Guard is not just a military institution, but an organization with a deeply ideological structure, whose senior and middle-ranking cadres have built their entire political identity, business interests, and personal networks around Iran's hostile stance towards the US. The Guard's commercial empire – covering construction, energy, banking, and smuggling - exists precisely because of the sanctions and the closed political economy created by the regime, not despite them.
The Guard has been systematically displacing moderate clerics and technocrats for decades, meaning that the group of truly deal-oriented figures under Khamenei is small and politically marginalized. Destroying the top echelon does not elevate pragmatists, but rather elevates those who were most loyal to the outgoing leadership and the most hard-line ideology.