The reaction of the people in Tehran after the first bombs fell there on February 28 was surprising: they rejoiced, even though it was the beginning of a war disputed from the point of view of international law, led by the US and Israel - countries that the Iranian government has always declared mortal enemies.
However, many Iranians are ready to accept the civilian casualties and damage of the war if this way the hated theocratic regime is overthrown - which is what Donald Trump declared the goal when he began the strikes. He made a direct appeal to the people of Iran, who in January participated in the brutally suppressed mass demonstrations - to take power into their own hands: “This will probably be the only chance for generations to come”, he said.
Just a few hours later it became known that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei had been killed, but the regime continued to function. The question remains whether the US and Israel will achieve their goal with the war. What are the possible scenarios after its end?
The Venezuelan scenario
The US will be happy if Khamenei's successor is someone loyal to Washington. Trump told the “New York Times“ that he had “three very good options” in mind, which he did not name specifically. Change of leadership without change in the power structure - this is the scheme under which the US operation in Venezuela is already being implemented. After the kidnapping of President Nicolas Maduro, his place was taken by his deputy Delcy Rodriguez. "What we did in Venezuela is the perfect scenario," Trump said, referring to Iran.
A similar view is held by Iran expert Cornelius Adebar of the German Foreign Policy Association, who told ARD: "Iran could use the search for a successor to Khamenei to build a new government based on the strength of the Revolutionary Guard and offer the Americans a new relationship. "It's a scenario like in Venezuela. Only the top changes and in the end the changes are significantly smaller than people expected."
But there is no certainty that the US really favors this scenario: in an interview with the “New York Times“ Trump reiterated the likelihood that the Iranian population will rise up for comprehensive system change.
The key question: What will happen to the Iranian leadership?
The fall of the regime is a possible consequence of war, says Harvard conflict researcher Peyman Asadzadeh. He believes there is a second option - if the so-called Expert Council in Iran appoints a pragmatist to succeed Khamenei. “Domestic policy priorities will be economic recovery, stabilization and political reform, while foreign policy will focus on de-escalation.“ This development also fits into the already mentioned Venezuelan scenario.
“If the post-war leadership in Tehran takes a pragmatic course, this would lead to de-escalation with the US and economic concessions in favor of the Iranians“, Middle East expert Burcu Özçelik told DW. “This could pave the way for a stable and urgently needed phase of recovery.“
As a third option, Assadzadeh points to the possibility that the existing system could coalesce around a conservative hardliner and even strengthen the current ideology.
Julian Borger, a correspondent for the British “Guardian“, expresses the following concerns on this occasion: “After the attacks, the surviving members of the leadership may come to the conclusion that the only strategy for survival is the atomic bomb. They could suppress the opposition even more brutally, and the regime could increasingly resemble that of North Korea: isolated, paranoid, and nuclear-armed.
If the system changes – how much democracy is possible?
Two weeks before the start of the war, at the Munich Security Conference, 250,000 Iranian exiles and other demonstrators gave a concrete sign of what might happen after the ayatollahs’ regime: they welcomed Reza Pahlavi, the son of the Shah who had been ousted by the Islamic Revolution. He repeatedly stressed that he did not seek to restore the monarchy, but to democratize Iran.
Pahlavi is not an uncontested figure, but he attracted a lot of attention during the protests in January – including because the regime arrested many of the remaining opposition figures or otherwise silenced them.
Pahlavi has made serious plans to organize the transition, wrote Mark Dubowitz and Ben Cohen of the US-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies. “But planning is not power.“ Because there is no certainty who will rule Iran if the regime falls there. “Furthermore, Iran is not a monolith, but a mosaic - of Azeris, Kurds, Arabs, Baluchis and other ethnic groups.“
Will violence in the country not increase after the war?
On the eve of the 1979 Islamic Revolution, the army hastened the fall of the Shah, declaring that it would not shoot at his opponents. Then the new leadership founded the Revolutionary Guard of Iran, which became the mainstay of the regime.
To this day, the army and the Revolutionary Guard exist in parallel, although most analysts believe that the Guard has much more power. It has its own troops, air force, navy and secret services, as well as influential companies. After the Revolutionary Guard's participation in the bloody suppression of protests in Iran, the EU categorized it as a terrorist organization. At the beginning of the war, Trump called on the guards and police to lay down their arms, but so far there are no signs of their structures collapsing.
Burcu Özçelik assumes that the Revolutionary Guard may gradually encounter increasing internal political resistance, including a growing disunity between the guard and the regular army, with the army becoming the “reformed” face of the new Iranian patriotism and a functioning state.
Thus, at least theoretically, the scenario in which the army and the Revolutionary Guard find themselves in different political camps is also possible. In this situation, a civil war, such as the one that has been going on in Sudan for three years, would not be ruled out.
And the already mentioned ethnic diversity of Iran could prove dangerous for internal security if various separatist groups decide to take advantage of the power vacuum. Just a week before the start of the war, five Kurdish organizations united in a front against the regime. They rejected the rule of Reza Pahlavi, and this example shows how difficult it will be to establish a new political order in Iran.
Author: David El