Israel seems determined to remove Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and undermine the existing since 1979. religious system of government in Iran, but the risk seems high and there are no guarantees of the outcome, writes BTA, citing AFP.
Ali Khamenei "cannot be allowed to continue to exist", Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said yesterday, leaving no doubt about Israel's intentions.
By striking targets other than nuclear or missile sites, as Iranian state television reported on Monday, Israel appears determined to end the current political order, although that is not officially the goal of the war.
Nikol Grajewski of the "Carnegie" however, believes that Israel's strikes appear to be aimed at regime change rather than non-proliferation.
"Of course, Israel targets ballistic missiles and military facilities, but it also strikes leaders and symbols of the regime," she told AFP.
After the massacre carried out by "Hamas" on October 7, 2023, Israel, accustomed to targeted executions, no longer hesitates to eliminate leaders considered untouchable, such as the leader of the pro-Iranian Lebanese "Hezbollah" Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut in October.
But the removal of Iran's supreme leader, who has been in power for three decades, is a leap into the unknown, and could lead to even more dangerous and turbulent times.
Western leaders fear a repeat of the precedents in Iraq and Libya: the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the NATO military intervention in Libya in 2011. they may have toppled dictators Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi, but they also led to bloody civil wars and prolonged periods of unrest.
"The biggest mistake today is to use military means to seek regime change in Iran, because that would mean chaos," French President Emmanuel Macron warned on Tuesday on the sidelines of the G7 summit in Canada.
"Does anyone think that what was done in Iraq in 2003, what was done in Libya in the previous decade, was a good idea? No!" The overthrow of Iran's religious regime could create a vacuum that could be filled by the most radical factions of the Revolutionary Guard or the Iranian army, Grajewski believes.
"If the regime is overthrown, the hope is that it will be replaced by a liberal and democratic government. But there is a high probability that power will fall into the hands of the security structures, such as the Revolutionary Guard," Iran's ideological army.
"Lack of an organized alternative"
The Iranian opposition in exile is deeply divided. Among the most prominent figures is Reza Pahlavi, the son of the Iranian shah overthrown by the Islamic Revolution in 1979, who has already declared that the Islamic Republic is "on the brink of collapse", accusing the Iranian leader of "hiding like a scared rat".
Pahlavi, who lives in the United States, has long supported the renewal of ties and recognition of Israel and has refused to condemn the Israeli strikes. But the position in Iran and in the diaspora is far from unanimous. Another major opposition group in exile is the "People's Mujahedin" (PMK). Their leader, Maryam Rajavi, told the European Parliament on Wednesday that "the people of Iran want the regime to fall".
But the "Mujahideen" are despised by other opposition factions and criticized by some Iranians for their support for Saddam Hussein during the bloody Iran-Iraq War (1980 - 1988). "There is no organized democratic alternative" to the current regime in Iran, emphasizes Thomas Juneau, a professor at the University of Ottawa.
According to him, Reza Pahlavi, the most prominent opposition leader, "tends to exaggerate the support he enjoys in the country". "The only alternative, and this is one of the worrying scenarios, is a coup d'état by the Revolutionary Guard or a transition from a theocracy to a military dictatorship".
"Unpredictable scenario"
Analysts point out that another factor of instability is Iran's complex ethnic structure, which includes large Kurdish, Arab, Baluchi and Turkic minorities alongside the Persian majority. "Countries hostile to Iran will want to take advantage of the ethnic divide", Grajewski believes. "The future scenario remains unpredictable and could cause regional destabilization on an even larger scale than that caused by (the fall of the regime in) Iraq", notes the US-based Soufan Center think tank.