Analysis: Iran’s regime may survive, but the Middle East will no longer be the same

BERLIN — Iran’s supreme leader may be dead, but there will be another. Your dead military commanders will be replaced. A system of government built over 47 years will not easily disintegrate with air power alone. Iran maintains the ability to respond to US and Israeli airstrikes, and the trajectory of the war remains uncertain.

But the Islamic Republic, already weakened and unpopular, is now further diminished, with its internal and regional power at one of the lowest points since its leaders took control in the revolution that overthrew the US-backed shah in 1978-79.

Even if the regime does not fall—which remains President Donald Trump’s stated goal—this massive attack will likely have strategic consequences in the Middle East comparable to the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader killed on Saturday morning, maintained a visceral antagonism against Israel and the United States, which he systematically called the “Great Satan”. He built and financed a regional network of allied militias that surrounded Israel and shared his hatred of the country. Hezbollah, in Lebanon; Hamas and Islamic Jihad, in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank; the Houthis, in Yemen — all served both to attack Israeli interests and to protect Iran itself.

Tehran has developed its missile program and enriched uranium to near weapons-grade levels, while denying it wants a bomb. It became such a strong regional power that Sunni leaders in Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the Persian Gulf sought to maintain good relations with a Shiite Islamic regime that also threatened them.

Iran’s decline began two years ago with Israel’s harsh and sustained response to a Hamas invasion from Gaza. The decline accelerated as Israel wore down Iranian air defenses, defeated Hezbollah and benefited from the Syrian revolution that toppled Bashar al-Assad, another Tehran ally.

Now, with the death of the ayatollah and intense destruction from the air, Iran’s regional influence has receded even further, with uncertain consequences that will unfold over months and even years.

“The Islamic Republic as we know it will not survive this,” said Sanam Vakil, director of the Middle East and North Africa Program at London-based British think tank Chatham House.

“The Middle East will no longer be the same,” he said. “For 47 years, the region lived with a hostile regime and a destabilizing force that countries first tried to isolate and then manage.”

Now, she said, the regime can be dismantled, and something new and different can emerge. This new leadership could end up being even less friendly to Washington, especially if it is dominated by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.

Whoever takes over, Iran will be seriously weakened in the medium term, more inward-looking, focused on internal political strife, domestic security and economic chaos, Vakil said.

In the coming days, however, Iran could spread more short-term chaos as the current leadership tries to end the war without toppling the regime.

It will try to quickly increase the cost to Israel, the United States and its Gulf allies “to force them to back down before it can destabilize the regime,” said Ellie Geranmayeh, deputy head of the Middle East and North Africa program at the European Council on Foreign Relations.

Intensifying attacks on Gulf Arab countries is risky, but it may be Tehran’s best chance to shorten the war — as it could lead the Arab world to pressure the US and Israel to end the campaign.

“Iran’s goal now is to absorb US and Israeli attacks, maintain its position and signal an expansion of the war, while waiting for concerned regional actors to broker a ceasefire,” wrote Vali Nasr, an Iran expert at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University in Washington, in a social media post. “They hope that if Trump doesn’t get a quick victory, he will look for a way out, and subsequent negotiations will be different.”

Iran’s proxy forces across the Middle East could also come to its defense, raising the cost of a protracted war, says Ali Vaez, director of the Iran project at the International Crisis Group, a think tank focused on conflict prevention.

“If Hezbollah fully engages from Lebanon, if militias attack American bases in Iraq and Syria, or if the Houthis escalate into the Red Sea, this ceases to be a bilateral conflict and becomes a regional war that spans the entire Middle East,” Vaez said. A wider war would have significant long-term impacts on oil prices and inflation, particularly if Iran manages to close the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s main shipping routes.

In the long term, however, an Iran consumed by its own internal problems — trying to avoid elite fragmentation, consolidate new leadership or even move towards a more consultative system, with less clerical influence and more power sharing — will not have the energy or resources to interfere in the region. This could open up new opportunities for Lebanon and the Palestinians, as is already happening for the Syrians.

This leaves Israel in a dominant position, making its presence in the region even more ineradicable — something Sunni nations will have to come to terms with. A new, more moderate government could take power in Israel after elections scheduled for this year. With Iran neutralized, this government could feel authorized to move forward from the Gaza ceasefire and negotiate seriously with the Palestinians, under pressure from Washington and Saudi Arabia.

Assuming there is no revolution, a reconstituted Iranian government will still have to deal with a powerful Israel and a United States it does not trust. The current regime has made nuclear enrichment a central element of its strategy to consolidate power and deterrent capacity in the region. And he has refused to change course, even though that insistence appears to have brought him closer to destruction than any other policy — whether support for terrorism abroad or massive repression at home.

It is unclear whether even a more moderate government would make further concessions on its nuclear program under the pressure of war. It is also unclear whether any Iranian leader would feel able to trust Trump, who tore up former President Barack Obama’s 2018 nuclear deal and has now bombed Iran twice in the midst of ongoing negotiations. Would Iran consider it necessary to concede on the nuclear issue to survive? Or, if a more hard-line and security-dominated government emerges, would it try to rush to obtain a nuclear weapon, even more convinced of its necessity?