For years, interventionists within the West made the argument that the long-term prices of the political order in Iran, similar to repression, financial decay, and social stagnation, outweighed the dangers of a violent exterior regime change. Final month, the “ethical barrier” to intervention was considerably lowered by the bloody crackdown on protests in January and the in depth constructive protection of the Iranian opposition in Western media.
The US-Israeli intervention got here quickly after, with each United States President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urging Iranians to “stand up”. The assassinations of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and different high-level Iranian officers had been celebrated as a serious achievement.
Nonetheless, the idea that the elimination of a central figurehead will result in a “quick and decisive rupture” adopted by a easy transition is way from sure. In reality, Iran after Ayatollah Khamenei is probably not in any respect what the proponents of intervention want to see.
Regime change gone improper
The broader Center East has three latest examples of why outdoors intervention is unlikely to end in a easy transition and stability. Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya show that exterior army operations are adopted not by fast stabilisation, however by chaos. That a lot is clear from a fast have a look at the scores of those nations on the Worldwide Governance Indicators of the World Bank.
Afghanistan skilled regime change in 2001 following the US invasion; that triggered twenty years of preventing and assaults on civilians. In 2021, the nation noticed the return of the ousted regime, however stability stays elusive.
Iraq has seen numerous insurgencies and civil conflict following the US invasion in 2003; regardless of democratisation efforts, the nation continues to be unable to return to pre-2003 stability.
Libya’s collapse following a NATO-led intervention in 2011 noticed the nation drop from constructive stability scores within the Worldwide Governance Indicators to a number of the lowest on the planet, with no restoration in sight. The nation stays break up between two centres of governance – in Tripoli and Benghazi.
None of those nations have regained their pre-intervention stability ranges. Their paths are marked by long-lasting fragility and volatility, fairly than the “temporary adjustment” promised by proponents of intervention.
Regime change that won’t come
The regime in Iran is totally different in some ways from those that collapsed in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya. The assassination of chief Ayatollah Khamenei might have a profound affect that doesn’t end in state collapse.
Inside the symbolic universe of Shia Islam, to which the vast majority of Iranians belong, Khamenei’s death could be interpreted because the success of a martyrological script. Dying by the hands of perceived enemies of Islam could be framed as redemptive passage fairly than defeat; it’s not a bitter collapse, as is the case with different Center Japanese rulers who had been ousted or killed. It’s as an alternative an idealised closure: the sacralisation of political life by sacrificial dying.
This martyrological framing has the potential to rally a good portion of the inhabitants, together with those that had been beforehand crucial of the management, round a story of nationwide defence. By reworking a fallen chief right into a martyr of “overseas aggression”, the state can set off a surge of nationalist cohesion and deep-seated resentment in direction of exterior intervention, probably unifying the safety forces and traditionalist sectors of society in a means that proponents of regime change didn’t anticipate.
This can be tougher in the present day because of the consequence of latest protests in comparison with the earlier confrontation with Israel in June 2025. Nonetheless, it stays a robust chance.
Additionally it is vital to notice that the experiences of Iraq, Libya, and Afghanistan point out that the absence of intact bureaucratic, safety, and monetary establishments throughout exterior intervention can result in extended instability.
For Iran, the large query now could be whether or not administrative cohesion and territorial integrity could be preserved. Reaching this relies totally on the survival of the “deep state”, the resilient civil forms and technocratic class that manages the nation’s fiscal and important providers.
If the central financial institution, ministries, and regional governorates proceed to operate regardless of the management vacuum, the state might keep away from the whole “atomisation” seen in Libya. Moreover, territorial integrity rests on the continued unity between the common military (Artesh) and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
One main problem can be discovering a “nationwide unifier” within the present local weather. The bloody repression of the January protests has deeply fractured the connection between the folks and the political elite, making it troublesome for any institution determine to assert broad legitimacy. Whereas a “technocratic-military council” led by figures with managerial backgrounds, similar to Parliamentary Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, former President Hassan Rouhani or Secretary of the Supreme Nationwide Safety Council of Iran Ali Larijani, may try to step in to offer a “security-first” stabilisation, they lack the non secular authority of the late supreme chief.
Within the absence of a determine who can bridge the chasm between the embittered avenue and the survival-driven safety equipment, any new management will seemingly wrestle to challenge authority.
Instability after Khamenei
If institutional continuity fails or the military and the IRGC start to compete, the chance of fragmentation and chronic battle would enhance. On this state of affairs, the violent rupture some name for in the present day might mark the start of a structurally entrenched cycle of insecurity whose prices will probably be borne by Iranian society at massive.
There are two components which will form such an consequence.
First is hollowing out of the middle class. Many years of Western sanctions have decimated the very social group that historically serves as a stabiliser throughout political transitions. With no sturdy center class, the political vacuum left behind by the continuing conflict on Iran is extra more likely to be crammed by armed factions or radicalised remnants of the present safety equipment.
These parts of the “ancien regime”, particularly hardline cadres inside the IRGC and the Basij who understand any new order as an existential menace to their lives and belongings, are unlikely to vanish or “merge peacefully”, because the Trump administration seems to hope. As a substitute, they’re extra more likely to transition from state actors to decentralised rebel teams, utilizing their deep data of the nation’s infrastructure to sabotage any try at a secure transition.
Second is social fragmentation. Iran possesses a degree of ethnic and linguistic diversity better than that of the common Center Japanese nation. Within the absence of a government, and with safety management at the moment focused, the chance of state fragmentation and the rise of varied militias shouldn’t be underestimated.
In worst-case state of affairs, inside turmoil is more likely to observe the fault strains of present grievances. Within the borderlands, long-simmering insurgencies among the many Baluch, Kurd and Arab populations may escalate into full-scale separatist conflicts as central management diminishes.
In main metropolitan centres, the collapse of a unified safety chain might result in localised upheaval, the place rogue militias, performing with out orders, compete for management over neighbourhood sources. Concurrently, a violent “conflict of the elites” is inevitable, because the remaining army and political heavyweights would wrestle to fill the vacuum of the management, probably turning the state’s personal establishments into battlefields of succession.
In latest weeks, the saying “a bitter ending is healthier than infinite bitterness” has been invoked by some to justify overseas army intervention in Iran. Such perceptions appear to relaxation on the assumption {that a} fast decision could be achieved by army means.
Nonetheless, as the info from Iraq, Libya, and Afghanistan affirm, conflict outcomes usually are not linear; they’re catalysts for unpredictable and protracted deterioration. Whereas the dying of Ayatollah Khamenei marks a symbolic finish to an period, historical past means that the “anticipated worth” of such a violent rupture is usually a path of power instability and institutional erosion fairly than institutional renewal.
For the folks of Iran, the “bitter ending” of a regime is probably not the ultimate act of their struggling, however the opening chapter of a brand new, structurally entrenched period of “infinite bitterness” that would hang-out the area for many years to come back.
The views expressed on this article are the creator’s personal and don’t essentially replicate Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
