Iran after Khameini: Victory, vacuum or forever war?

Graphics: TBS

"This turn of power has fallen to you—unworthy men; The turn of you unworthy men, too, shall pass."

Saif Farghani, a Persian poet from the 14th century, once wrote these lines. And the verses read remarkably haunting, as thousands of mourners have gathered in the center of Iran's capital, Tehran, after the killing of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in a joint US-Israel attack. 

This marks the most consequential moment in Iranian politics since 1979. For nearly half a century, the Islamic Republic defined itself in opposition to Washington and Tel Aviv, the Great Satan and the Little Satan, as his predecessor Ayatollah Khomeini named the countries, respectively, post-Islamic Revolution. Now, its supreme leader is dead at their hands. 

On the surface, this looks like a decisive strategic victory for Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu. But regime decapitation is not regime change. And as history has shown us again and again, wars in Middle Eastern sands tend to often turn into quagmires.

The central question is not whether Khamenei is gone. The central question is whether the Islamic Republic, as a political system, still exists. And that is the single most important issue that the West needs to figure out, and fast. 

A regime built to last

Iran is not a personalist dictatorship in the mould of Saddam Hussein's Iraq or Muammar Gaddafi's Libya. It is a layered theocratic security state. Power is diffused across institutions: the Assembly of Experts, the Guardian Council, the presidency, the judiciary, and above all the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

As Trita Parsi, an Iranian-Swedish writer and former president of the National Iranian American Council, observed, the republic is "not a monarchy in which the shah is gone and you take out all of the male heirs." The Islamic Republic is a system with redundancy. Senior figures have been assassinated before—most notably Qassem Soleimani in 2020—yet the regime endured.

Khamenei reportedly anticipated his demise, as we have seen that he was killed in his office, not in any secured bunker. Succession planning was already in place. Constitutionally, the Assembly of Experts selects a successor. In practice, the IRGC will play a decisive role in shaping the outcome. 

State collapse in Iran would not resemble a tidy democratic transition. It could produce competing militias, proxy interventions, and spillover across borders. Gulf states, already wary of instability, would face refugee flows and security shocks. Russia and China—both critical of the strikes—would likely recalibrate involvement.

Prior to his death, Khamenei had not discussed his replacement and had said the selection must be made without shame or regard for expediency but rather based on the three principles of "truth, the needs of the country, and God. " Right now, the probable successors are his son Mojtaba Khamenei, his close aides Ali Larijani, Sadiq Larijani, Mohammad Mirbagheri, and Mohsen Araki, as well as Hassan Khomeini, the grandson of the Islamic Republic's founder, Ruhollah Khomeini.

Even if factional competition intensifies, institutional continuity remains plausible. The Islamic Republic's coercive apparatus—IRGC, Basij militias, intelligence services—remains intact. These are not merely ideological actors; they are embedded in vast economic networks. Their survival is tied to regime survival. That alignment of interests makes rapid collapse unlikely.

Geography and the logic of "forever war"

Iran's durability is not only institutional. It is geographic. A country of more than 90 million people, with mountainous terrain, deep strategic depth, and borders touching Iraq, Turkey, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and the Gulf, Iran is not easily subdued from the air.

Air campaigns historically have failed to deliver regime change absent occupation forces. Kosovo and Germany were coupled with ground operations. Yemen absorbed years of bombing. Iraq in 2003 demonstrated that regime overthrow is the beginning—not the end—of instability.

Iran also retains retaliatory capacity. It has launched missiles at Israel and targeted US bases across the Gulf States. It has signalled its ability to disrupt the Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly one-fifth of global oil supplies transit. Even limited disruption can generate global economic shock.

President Donald Trump has long derided open-ended Middle Eastern wars. Yet a strategy aimed at regime change risks precisely that outcome: a weakened but functional adversary capable of sustained attrition. A protracted confrontation would impose mounting military, financial and political costs—particularly in a US domestic environment with limited appetite for casualties.

Society under siege: Resentment in two directions

Iranian society is deeply dissatisfied with clerical rule. Years of sanctions, corruption and repression have produced repeated protest waves, most recently in late 2025 and early 2026, during which thousands were reportedly killed. Since the Mahsa Amini protests, the Iranians have shown genuine desire to be liberated. But not in this manner. 

Such a brazen external attack complicates internal revolt. As Karim Sadjadpour, policy analyst at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, noted, outside intervention tends to accentuate existing dispositions rather than flip loyalties. Regime supporters double down. Opponents blame the regime but do not necessarily welcome foreign bombs. Especially when the bombs killed 108 girls at an elementary school. 

Iran has lived under four decades of ideological conditioning: anti-Americanism and anti-Zionism are embedded in state narratives. Many Iranians may despise the clerical elite while simultaneously rejecting the idea of Washington or Israel determining their political future.

This dynamic reduces the probability that bombing alone will catalyse a mass uprising. Revolutions require inspirational and organisational leadership. While exiled figures such as Reza Pahlavi command visibility, opposition networks inside Iran remain fragmented and structurally weak.

The paradox is acute: people will not risk joining a revolution unless they believe it can succeed. And they cannot believe it can succeed unless enough others join. And for that, charismatic leaders are needed. Indigenous narrative is needed. Both are remarkably absent so far. 

A fissile, multi-ethnic state

Iran is a mosaic: Persians, Azeris, Kurds, Arabs, Baluchis and others. In a stable state, this diversity is manageable. In a collapsing one, it becomes combustible.

Iraq after 2003 and Libya after 2011 illustrate how multi-ethnic societies with weakened central authority can fracture along sectarian and tribal lines. External encouragement of ethnic mobilisation—reports suggest outreach to Iranian Kurds—risks accelerating fragmentation.

State collapse in Iran would not resemble a tidy democratic transition. It could produce competing militias, proxy interventions, and spillover across borders. Gulf states, already wary of instability, would face refugee flows and security shocks. Russia and China—both critical of the strikes—would likely recalibrate involvement.

Insecurity tends to empower armed actors over civil society. As historical data on authoritarian transitions shows, violence-triggered transitions rarely produce stable democracies in the short term. More often, they yield another form of authoritarianism.

The IRGC factor

"Killing Khamenei is not regime change. The IRGC is the regime," as the Council on Foreign Relations bluntly put it.

The Revolutionary Guards are not simply a military force; they are a political-economic complex. They control major infrastructure, energy assets and construction firms. Their commanders are beneficiaries of the status quo.

While leadership losses, like Ali Shamkhani, Mohammad Pakpour and others, may affect morale and operational coherence, institutions can regenerate. The assassination of Soleimani did not dismantle the Quds Force. Commanders are replaceable, even if not equally charismatic. And a figurehead on a machine churns out results nonetheless. 

At moments of existential threat, the IRGC has historically prioritised regime survival. Its calculus now is stark: unleash maximal retaliation and risk annihilation, or calibrate strikes to preserve space for diplomatic off-ramps. Early signals suggest measured retaliation rather than total escalation—targeting military installations while avoiding direct strikes on Gulf civilian infrastructure.

Succession without Khamenei

Khamenei's death initiates only the second leadership transition since 1979. The first, in 1989, was managed internally with relative stability. This time is more volatile—but not necessarily fatal to the system.

Reports indicate that contingency committees were formed after the 12-day war in June. The Assembly of Experts remains constitutionally empowered to appoint a successor. Even if factional bargaining is intense, a continuity outcome—"Khamenei-ism without Khamenei"—is plausible.

Continuity does not mean stability. A new leader will confront economic distortion, inflation and currency collapse. Sanctions relief remains the principal lever for recovery, yet US congressional politics constrain sweeping relief. Without negotiation, Iran's economy faces severe contraction.

Still, regimes have survived economic collapse before. North Korea demonstrates how repression combined with external threat narratives can consolidate internal control.

Short-term triumph, long-term uncertainty

For Washington and Jerusalem, the temptation to press advantage is strong. Yet deeper eradication risks crossing thresholds that trigger regional war. Iran retains the capacity to widen the theatre—via proxies or direct strikes—should it conclude that regime survival is impossible under current trajectories.

A prolonged war of attrition could offset early tactical gains. Energy shocks, global inflation and escalating military commitments would test political resolve. The value of continuing the war may be weighed against regional destabilisation.

Trump's stated objective—"peace throughout the Middle East"—is ambitious. But Middle Eastern conflicts often defy linear planning. Early military dominance can erode into strategic overextension.

The democratic imperative

The most sustainable outcome for Iran is neither clerical entrenchment nor an externally imposed monarchy. It is a negotiated transition toward representative governance, secular rule of law and economic normalisation.

Iran possesses the human capital and historical depth to be a major G20 economy. Its society is educated, entrepreneurial and globally connected. Yet transitions born of violence rarely deliver liberal democracy in the immediate term.

The danger is that insecurity empowers the most coercive actors. Replacing one authoritarian structure with another—whether clerical or military—would perpetuate the cycle that has defined Iranian politics since 1979.

For now, the Islamic Republic appears battered but not broken. Its institutions were designed for survival. Its geography complicates decisive external victory. Its society, traumatised by repression and war, is unlikely to unify around a foreign-sponsored alternative overnight.

Khamenei's death closes one chapter. It does not resolve the underlying contradictions of Iranian governance or the geopolitical contest that surrounds it.

The Middle East has seen many wars of choice. The lesson from Iraq and Libya is that toppling a regime is often the simplest phase. What follows can last decades.

Shadique Mahbub Islam is a journalist.