Decapitation Without Collapse
Why the killing of Iran’s supreme leader risks escalation rather than regime change. A commentary by Nathalie Tocci
The United States and Israel have attacked Iran with the explicit objective of regime change. In a matter of hours, the war has decapitated the Islamic Republic, killing Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Yet despite the apparent success of the operation, the outlook for Iran, the Middle East and the United States is bleak.
Contrary to what President Donald Trump has claimed — and as confirmed by the CIA itself — there was no imminent Iranian threat, nuclear or missile-related, against the United States that could justify the intervention. It is well established that Trump had not in fact “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear programme, as he asserted after the joint Israeli-US attack on Iran last summer.
The International Atomic Energy Agency had detected neither a resumption of uranium enrichment nor a move towards a military nuclear programme. Trump, followed closely by Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, later suggested that this time the objective was different: not the destruction of Iran’s nuclear capabilities, but regime change, openly calling on the Iranian people to rise up.
Military actions confirm this shift. The leadership of the regime, starting with Khamenei himself, has been placed directly in the crosshairs. This comes in the wake of the bloody confrontation between Israel and Hamas and the failure of the siege of Gaza, which has militarily weakened the Tehran-led “axis of resistance”.
Here, however, the good news ends.
The Iranian regime has been decapitated, but it shows no signs of collapse. Unlike Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, Muammar Gaddafi’s Libya, Bashar al-Assad’s Syria or even Vladimir Putin’s Russia, the Islamic Republic is authoritarian but not centred on a single individual.
The supreme leader embodies the theocratic face of the system, commands the armed forces and arbitrates among institutions, but operates within a dense and overlapping constellation of power centres: the Guardian Council, the Assembly of Experts, the Expediency Council, the Revolutionary Guards, the intelligence services, the Supreme National Security Council and, more recently, bodies such as the Defence Council.
This institutional complexity matters.
Khamenei was 86 years old, and Iran had already been preparing for a constitutional and political transition since the end of the latest twelve-day war with Israel. His killing therefore did not catch the regime unprepared. The rapid establishment of an interim leadership council and the counter-attacks against Israel and US bases in the Gulf and Jordan suggest that command structures remain intact. Trump could hardly have been unaware of this. At best, he may have hoped for a Venezuelan-style implosion.
In Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro — like Khamenei — was removed, and Trump eventually reached a tacit accommodation with the Chavista regime, trading access to oil for political survival. Washington may be hoping for a similar outcome in Iran, if not with the entire regime, then at least with a significant faction of its security apparatus.
But Iran is not Venezuela. Hostility towards the United States and Israel is not an accessory feature of the Islamic Republic; it is a foundational pillar of its revolutionary identity.
While this identity had been eroding among large segments of the Iranian population until last summer, two wars in less than a year have not made regime change more attractive. One can despise a repressive government and still oppose an unjustified foreign attack. That opposition becomes easier as civilian casualties rise. It is doubtful that the families of the 148 victims — mostly children — killed in the attack on a school in Minab, in southern Iran, will view Netanyahu favourably.
Trump’s foreign policy is predatory, volatile and ultimately cowardly. In little more than a year, the United States has attacked seven countries — Nigeria, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Venezuela, Iraq and Iran — all far weaker than itself, with operations lasting only days. In none of these cases did Trump seek or achieve lasting political transformation.
This time, however, he has signalled a longer war, one that will bring home American body bags draped in stars and stripes.
Yet Trump’s primary constraint is domestic. His Maga base is deeply reluctant to support an open-ended war in the Middle East, especially one involving US boots on the ground.
The Iranian regime understands that its only viable survival strategy is to raise the costs of war for the United States by escalating the conflict. This is a high-risk strategy, but a rational one, given that the regime’s survival is at stake.
At some point, Trump may be tempted to walk away and shift his focus elsewhere.
In that scenario, Iran could end up in the hands of a military strongman. In the initial phase of the war, Tehran chose not only to strike Israel but also to broaden the conflict by targeting US assets in the Middle East, fully aware that this would antagonise Gulf states with which it had been cautiously rebuilding relations.
Attacks in the Gulf, near-paralysis of navigation through the Strait of Hormuz and a probable spike in oil prices are the tools of a desperate but resilient regime fighting for survival.
Trump could yet repeat Vladimir Putin’s mistake — the belief that Ukraine could be conquered and its government overthrown in two weeks, only to become mired in a prolonged war.
Or he could remain Trump: washing his hands of the conflict and moving on. Either way, the likely outcome in Iran is not liberal democracy, but the rise of a military figure — perhaps less overtly ideological, but no less anti-American — at the apex of power. For the United States, it would mark yet another episode of short-sighted interventionism, accelerating the country’s relative decline.
A previous version of this article was published by the Italian daily La Stampa
IEP@BU does not express opinions of its own. The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the authors. Any errors or omissions are the responsibility of the authors.
