3 Big Questions Now

Welcome back. A few days ago we were discussing negotiations in Geneva. Now we are deep into a full-scale war, living through a situation of extraordinary volatility. Today, we try to cut through the noise and look at the most salient issues.

Share your thoughts, analysis and predictions with me at ailves@mbn-news.com. If you were forwarded the newsletter, please subscribe. Read me in Arabic here, or on the flagship Alhurra Arabic-language and English-language news sites.

Quote of the Week

“The hardest hits are yet to come from the U.S. military. The next phase will be even more punishing on Iran than it is right now.”

– U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio

TOP OF THE NEWS

How far will the U.S. and Israel go? How long can the Iranians hold out? Will the Gulf, or Turkey, or other players in the region shift to a more active role? What about Russia and China, Iran’s ostensible friends?

Those are important questions, but we leave them to others for now. Let’s instead focus on Iran itself.

A Changing Regime

Start with a central fact: Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei is dead. (You can read my obituary of him here.) He was only the second person to hold that position in the 47-year history of the Islamic Republic. How the regime provides for his successor, and whether it can conduct an existential war at the same time, is likely to prove a crucial test. (That issue is highlighted by the huge loss of life at the highest ranks of the regime; dozens of top government and military leaders have been killed in airstrikes.) A temporary council has stepped in under the constitution, but the Assembly of Experts still has to meet and pick a new supreme leader (see my more detailed analysis here).

Some western media have already declared Khamenei’s son Mojtaba the victor in this race. That may well prove to be the case – but it’s probably too early to tell for sure. Reporting from Tehran suggests that clerics and security chiefs are split over whether to move quickly for the sake of continuity or wait until the war pressure eases. We do know that there is considerable public resistance to the notion of hereditary succession. But does public opinion count? Other candidates have arguably greater pull inside the all-important Assembly of Experts, which has to place its stamp of approval on the winner; others have power bases within the clerical establishment. Keep an eye on Gholam‑Hossein Mohseni‑Ejei, chief of the judiciary and a long‑time security insider, whose career bridges the judiciary and security. He’s already on the newly-formed three-person interim leadership council, along with Alireza Arafi and President Pezeshkian, and will surely end up in some leadership role.

One thing is clear: The war is putting the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps front and center. The IRGC, as a state within the state, enters this war deeply intertwined with the economy, the bureaucracy, and provincial power structures. It has its own intelligence apparatus and its own media networks. While its bases and personnel have suffered some damage from the U.S.-Israeli air campaign, the war gives it a strong argument for centralizing authority. Count on the Guard to assert that only a security‑dominated state can defend the country.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei, the head of the judiciary and Alireza Arafi, deputy chairman of the Assembly of Experts, attend a meeting of the interim leadership council of Iran. Photo: Reuters

No matter who is named to the top spot, his relationship to the IRGC will be critical. The new supreme leader could prove to be an independent player or a puppet of the Guard. Some senior officers might prefer a system more openly run by the national security establishment, which could mean backing someone like Mohseni‑Ejei. Or they might settle on a form of collective leadership with a strong rule for the security elite.

At press time there is no announced successor, and even basic questions such as how and where the Assembly will convene in wartime remain open. That uncertainty at the top filters down the system, from Revolutionary Guard commanders trying to read their future chain of command to ordinary Iranians watching state TV for clues about who will really be in charge.

A woman in Tehran after the commencement of hostilities. Photo: Reuters

92 Million Other Iranians

Iranians lost access to the outside world soon after the airstrikes began. Some of this may have been the result of U.S.-Israeli cyberattacks as well as air bombardment; it also appears that the regime moved to shut down much of the Internet access that remained. Iranians did take advantage of Telegram and other messaging apps to get out information while they still could. Yet given the relative paucity of information from inside the country, any assessments of public opinion should be received with caution. But there are a few things that we can say with a degree of confidence.

The society that is experiencing this war is already on edge. The 2025-26 protests spread to hundreds of localities across more than two dozen provinces, and left thousands dead in one of the bloodiest crackdowns since 1979. A foreign war can cut both ways. In the short term, external attack and uncertainty over succession can produce a rally-around-the-flag effect and justify a harsher security response. We will soon see whether ordinary Iranians mostly blame foreign powers for their losses, or the leadership whose choices left the country exposed in the first place. We’ve heard anecdotal accounts of IRGC troops, police, and Basij militia patrolling cities to pre-empt protests. But there have also been reports of Iranians taking to the streets to celebrate Khamenei’s death – not an entirely unexpected sentiment among people who have just witnessed the mass slaughter of their fellow citizens on the orders of that leader.

In the longer run, a protracted conflict will deepen economic misery, strain already eroded trust in the state, and expose fissures inside the elite, which could reignite broad‑based unrest once the initial shock wears off. Much will depend on how the interim leadership manages basic issues that matter in daily life: food and fuel, conscription, casualty information, and whether it opts for maximum fear or some limited accommodation to keep the lid on.

It is possible that the protest networks built in the past few months will find ways to re-emerge under the conditions of war. If they do, it appears that they will largely be on their own. Aside from a few strikes on IRGC bases and buildings housing the revolutionary courts, the U.S. and Israel seem to be focusing overwhelmingly on overtly military targets: nuclear installations, missiles and missile launchers, and naval assets. Absent large-scale defection of regime-friendly forces, it’s hard to imagine how unarmed demonstrators will be able to hold their own against the guys with guns.

Mahsa Jina Amini, the Kurdish girl whose killing by the regime’s “morality police” set off the “Woman, Life Freedom” protests in 2022-23. Photo: Reuters

Iranians Who Aren’t Persians

Modern-day Iran is a multi-ethnic state. The titular Persians make up around 61% of the population. The rest is split among Kurds, Baluch, Arabs, and other minorities who occupy key borderlands and energy corridors, and could become either centers of resistance or heavily policed buffer zones that help the regime keep the rest of the country quiet. Do these communities – split by geography, ideology, and rival parties – stay fragmented, or do they find enough common ground to turn the war into a wider internal revolt?

Kurdish regions in Iraq and Iran sit astride vital supply lines and smuggling routes, and Kurdish parties now face intense pressure from both Tehran and its enemies. CNN and others report that the CIA is working to arm Iranian Kurdish forces to help spark an uprising. Do Kurdish movements use this moment to open a northern front against the regime, or hold back for fear of once again being abandoned and crushed?

There’s another complicating factor here. The potential role of the Kurds (and other ethnic groups) has already caused a revealing split within the Iranian opposition. When several Kurdish groups announced that they were forming a coalition aimed at the “overthrow of the Islamic Republic,” they were immediately denounced by a man you might expect to be a natural ally: Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of the last Shah, who was toppled in 1979. His father made cracking down on Iranian Kurds a central feature of his own regime, and Pahlavi Jr. seems inclined to follow suit, declaring that the Kurds behind the move “made baseless and contemptible claims against the territorial integrity and national unity of Iran.”

One leading Washington analyst, Karim Sadjadpour, has argued that “pluralistic Iranian nationalism” is the most serious force opposing the Islamic regime – and that the news of CIA support for the Kurds will correspondingly “alarm many Iranians – and undermine the regime’s opposition.” Perhaps he is right. Whether Iran’s various minority groups can unite against their common foes, or whether the weakening of central control leads to a deeper fragmentation, is one of the most important issues to watch as events progress.

CLOSER

 

Young Iranians last spring. Photo: Reuters

Finally, let’s consider the role of a group that has already demonstrated its capacity to resist despite overwhelming odds: Iran’s younger generation. They are dramatically overrepresented among the ranks of those who gave their lives in the most recent round of protests, but that is hardly the first time that they have shown their defiance. In his initial statement on the launching of hostilities, President Trump urged Iranians “to take over your government,” declaring “it will be yours to take.”

But as the recent slaughter has so vividly demonstrated, that is far more easily said than done. If the U.S. and Israel continue to resort solely to air power to assert their agenda, the IRGC, the Basij, and other internal security forces will almost certainly retain the capacity to punish domestic dissent. A generation shaped by sanctions, protests, and the internet will decide whether to endure, disengage or risk another round of being slaughtered in a confrontation with the regime’s ruthless security forces. Check out this great first-person take on the power of Iran’s youth in facing down the regime. Will they see this war as a reason to rise up, or a reason to keep their heads down?