I have such mixed feelings. On one hand, I feel furious that they waited so long and allowed so many people to be killed. I could have understood if they had chosen not to strike at all — but why wait while so many people were being murdered?
On the other hand, I truly hope Khamenei is actually dead, and that thought makes me feel relieved — even happy. I have a mental list of people I would want to hear are gone, and he’s definitely on it.
But Trump worries me — beyond the fact that he may have done this for selfish reasons. What concerns me even more is the unbelievable incompetence of him and his entire administration.
And I also see no clear path for Iran to become a democratic nation in the near or even medium-term future.
I hope your wife’s family is safe and that there are as few civilian casualties as possible.
Thanks, Irina, we've had some word this morning that her family are safe, and we're also hoping for as few civilian casualties as possible.
Trump was a worry to us, too, because we thought he might actually strike a deal with the mullahs that would keep the regime in power, essentially signing an agreement in the blood of tens of thousands of Iranians.
There is also the worry that he attempts to strong-arm favour with the transitional government, although publicly his wording seems to imply that Iranians will be on their own after the regime falls.
But I wouldn't think that there is no clear path to democracy; there is a network of Iranians outside and within Iran that is highly engaged with this process, and the Iran Prosperity Project have published plans for the transition to a free, democratic Iran. See the link below.
I really hope that there are enough Iranians, both inside and outside the country, who understand the process of transition of power and can navigate it wisely.
My perspective comes more from personal experience than from real knowledge of Iranian society.
What I witnessed when the dictator was killed in Romania was that people were deeply suspicious of leaders who came from outside the country (Romanians who had emigrated and lived abroad for years), even if they had solid political and economic knowledge. There was also distrust toward leaders who were perceived as being externally influenced.
And strangely enough, people who had truly hated the old regime, once confronted with the terrible economic realities of the transition years, were quite ready to embrace a new dictator. Humans are weird (my profound philosophical conclusion 😄).
As for Iran, there is something in the way Reza Pahlavi speaks that gives me bad vibes. I haven’t listened to him extensively — maybe I just happened to catch some of his less compelling interviews — but he seemed intentionally vague while promoting the idea of reinstating a monarchy with himself as monarch, and only afterward allowing people the power to choose.
Hello Alan, while this post is very optimistic and hopeful, I would like to know your opinion about the facts of operation epic fury. What is your rational assessment in regards to all available information?
The regime will not fall easily - regime change needs ground troops and continuous pressure over a long period of time. It needs armed Iranian people that rise up after they have been slaughtered with no help coming for them when they needed it most. The IRGC has many fighters and many chains of command and oftentimes it seems to operate without a clear center. Killing the Ayatollah, his son or various successors, while weakening the regime, does not lead to regime change by itself. It is a great win and it also has a important symbolic meaning; it can lead one to euphoric, but nonetheless wrong judgements. The main question is: will Trump deploy ground troops, even when the American public largely does not want this war and the support will shrink the more American casualties happen and people's lives will worsen due to economic pressures. Considering all factors, there is a high chance that this could end in a kind of low-scale permanent war with frequent escalation spikes. Furthermore, Trump has alienated Europe (and especially Germany, where I am from) with his abhorrent behavior. The only true support that he might get is when NATO is forced to join the war (which is not impossible as a French NATO soldier has died because a terrorist group has attacked anti-terrorist / anti-jihadist forces from France - if further attacks happen this could lead to NATO engagement). But for now, while the regime has been hit hard, the Iranian people cannot win without ground support and with being sufficiently armed. Without this, operation epic fury cannot lead to regime change that liberates the Iranian people.
I think some assumptions are being made with regard to Iran that we should question, particularly because the structural factors within Iran are very different from those of other ME countries. This is relevant to the assumption that boots on the ground are a necessity for the regime to fall and a transition to occur, or to the assumption that Israel/U.S. think that 'cutting off the head of the snake' is/was sufficient, although it is certainly a great symbolic win.
The first point relates to the boots on the ground question. The civil uprisings in Iran are so widespread that a more unstable regime, such as Egypt, arguably (based on recent history) would have been forced out. But the regime has full control over the security apparatus to mobilise against widespread popular protest. So the Israeli/U.S. intervention does not necessarily need to have external boots on the ground; it needs to degrade the internal apparatus of coercion to such an extent that the popular uprising can no longer be suppressed. One crucial aspect that is overlooked is the conventional army, the Artesh, which is separate from the IRGC/Sepah; elements of the military defecting to join the people, of which there are some indicators of happening, would shift the balance of power on the ground. Kurdish militia groups can also provide some counter-force against the regime's security forces in certain regions, too.
It is also worth bearing in mind that Iran is not a particularly Islamist country, one reason among many of why the regime lacks legitimacy. There is an ideological core in the regime and certain elements of the security apparatus, but it is a distinct minority. This is important because the IRGC in particular is also essentially a business conglomerate. To quote an excellent recent article by Hussein Aboubakr Mansour:
"...it's [the IRGC] cohesion depends on solvency, and it can ensure loyalty only so long as it can meet payroll. When headquarters are burning, the bank accounts are frozen, the supreme leader is dead, and the president of the U.S. is offering amnesty on live television, the question each employee faces is whether the regime is still the safest bet for his family's future."
Obviously, the Israeli/U.S. military intervention needs to be sustained to shift the calculus in that direction. And in this regard, it is important to note that, unlike other examples (e.g., Iraq), there is a transitional plan orchestrated by Iranians themselves, known as the Iran Prosperity Project. Learning from America's mistakes in Iraq, the IPP have also said that anyone in the Artesh or IRGC who defects can have a place in building the new Iran (except those who have committed crimes against the people). Another crucial distinction is that, unlike other ME countries, Iran is not riven by sectarian divisions.
Also, nothing I've read, particularly from the Israeli perspective, suggests that anyone thinks a 'cutting off the head of the snake' strategy is sufficient, and it is well understood that the regime's structures extend beyond merely a high command. As you correctly point out, the IRGC in particular functions as a "parallel state". Israel's strategy acknowledges this; my worry with the U.S. and Trump's desire for very short transactional interventions is that they pull out with the job half done.
The final point to make is that Iran calculated that letting fire on the entire Middle East, the Gulf states in particular, would bring diplomatic pressure on the U.S. to end the intervention. This was a profound miscalculation that has backfired, and the regime is now completely isolated.
So, there are factors already 'on the ground', so to speak, that make the consideration for Iran very different to, e.g., Libya or Syria. Given these factors, it is possible that the intervention can cripple the regime's capacity to suppress a mass population revolt. The key question, to me, isn't American ground troops; it is sustaining the intervention for as long as necessary to degrade the coercive regime apparatus, and convince enough of the security forces that the regime is a sinking ship, and they can get into a lifeboat.
thank you for your thoughtful response to my questions and statements. To summarize: I agree with you that Iran is a different case compared to other ME countries. If I understand you correctly, you are saying that basically the Persian people function as the "boots on the ground" and no external ground forces are needed. I am not sure if this is true.
Firstly, the Persian people are not armed, while the Islamist regime, unfortunately, is. Even wide and numerous protests do not in and of itself lead to regime change - as we have seen, the regime has effective means of suppression and punishment that are still in effect. And we know that bombings of a country, at least initially, can lead to the increase of crackdowns and suppressions by framing the protesting people as traitors, as enemies of the country. National identity often hardens during this time and people can become more skeptical of foreign interference. In Iran this might be different for the reasons that you have mentioned - and because a huge group of people is literally requesting such international interference (aka help). I understand your theory that a critical mass has to be reached, e.g. the regime has to be weakened thoroughly, its financial means have to be cut, its elite has to be split, its cohesion and structures must fail and the people have to realize that sticking to the regime is equal to staying on a sinking ship - severing ties is the life boat. So, when the aforementioned conditions are met, you propose the Iranian people will then succeed. But my question is: how? Even a minority with a radical mindset and weapons can suppress a majority of unarmed people. Religious fanaticism can keep people on the ship even if it is damaged or sinking. Will to power is not given up easily. So, the Iranian people need weapons. They have to be armed. Your idea of weakening the regime so much that the unarmed Iranians will take back their country without weapons is very unlikely. Even a fragmented regime with a split elite and less cohesion can still suppress people by having the firepower to do so. This would lead to outcomes that we have already seen in other countries and failed states. Also, it is important to note that the Iranian people are not such a unity as you state. And even the protesters do not form such a unity. They are also fragmented, while the IRGC and the "clerical system" is structurally better organized (it is a super structure including economy, news, military, spies, basij militias, morality police and so on). The protesters do not have this level of coordination and organisation, they might be unufied in their dissatisfaction or hatred of the regime, but not in their actions (e.g. there is fragmentation between monarchists, reformists, diaspora and exile groups and so on). But maybe I see this wrong and they are more united as I think due to their hatred of their common enemy, the Islamist regime. So, even if they disagree in what comes next, they are united in their understanding that the current system certainly must go. Still, I do think arming them sufficiently and increasing their level of organization / coordination would help a lot to reach the goal of regime change.
So, yes, I agree that destroying military infrastructure, economic assests and killing soldiers of the IRGC and various clerical leaders prepares the conditions for the Iranian people to gain victory. A huge mass of people has to feel/know that risking their lives can truely achieve victory. I just don't think that this moment is there yet and the question is how long does it take to reach this critical point (there are cracks in the system, but its far from breaking, imo. The regime knows how revolutions work because they themselves came to power via revolution - and thus they also know how to prevent one).
What you described is basically a regime that is almost completely destroyed, where people are fully demoralized (which could lead to soldiers not fulfilling orders, not shooting people or even switching sides, which would lead to a breakdown of the chains of command. This is unlikely to happen; most Islamists would prefer dying to giving up, I believe). So, I am not fully convinced that your argumet holds (about financial pressures etc. leading them to abandon the sinking ship. They might just stay on it and fight to the bitter end because their mindset overrides their basic drive for survival).
So, for the critical mass to be reached and for the conditions of full regime collapse to be met, as you basically state, it would probably take several months, maybe more than a year of sustained attacks from Israel and the USA + external ground troops or a mass arming of the Iranian people. This seems unlikely.
As you know, TACO: Trump always chickens out. His psychological profile and his past behaviour indicate, to me, that he will create a lot of chaos - and then leave. Mounting oil prices and economic pressures coupled with the unpopularity of this war in the minds of the American population (=public pressure during midterm elections), could lead Trump to chicken out (while declaring victory and giving the fault to other people - leaving chaos and rubble behind). This would be a very bad outcome and while it seems likely, I hope it will not happen. All in all, I am not sure what to think. It is a lot of speculation, even if I try to be as realistic and rational as I can be. But too many unclear variables make it difficult to know the outcome.
Hopefully, I am wrong and the regime will collapse and Trump will finish it. I want the Iranian people to finally break the shackles that they have been fored into and to achieve the freedom their hearts are thirsting for.
I have such mixed feelings. On one hand, I feel furious that they waited so long and allowed so many people to be killed. I could have understood if they had chosen not to strike at all — but why wait while so many people were being murdered?
On the other hand, I truly hope Khamenei is actually dead, and that thought makes me feel relieved — even happy. I have a mental list of people I would want to hear are gone, and he’s definitely on it.
But Trump worries me — beyond the fact that he may have done this for selfish reasons. What concerns me even more is the unbelievable incompetence of him and his entire administration.
And I also see no clear path for Iran to become a democratic nation in the near or even medium-term future.
I hope your wife’s family is safe and that there are as few civilian casualties as possible.
Thanks, Irina, we've had some word this morning that her family are safe, and we're also hoping for as few civilian casualties as possible.
Trump was a worry to us, too, because we thought he might actually strike a deal with the mullahs that would keep the regime in power, essentially signing an agreement in the blood of tens of thousands of Iranians.
There is also the worry that he attempts to strong-arm favour with the transitional government, although publicly his wording seems to imply that Iranians will be on their own after the regime falls.
But I wouldn't think that there is no clear path to democracy; there is a network of Iranians outside and within Iran that is highly engaged with this process, and the Iran Prosperity Project have published plans for the transition to a free, democratic Iran. See the link below.
https://iranopasmigirim.com/fa/iran-prosperity-project
I really hope that there are enough Iranians, both inside and outside the country, who understand the process of transition of power and can navigate it wisely.
My perspective comes more from personal experience than from real knowledge of Iranian society.
What I witnessed when the dictator was killed in Romania was that people were deeply suspicious of leaders who came from outside the country (Romanians who had emigrated and lived abroad for years), even if they had solid political and economic knowledge. There was also distrust toward leaders who were perceived as being externally influenced.
And strangely enough, people who had truly hated the old regime, once confronted with the terrible economic realities of the transition years, were quite ready to embrace a new dictator. Humans are weird (my profound philosophical conclusion 😄).
As for Iran, there is something in the way Reza Pahlavi speaks that gives me bad vibes. I haven’t listened to him extensively — maybe I just happened to catch some of his less compelling interviews — but he seemed intentionally vague while promoting the idea of reinstating a monarchy with himself as monarch, and only afterward allowing people the power to choose.
Payandeh???? IRAN !! 💚🤍❤️
💚🤍❤️
Hello Alan, while this post is very optimistic and hopeful, I would like to know your opinion about the facts of operation epic fury. What is your rational assessment in regards to all available information?
The regime will not fall easily - regime change needs ground troops and continuous pressure over a long period of time. It needs armed Iranian people that rise up after they have been slaughtered with no help coming for them when they needed it most. The IRGC has many fighters and many chains of command and oftentimes it seems to operate without a clear center. Killing the Ayatollah, his son or various successors, while weakening the regime, does not lead to regime change by itself. It is a great win and it also has a important symbolic meaning; it can lead one to euphoric, but nonetheless wrong judgements. The main question is: will Trump deploy ground troops, even when the American public largely does not want this war and the support will shrink the more American casualties happen and people's lives will worsen due to economic pressures. Considering all factors, there is a high chance that this could end in a kind of low-scale permanent war with frequent escalation spikes. Furthermore, Trump has alienated Europe (and especially Germany, where I am from) with his abhorrent behavior. The only true support that he might get is when NATO is forced to join the war (which is not impossible as a French NATO soldier has died because a terrorist group has attacked anti-terrorist / anti-jihadist forces from France - if further attacks happen this could lead to NATO engagement). But for now, while the regime has been hit hard, the Iranian people cannot win without ground support and with being sufficiently armed. Without this, operation epic fury cannot lead to regime change that liberates the Iranian people.
Hi David,
Thank you for your thoughts, and you raise crucial questions. I have written about the nature of authoritarian regime change previously—although it was just before the war, the considerations remain valid: https://3amthoughts.substack.com/i/184787426/the-nature-of-authoritarian-regime-change
I think some assumptions are being made with regard to Iran that we should question, particularly because the structural factors within Iran are very different from those of other ME countries. This is relevant to the assumption that boots on the ground are a necessity for the regime to fall and a transition to occur, or to the assumption that Israel/U.S. think that 'cutting off the head of the snake' is/was sufficient, although it is certainly a great symbolic win.
The first point relates to the boots on the ground question. The civil uprisings in Iran are so widespread that a more unstable regime, such as Egypt, arguably (based on recent history) would have been forced out. But the regime has full control over the security apparatus to mobilise against widespread popular protest. So the Israeli/U.S. intervention does not necessarily need to have external boots on the ground; it needs to degrade the internal apparatus of coercion to such an extent that the popular uprising can no longer be suppressed. One crucial aspect that is overlooked is the conventional army, the Artesh, which is separate from the IRGC/Sepah; elements of the military defecting to join the people, of which there are some indicators of happening, would shift the balance of power on the ground. Kurdish militia groups can also provide some counter-force against the regime's security forces in certain regions, too.
It is also worth bearing in mind that Iran is not a particularly Islamist country, one reason among many of why the regime lacks legitimacy. There is an ideological core in the regime and certain elements of the security apparatus, but it is a distinct minority. This is important because the IRGC in particular is also essentially a business conglomerate. To quote an excellent recent article by Hussein Aboubakr Mansour:
"...it's [the IRGC] cohesion depends on solvency, and it can ensure loyalty only so long as it can meet payroll. When headquarters are burning, the bank accounts are frozen, the supreme leader is dead, and the president of the U.S. is offering amnesty on live television, the question each employee faces is whether the regime is still the safest bet for his family's future."
Obviously, the Israeli/U.S. military intervention needs to be sustained to shift the calculus in that direction. And in this regard, it is important to note that, unlike other examples (e.g., Iraq), there is a transitional plan orchestrated by Iranians themselves, known as the Iran Prosperity Project. Learning from America's mistakes in Iraq, the IPP have also said that anyone in the Artesh or IRGC who defects can have a place in building the new Iran (except those who have committed crimes against the people). Another crucial distinction is that, unlike other ME countries, Iran is not riven by sectarian divisions.
Also, nothing I've read, particularly from the Israeli perspective, suggests that anyone thinks a 'cutting off the head of the snake' strategy is sufficient, and it is well understood that the regime's structures extend beyond merely a high command. As you correctly point out, the IRGC in particular functions as a "parallel state". Israel's strategy acknowledges this; my worry with the U.S. and Trump's desire for very short transactional interventions is that they pull out with the job half done.
The final point to make is that Iran calculated that letting fire on the entire Middle East, the Gulf states in particular, would bring diplomatic pressure on the U.S. to end the intervention. This was a profound miscalculation that has backfired, and the regime is now completely isolated.
So, there are factors already 'on the ground', so to speak, that make the consideration for Iran very different to, e.g., Libya or Syria. Given these factors, it is possible that the intervention can cripple the regime's capacity to suppress a mass population revolt. The key question, to me, isn't American ground troops; it is sustaining the intervention for as long as necessary to degrade the coercive regime apparatus, and convince enough of the security forces that the regime is a sinking ship, and they can get into a lifeboat.
Hello Alan,
thank you for your thoughtful response to my questions and statements. To summarize: I agree with you that Iran is a different case compared to other ME countries. If I understand you correctly, you are saying that basically the Persian people function as the "boots on the ground" and no external ground forces are needed. I am not sure if this is true.
Firstly, the Persian people are not armed, while the Islamist regime, unfortunately, is. Even wide and numerous protests do not in and of itself lead to regime change - as we have seen, the regime has effective means of suppression and punishment that are still in effect. And we know that bombings of a country, at least initially, can lead to the increase of crackdowns and suppressions by framing the protesting people as traitors, as enemies of the country. National identity often hardens during this time and people can become more skeptical of foreign interference. In Iran this might be different for the reasons that you have mentioned - and because a huge group of people is literally requesting such international interference (aka help). I understand your theory that a critical mass has to be reached, e.g. the regime has to be weakened thoroughly, its financial means have to be cut, its elite has to be split, its cohesion and structures must fail and the people have to realize that sticking to the regime is equal to staying on a sinking ship - severing ties is the life boat. So, when the aforementioned conditions are met, you propose the Iranian people will then succeed. But my question is: how? Even a minority with a radical mindset and weapons can suppress a majority of unarmed people. Religious fanaticism can keep people on the ship even if it is damaged or sinking. Will to power is not given up easily. So, the Iranian people need weapons. They have to be armed. Your idea of weakening the regime so much that the unarmed Iranians will take back their country without weapons is very unlikely. Even a fragmented regime with a split elite and less cohesion can still suppress people by having the firepower to do so. This would lead to outcomes that we have already seen in other countries and failed states. Also, it is important to note that the Iranian people are not such a unity as you state. And even the protesters do not form such a unity. They are also fragmented, while the IRGC and the "clerical system" is structurally better organized (it is a super structure including economy, news, military, spies, basij militias, morality police and so on). The protesters do not have this level of coordination and organisation, they might be unufied in their dissatisfaction or hatred of the regime, but not in their actions (e.g. there is fragmentation between monarchists, reformists, diaspora and exile groups and so on). But maybe I see this wrong and they are more united as I think due to their hatred of their common enemy, the Islamist regime. So, even if they disagree in what comes next, they are united in their understanding that the current system certainly must go. Still, I do think arming them sufficiently and increasing their level of organization / coordination would help a lot to reach the goal of regime change.
So, yes, I agree that destroying military infrastructure, economic assests and killing soldiers of the IRGC and various clerical leaders prepares the conditions for the Iranian people to gain victory. A huge mass of people has to feel/know that risking their lives can truely achieve victory. I just don't think that this moment is there yet and the question is how long does it take to reach this critical point (there are cracks in the system, but its far from breaking, imo. The regime knows how revolutions work because they themselves came to power via revolution - and thus they also know how to prevent one).
What you described is basically a regime that is almost completely destroyed, where people are fully demoralized (which could lead to soldiers not fulfilling orders, not shooting people or even switching sides, which would lead to a breakdown of the chains of command. This is unlikely to happen; most Islamists would prefer dying to giving up, I believe). So, I am not fully convinced that your argumet holds (about financial pressures etc. leading them to abandon the sinking ship. They might just stay on it and fight to the bitter end because their mindset overrides their basic drive for survival).
So, for the critical mass to be reached and for the conditions of full regime collapse to be met, as you basically state, it would probably take several months, maybe more than a year of sustained attacks from Israel and the USA + external ground troops or a mass arming of the Iranian people. This seems unlikely.
As you know, TACO: Trump always chickens out. His psychological profile and his past behaviour indicate, to me, that he will create a lot of chaos - and then leave. Mounting oil prices and economic pressures coupled with the unpopularity of this war in the minds of the American population (=public pressure during midterm elections), could lead Trump to chicken out (while declaring victory and giving the fault to other people - leaving chaos and rubble behind). This would be a very bad outcome and while it seems likely, I hope it will not happen. All in all, I am not sure what to think. It is a lot of speculation, even if I try to be as realistic and rational as I can be. But too many unclear variables make it difficult to know the outcome.
Hopefully, I am wrong and the regime will collapse and Trump will finish it. I want the Iranian people to finally break the shackles that they have been fored into and to achieve the freedom their hearts are thirsting for.