Iran is now effectively controlled by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The current ayatollah, and any future ayatollahs, will be figureheads without real power. As Mao said, power grows out of the barrel of a gun.
The IRGC, fearful of street demonstrations against the regime, reportedly is threatening to shoot protesters:
An Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commander warned that anyone who takes to the streets in Iran will be targeted under a “shoot-to-kill order.”
Salar Abnoush, an IRGC commander, threatened protesters with death on Thursday evening during a live broadcast on IRIB News TV, saying: “Anyone in Iran who voices a tune that aligns with the enemy has joined Tel Aviv and Netanyahu, and a shoot-to-kill order has been issued for them.” He stressed that no one had ever delivered such a message to the public so bluntly.
The threat is of course credible, since just a few weeks ago the IRGC murdered thousands of demonstrators against the regime.
Totalitarian governments usually hang on long after they have lost the support or confidence of even a large majority of citizens. The USSR, East Germany, Cuba and Venezuela are just a few recent examples. Generally, unpopular totalitarian regimes can stay in power as long as they command the armed forces, and fall only when soldiers are no longer willing to shoot civilians.
Iran is not yet at that stage, and its population is disarmed. I therefore fear it is likely that the Islamic Republic will at least nominally survive the current bombardment. On that scenario, Iran will be ruled by the IRGC, with an ayatollah perhaps nominally on the scene and a relaxation of some of the regime’s most unpopular features, like the morality police.
Personally, I would be willing to use ground troops to liberate the Iranian people, but that is an unpopular view and there is no chance, I think, that President Trump will do it. So the most likely outcome is a neutered Iranian dictatorship that lacks the military and financial resources to cause much mischief for the foreseeable future. In that case, the aerial war will have achieved its objective, but the press will claim that it was a failure because it did not bring about regime change.
As often happens these days, I would be happy to be proved wrong.
