Islamic Republic’s ayatollahs are weaker than ever

Two leaders stand at the precipice of open war.

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Iran’s war against Israel took another turn for the worse last week as Operation Rising Lion struck Tehran’s nuclear weapons program, air defences and military leadership. Iran’s retaliation so far has been uneven and ineffective. Contrary to the scaremongers, World War III hasn’t broken out, nor will it.

But what next? The 1979 Islamic Revolution retains power in Tehran and it could rebuild its nuclear and ballistic missile programs and terrorist networks. The only lasting foundation for Middle East peace and security is overthrowing the ayatollahs.

America’s declared objective should be just that. Benjamin Netanyahu made the case last week, telling the Iranian people: “The time has come for you to unite around your flag and your historic legacy by standing up for your freedom from an evil and oppressive regime.”

Despite outward appearances of solid authoritarianism, the regime in Tehran faces widening discontent. The opposition extends across Iran, in the smaller cities and countryside, far beyond Tehran, where the few Western journalists congregate.

Iran’s economy has been parlous for decades and Israeli strikes on oil refineries may weaken it further. Citizen protests in 2018-19 provoked heightened nationwide repression.

International anti-proliferation and anti-terrorism sanctions caused part of the distress, but the fundamental lesson is plain: Never trust your economy to medieval religious fanatics. There is widespread outrage at the corruption and self-enrichment of senior clerics and flag officers (and their families) in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and regular military.

The regime’s imperial projects have done nothing for Iran’s people. They have brought only devastation in Iran itself and elsewhere. Untold billions of dollars were spent over decades to empower terrorist proxies (Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis), to prop up Bashar al-Assad’s regime, and to undertake massive nuclear and missile projects that now lie in ashes.

There’s more. In September 2022, regime police murdered Mahsa Amini, a young Kurdish woman, for not wearing the required hijab. The ensuing nationwide protests under the banner “woman, life, freedom” challenged not merely the regime’s female dress code but its very legitimacy, rejecting the precept that the ayatollahs spoke the word of God that had to be obeyed.

Young Iranians – those under 30 constitute roughly 60 per cent of the population – know they can have a different life than the mullahs allow simply from watching what is happening across the Gulf in places such as the United Arab Emirates. Iran’s non-Persian ethnic groups – Azeris, Kurds, Arabs, Baluchis – all yearn for more autonomy.

Demonstrators wave Iranian and Hezbollah flags as one holds up a poster of Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Picture: Vahid Salemi/AP Photo

While the interests of the various dissidents don’t always coincide, they align entirely in their discontent with the ayatollahs. Significantly, since Israeli attacks began, there has been no spontaneous rush of Iranian nationalism, as pro-regime Western apologists long prophesied. The people of Iran know what is actually at stake.

Widespread finger-pointing within the regime followed Assad’s fall in Syria, then spread to the general population. It is likely now getting more intense.

What should the US do? Most important, it should be clear that neither US nor Israeli troops will be staging a ground invasion of Iran. Those arguing that assistance for Iranian opponents of the mullahs inevitably means another “forever war” are simply engaging in knee-jerk propaganda.

The regime’s weakness and fragmentation at senior levels is the starting point for strategy. Iran is led by an ailing octogenarian, supreme leader Ali Khamenei, with no clear successor in sight. His son apparently wants the job but he is widely disliked.

The leading potential successor, president Ebrahim Raisi, died in 2024 when his helicopter crashed. Khamenei has held power for more than 35 years and is only the second supreme leader, so there is no established path for succession and internal chaos won’t make it any easier. Israel’s decapitation of significant elements of the regime’s military leadership compounds the disarray at the top.

In the current crisis, further divisions within the regime’s leadership should be fostered and supported, especially among military officers who could emulate Egypt’s military during the 2011 protests against Hosni Mubarak, refusing to attack civilian protesters. If significant elements of the regular forces and Revolutionary Guard make clear they won’t fire on their own people, the regime could fall quickly. Offering amnesty to regime officials to switch sides could be a useful tool for a more consolidated opposition.

The Amini protests revealed that while the opposition is widespread, there is little or no national leadership. While this fragmentation means that dissent can’t be stifled simply by arresting or eliminating a small number of people, it also makes nationwide co-ordination and control impossible.

Accordingly, based on advice from regime opponents, both in-country and in the diaspora, Washington could supply communications resources internally and revive the Voice of America to provide accurate information from outside. Basic financial aid to the opposition also could make a substantial difference. Israel, the Gulf Arab states and America can all participate. Success is far from guaranteed but the moment is auspicious.

John Bolton served as White House national security adviser, 2018-19, and ambassador to the UN, 2005-06. He is author of The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir. This article was first published in The Wall Street Journal.