The big question on everybody’s mind is “how will this end?” This is a very, very complicated and professionally risky question for us to try to answer at this early stage but … we like a challenge and, given that we’ve been covering Iran for nearly a decade for clients, we have rare insight to lean on.
Note: Before we dive in, you’ll notice that we keep talking about the “revolution”. To most minds this means a specific event; the moment of an overthrow, a coup itself. Not so in Iran. For the Islamic Republic the “revolution” is the entire ideology, not the moment they seized power, but encapsulated by it. And importantly, a central aim of the regime is not only to protect the ideology and power base of the revolution in Iran, but also to actively export this ideology outside Iran. This is a very important aspect to understand and remember when you consider Iranian decisions, rhetoric, and actions.
As we’ve discussed at length in various of our prior articles, including Crunch Time for Iran where we predicted the attacks on the very weekend they occurred, neither of the two strategic objectives of regime change or ending nuclear ambitions can be achieved with US/Israeli air power alone. This is not to say that anyone has really defined the USA’s objectives as such – if you listen to comments from Trump, Rubio, Hegseth, and even Trump’s latest pick for Homeland Security Secretary, Senator Markwayne Mullin, they all give different answers. Perhaps that’s the strategy right there – if you don’t define your desired outcomes then you don’t have to admit defeat when you fail to achieve any. But in truth, the only real aims that could possibly motivate or justify Israeli and US strikes against Iran would be that of regime change and ending Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
So, with those in mind, and noting that we have said clearly that Iran’s nuclear ambitions can only be ended if the Iranians themselves choose to do so – either a new regime decides to stop or the current regime decides to stop – let’s look at the possible outcome scenarios:
- Unconditional Iranian Surrender – 2% likelihood. On 6th March President Trump declared that there would be no deal with Iran at the end of this conflict and that he would only accept unconditional surrender. We strongly suspect he’s going to have to eat his words. As we explained in Where Will Iran Target Next, the regime has had a very long time to prepare for an existential conflict, are displaying a mastery of Effects Based Planning in targeting neighbours and key sectors/ supply chains, and only need to out-endure the USA’s miniscule political patience for expending blood and treasure.
- Popular Uprising, Monarchy – 3% likelihood. As we discussed in Trump’s Off Ramp, there’s some sign that the US has hitched its wagon to the son of the deposed Shah, Reza Pahlavi. Yes, there’s a level of support for Pahlavi inside Iran, but not a great deal. “The Iranian people do not have fond memories of Pahlavi’s father’s rule. Note that the US and UK actually re-installed the Shah themselves so as to retain their grip over Iran’s oil reserves, and his excesses and brutality directly led to the 1979 Islamic Revolution that both deposed the Shah, and ushered in the current clerical regime. Insanity is doing the same thing multiple times and expecting a different result. In short, any US attempt to install Reza Pahlavi as a new Shah in Iran is going to quickly fall flat on its face.” Read more about the Shah in section 7 “Clerical Regime Continues” below.
- Lengthy Civil War Eventually Ousts Regime/ Splits Iran – 5% likelihood. Iran’s 92 million population is dominated by the Persian ethnic group; roughly 61% of the population. The remainder is made up of Azeris (~19%), Kurds (~10%), Lurs (~6%), Balochs (~2%), Arabs (~2%), Turkic (2%), Gilakis, Mazandaranis, Tats, Talysh, Assyrians, Armenians, and Georgians. About 90% of the population are Shia, whilst Sunnis and other Muslim branches account for 9%. The final 1% includes Christians, Jews, Zoroastrians, Sabean Mandeans, and Baha’i. As you’re no doubt beginning to realise, even were the CIA or Mossad to manage to galvanise all non-Shia, or all non-Persians, they’d be hard-pressed to achieve anything against the dominant ethnic or religious groupings of Iran. Indeed, for decades, the current regime has brutally oppressed the minority ethnic groups in particular, and every time an external threat materializes the regime is quick to brutally reinforce its iron grip around these groups. In short, a civil war that is founded and motivated along ethnic or religious lines is likely to be short-lived and to inflict considerable suffering on the rebellious groups, whether they are involved in the insurrection or not.
- Popular Uprising, New Government – 10% likelihood. As we explained in Crunch Time For Iran; “Yes, in recent weeks there has been considerable unrest across Iran, but the brutal grip of the regime remains in place and has inflicted innumerable casualties amongst the brave souls that have resisted. Could a coordinated air campaign reduce the strength of Iran’s security forces sufficiently to enhance the Iranian people’s chances to prevail? Maybe, but there is zero guarantee, and there is just as much chance, if not more, that even were the clerics’ regime to fall the IRGC would take over, instead of the people – which is a worse outcome for everyone concerned.” The Basij and the IRGC simply aren’t going to lay down their weapons and expose themselves to the kind of vengeful bloodletting that always happens after a regime falls. They will cling on with their fingernails if they need, rather than see them extracted with pliers.
- Hardliners Killed, More Compliant Regime – 10% likelihood. In Crunch Time For Iran we put forward an elegant solution to the conflict: “What the US and Israel could do in Iran is to appeal to a select few more commercially-minded members of Iran’s military apparatus (remembering that the IRGC in particular is deeply entwined into Iran’s business world), suggest that they could remain in power and enrich themselves if they only overthrow/ dispose of the clerics and their more zealous military colleagues, quash the nuclear programme, and utilize Iran’s existing governance apparatus combined with increasing sanctions relief to exact real and lasting change for Iran, at a pace that does not provoke war, civil war, widespread unrest, or bloodletting.” That initial proposal was based on the US negotiating towards that outcome without resorting to warfare. Clearly, the window for that has now evaporated. However, as we discussed at the end of Where Will Iran Target Next it may well be that, with the intelligence that the Israelis are able to provide, the USA and Israel are indeed pursuing this option but through kinetic means. “So far, the US and Israel have killed about 50 key leadership personnel in Iran’s regime. We’re not yet convinced, but we’re hoping (flimsy, we know) that they are actually trying to control the resulting explosion after pulling the pin on the grenade. If they can eliminate all of the hardline clerics, IRGC officers .. that might have been candidates to rule, then all that is left to choose from are the moderate, reformist characters that could be more amenable to Iran surrendering its nuclear ambitions, surrendering its proxy links, and rejoining the world as a stable, not necessarily democratic but at least un-disruptive, and prosperous nation.” The problem is this is an exceedingly difficult strategy to pursue given the highly limited control that can be exerted. All the US/ Israel can do is kill hardline candidates wherever/ whenever they find them. They cannot control how previously more moderate candidates react to their country being pulverized, their families and comrades killed. The US/Israel also killed Ayatollah Khamenei, a key religious figure for all Shia inside Iran, and indeed worldwide … and to add insult to injury did so during Ramadan. That’s like killing the pope at Christmas. If you wanted to turn moderates into hardliners, you could not have planned it better. Nor can the US/Israel control how well prospective hardline candidates are protected and concealed. It is a vast gamble, hence the low likelihood. You may be thinking that the longer the bombing campaign goes on, the greater the chance this plan works. We’d encourage you to look at it from another perspective; the longer this conflict goes on, the greater opportunity Iran has to inflict economic damage on neighbouring states like UAE, Qatar, and KSA, and the greater economic damage they can inflict on the world by strangling oil and gas supply. Frankly, a longer campaign is not in US/Israeli interests, but is in Iranian interests.
- Clerical Regime Continues, IRGC Take Greater Role in Domestic Policy – 30% likelihood. We’ve long been warning that a likely, and very concerning, outcome of any attempt at regime change in Iran is that the IRGC obtain more power, not less. The IRGC aren’t the only military force fielded by Iran, but they are certainly the most powerful and influential – indeed a lot of former IRGC officers go into politics. They control Iran’s ballistic missile arsenal, Iran’s proxy forces across the Middle East, and have been taking more and more control inside Iran even as this current conflict continues. As we mentioned above in section 5 “Hardliners Killed, More Compliant Regime”, and originally in Crunch Time For Iran, not every officer in the IRGC is utterly zealous. Yet, what happens when you combine a military officer with a zealous, religiously fervent, revolution-loyal mindset? We’ll tell you; you get a Qasem Soleimani (he’s the man in the photo being held by the soldier on this article’s cover image). Soleimani was an IRGC general and overall commander of a branch called Quds Force who was assassinated 3rd January 2020 in Baghdad by … you guessed it … the USA on the direct orders of President Donald Trump. Quds Force is essentially the IRGC’s “black ops” organization, to use an American term. This group are the driving force behind all of Iran’s expeditionary, covert, and proxy activity across the region, and indeed the world. They are elite, they are exceedingly loyal to the revolution, they are highly skilled, and they are seriously nasty. What the US and Israel are risking, should they fail to assassinate every-single-one of the more zealous officers of the IRGC/Quds Force, is the rise of someone like Qasem Soleimani whom exerts more and more influence across Iranian domestic and foreign policy. Without even the prior, admittedly porous, levels of separation between the IRGC and government apparatus there will be little to moderate and direct their thirst for military action, for clandestine activity, for revolutionary chaos, what we end up with is a state that is even more murderous both internally and externally, and even less susceptible to diplomacy, sanctions, or pressure.
- Clerical Regime Continues – 40% likelihood. Ayatollah Khamenei was 86 years old when he died, and for years rumours circulated surrounding his health. Of course the regime had a succession plan in place, with potential candidates pre-identified and only needing ratifying by the Assembly of Experts. Add to this that, as we discussed in Where Will Iran Target Next, they’ve had an extraordinarily long time to plan what to do in the event of an existential attack. Watch the Ben Affleck movie Argo to understand exactly how long the USA and Iran have been at one another’s throats, and so exactly how long Iran has had to prepare. And it wasn’t just that incident, nor since that moment. Post WW2, Iranian oil extraction was essentially under the control of UK oil companies (look up the genesis of UK oil major BP). Then, in 1951 Mohammad Mosaddegh was elected Prime Minister and began the nationalization of Iran’s oil industry. In 1953 the US and UK orchestrated a coup, reinstalling Shah (king) Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. A brutal, and simultaneously overindulgently opulent reign ensued, which ultimately resulted in the Shah’s overthrow and the emergence of the current regime in 1979. So, even before nearly the entire staff of the US Embassy in Tehran were held hostage for 444 days, the animosity was already mature and deep. On 24th April 1980 US special forces attempted to rescue the hostages in Operation Eagle Claw – the operation failed spectacularly due to poor inter-service coordination, maintenance issues, compromise by Iranian civilians, and an explosion when a US helicopter collided with a C130 transport plane. There have been many, many clandestine and overt military and political clashes between the two nations since – too numerous to mention here. So, this regime, these clerics, have long known that one day the US would come for them again, that one day the US might try to utterly destroy their regime. They’re prepared for this conflict, and they are prepared to out-endure the US’ fragile and short-lived political will to lose blood and treasure.
Conclusion
Even if the Israelis have indeed managed to sway the Americans into following a plan to eliminate every-single-hardline-candidate available to take over, both cleric and military, this is still a vast, dangerous gamble. Israel and the USA walked into a casino where, as is often the case, the house has better odds – and in this case, Iran is the house. Trump often likes to use poker analogies about one party or another having a good hand or a bad hand. In launching these attacks on Iran Trump has played his last hand, whilst Iran still has a bunch of cards up its sleeves. Like it or not, when the bombs stop falling and the dust settles, Trump is still most likely to find some semblance of the current regime in power inside Iran. It may be clerically led, it may be military led, but he will still be dealing with the revolution. And at that point, having played his cards, he’ll have to go back to the negotiating table. This time, however, on the other side of that table will be a rather smug looking group of Iranians who will say “is that all you’ve got?” And so, to secure any kind of deal, Trump will be forced to offer up more than he did the last time the two sides negotiated. If he really wants the Iranians to (at least appear to) surrender their nuclear ambitions, then the very least they will demand is complete and immediate sanctions relief. And then Trump will have to go cap in hand not only to his own Senate and Congress, but also to those allies that joined the USA in sanctioning Iran under the very same Obama-negotiated JCPOA (nuclear deal) that Trump tore up in his first presidential term. Silly boy.
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[Update (7th March): Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian appeared in a video and offered an apology to neighbouring countries that Iran’s forces had targeted with drones and missiles in recent days, saying that the interim leadership council had ordered that no more such attacks be carried out unless attacks on Iran emanated from those neighbouring states. Firstly, we’re not convinced that Pezeshkian’s comments are fully representative of Iran’s position here. He’s a lame duck president because he was more moderate than his rival candidates, and so the regime took steps to limit his power and influence once he became president. Secondly, President Trump has (predictably) publicly interpreted Pezeshkian’s words as tacit “surrender”, which is only going to enrage the regime, and has already caused Foreign Minister Abbas Aragchi to retort that Trump’s “misinterpretation” has “almost immediately killed” … “Iran’s openness to de-escalation”. Aragchi then said “responsibility for any intensification of Iran’s exercise of self-defence will lie squarely with the U.S. administration.”
Ok, but what if Pezeshkian does indeed speak for the regime. What are we to interpret from this? Well, as we discussed in Where Will Iran Target Next Iran has now demonstrated its ability to generate effects at the grand strategic level – through strangling supplies of oil and gas it has affected practically every nation on the planet with heightened energy costs, and though targeting airports it has shattered the UAE’s hard-won reputation for safety and severely impacted business and tax revenues across the region. All of this has generated political and diplomatic pressure on US-Israel to cease attacking.
Now, having demonstrated how dangerous it can be, Iran is pulling its punches, showing restraint, and nudging global opinion away from itself being the bad guy in this conflict, and back towards the US-Israeli alliance. This would be consistent with Aragchi’s comments i.e. we’re de-escalating, but if we re-escalate it is only because we have been provoked by the aggressor, the USA, so blame it on them. As we said in Where Will Iran Target Next:
“They know that there is not widespread, global, popular support for the US/Israeli attacks. Indeed, there’s even a sliver of opportunity to take advantage of this doubt, and skew world opinion further against the US and Israel, and potentially even in Iran’s favour (to a degree). And Iran is a master at influencing opinion …”]