A month has passed since the death of Ali Khamenei marked the end of an entire historical era in the life of Iran. Yet, the political significance of this loss has not faded; on the contrary, it has become even clearer. Today, the fundamental question is no longer how the man who held the entire vertical of power in his hands for decades passed away, but what remains in his wake.
The Islamic Republic has entered a period of brutal internal realignment, where the struggle is not over mourning rituals, but for the redistribution of real power, authority, and the future course of the state.
Khamenei was not merely the Supreme Leader. He was the linchpin upon which the entire system rested - from the regime's spiritual legitimacy to its security apparatus, from foreign policy strategy to the mechanism for suppressing internal dissent. If Khomeini founded the Islamic Republic, it was Khamenei who brought it to the rigid, militarized, and ideologically insular form in which it has existed in recent decades. It was under his watch that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) finally transformed into the regime's primary pillar, and the commitment to regional influence, nuclear ambitions, and confrontation with the West became the bedrock of state policy rather than a passing episode.
Formally, the question of succession was resolved quickly: the Assembly of Experts transferred the post to Mojtaba Khamenei. However, the speed of the appointment does not imply the stability of the system. On the contrary, behind the outward display of continuity, a stark reality is emerging: with the departure of Ali Khamenei, Iran is facing more than just a personnel transition - it is facing a profound crisis at the center of power. He was the final figure capable of maintaining the balance between the regime's competing factions. Now, that balance is shattered, and the battle for Iran's future has entered an open phase.
At present, the forces linked to the IRGC, including Mojtaba Khamenei himself, hold the strongest starting positions. This is the country's most powerful armed structure, possessing the resources, organizational discipline, and coercive mechanisms necessary to impose its will on society. For Iran, this is an alarming scenario. The IRGC leadership consists largely of hardline ideological hawks for whom a "besieged fortress" mentality is not a problem, but a natural state of existence. If they ultimately consolidate power, Tehran will remain reflexively hostile toward Israel, the United States, and any pro-democracy forces within the country.
Yet, this outcome is by no means preordained. The IRGC's policies have demonstrably failed: they have provided neither national security nor a dignified life for the citizens. For reformers within the regime, this has long been a dead end, and there are many such figures within the Iranian system - ranging from sitting officials to former presidents. Under certain circumstances, they may attempt to reorient the country toward a less confrontational path. If they succeed in influencing state policy, the regime might be willing to trade its nuclear ambitions and regional aggression for economic relief, development, and partial normalization.
However, the path for pragmatists is exceedingly difficult. Unlike the hardliners, they possess almost no security assets. Furthermore, they long ago eroded public trust - sometimes through compromise, sometimes through cowardly silence, and sometimes through direct support for the brutal suppression of protests. Nevertheless, the current chaos could play into their hands. Moderate and reform-minded figures possess the most critical assets: managerial experience and an understanding of how to pull the country back from the brink of collapse. They may capitalize on the fact that U.S. and Israeli strikes have significantly thinned the ranks of the uncompromising security elite. To do so, however, they must move beyond bureaucratic intrigue and appeal to Iranian society itself - to a weary, resentful, and exhausted people who need not another rhetorical construct, but the promise of a more peaceful, free, and prosperous future.
Eyes on the Throne
Ali Khamenei was by no means the man originally destined to become Supreme Leader. During the revolution, he was one of many students of Ruhollah Khomeini. He remained a mid-level cleric, more consumed by politics than theological depth, and thus clearly failed to meet the high religious criteria that Khomeini publicly demanded of a future head of state. Nevertheless, Khamenei quickly acquired powerful allies, managed to grow politically, and became president in 1981. At the time, however, the presidency was of secondary importance; under Khomeini’s charismatic absolute rule, the office did not dictate the country's course. The true confidant of the Republic’s founder was Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the Speaker of Parliament.
In fact, the very logic of Khomeini’s rule was to marginalize anyone who might challenge his religious authority. Grand Ayatollah Kazem Shariatmadari was stripped of his position as head of the Qom seminary and effectively placed under house arrest. The same fate of political elimination befell Khomeini’s originally designated successor, Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri, whose views were notably more moderate. Montazeri openly clashed with the Supreme Leader on several issues, including protesting the execution of thousands of political prisoners at the end of the Iran-Iraq War. Consequently, by 1989, as Khomeini’s health sharply declined, it became clear that the system lacked a figure who simultaneously possessed the necessary religious legitimacy, the correct political stance, and sufficient support among key elites. To solve the succession crisis, the constitution was rewritten: now, a lower-ranking cleric could become Supreme Leader if they supported the Islamic order and understood the country's geopolitics. It was this specific amendment that cleared the path for Khamenei.
Even then, his ascent was not straightforward. Many considered Rafsanjani the primary contender. Indeed, he might have secured the post himself had he not decided that, following Khomeini’s death, real power would shift from the Supreme Leader’s office to the presidential administration. In other words, he underestimated the future political weight of the position, yielding it to his ally. Rafsanjani not only refrained from blocking Khamenei but actively championed his candidacy before the Assembly of Experts and even to Khamenei himself.
Following Khomeini’s death on June 3, 1989, this maneuver succeeded: Khamenei was confirmed as Supreme Leader the very next day, and Rafsanjani soon became president. However, Rafsanjani had miscalculated. Instead of becoming the undisputed master of Iran, he faced an increasingly emboldened rival. A struggle quickly ensued over who would truly define the course of the post-war nation.
Initially, Rafsanjani held the advantage. He was perhaps the most capable and sophisticated politician of Khomeini’s disciples. He possessed a program for rebuilding the shattered economy and infrastructure. Khamenei, by contrast, had neither a compelling platform nor solid public legitimacy. While Khomeini rose to the top by leading a revolution and Rafsanjani came to power through elections, Khamenei found himself on the throne thanks to a bureaucratic arrangement. There was no popular will behind him.
It was precisely this deficit that forced him to seek a force that could compensate for his lack of legitimacy. That force proved to be the IRGC. The Corps also required a new strategic alliance. It had helped Khomeini dispatch rivals after the revolution, but the devastating toll of the war with Iraq had weakened its position, and Rafsanjani was already moving to curb its influence. Khamenei, conversely, bet on expanding the Corps' role. He supported its internal ideological agenda based on the conservative Islamization of society, bolstered the political weight of its commanders, and granted them greater access to the levers of state power. In return, the IRGC began using its muscle against reformers and anyone tied to alternative power centers, including Rafsanjani’s supporters. By the time Rafsanjani left the presidency after two terms, the office itself had been significantly hollowed out.
By the start of the new millennium, the alliance between Khamenei and the IRGC had finaly consolidated the dominance of the hardline path in Tehran. The IRGC crushed student uprisings and reformist protests, blocked genuine transformations under President Mohammad Khatami, and later sidelined even Mahmoud Ahmadinejad - despite his roots in the same camp - when he attempted to reclaim executive independence. The true center of gravity had decisively shifted to where Khamenei and the IRGC stood.
The Illusion of Grandeur
This alliance was enduring not only because both sides shared a conservative-Islamic vision of the country’s internal structure. They were also united by a common worldview. Both Khamenei and the IRGC sought to transform Khamenei’s perspectives on international politics into the permanent foundation of Iran’s foreign policy. In this worldview, the United States was the primary enemy of Islamic civilization, and Israel was the key conduit of American influence. From this stemmed their strategic goals: the "liberation of Jerusalem" - meaning the destruction of Israel as a Jewish state - and the subversion of the U.S.-led international order.
Initially, this project sputtered. The war with Iraq exhausted Iran and stalled the export of the Islamic Revolution. The 1990s were marked by internal problems, and the IRGC's external activities were largely confined to terrorist attacks and covert operations. However, after the U.S. invasions of Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003, the situation changed dramatically. Both conflicts proved to be protracted, chaotic, and extremely conducive to external interference. Iran, sharing borders with both nations, was perfectly positioned to embed itself in this chaos. The IRGC quickly launched a network of shadow operations. In Afghanistan, it played multiple sides but ultimately supported specific Taliban factions, supplying them with funds and weapons. In Iraq, Tehran created and strengthened new militias focused on combating the American presence. After the U.S. troop withdrawal in 2011, these ties remained, and Iran emerged as the most powerful external actor in Baghdad.
The success in Afghanistan and Iraq became a blueprint for further expansion. When the Arab Spring swept the region in the 2010s, followed by new conflicts and the collapse of state systems, the IRGC again used instability as a window of opportunity. Iran intervened in Syria, saving Bashar al-Assad’s regime from collapse, and later helped the Houthis consolidate power in Yemen.
Simultaneously, Khamenei consistently steered the country toward becoming a major military power. The regime invested massive resources into missiles and drones capable of threatening adversaries from a distance. There was also an accelerated mastery of uranium enrichment technologies. Tehran continued to deny any pursuit of nuclear weapons, and Khamenei even issued a religious decree forbidding them. Yet, the actual development of the nuclear program had long since exceeded civilian needs. At the very least, Iran acquired everything necessary to rapidly move toward a bomb should a political decision be made.
For a time, this strategy actually yielded results. By the early 2020s, Iran had become the dominant political player across a significant portion of the Middle East - from Iraq to Lebanon and Yemen. This expansion further bolstered the IRGC's standing within the system, making it the primary voice on foreign policy. Moreover, the sprawling security infrastructure allowed the Corps to control vast segments of the economy.
But the price was catastrophic. Military spending drained resources that could have been directed toward national development and public welfare. The nuclear and missile programs triggered harsh U.S. sanctions. The economy began to degrade, and inflation skyrocketed. Society took to the streets with increasing frequency - in 2009, then in waves from 2017 to 2022, and again in December and January.
Gradually, internal crises were compounded by external defeats. Following the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, the Israeli leadership cast aside its previous caution regarding Iran’s infrastructure of influence. Over the next two years, strikes rained down on Hezbollah, IRGC positions in Syria, and the Houthis. These were followed by strikes on air defense systems, missile production sites, and, with U.S. participation, a significant portion of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure. Finally, in February 2026, Israel and the United States delivered a new blow that killed Khamenei and other key regime figures, leaving Iran’s military and security apparatus severely crippled.
A Crisis of Faith
Khamenei’s death opened a window for change, but its immediate consequence was the strengthening, rather than the weakening, of the IRGC. By the time of his death, Khamenei remained the last person capable of curbing the Corps' appetites. While the security forces almost always got their way, there was still a center that could restrain them. Now, that center has virtually vanished. Even if Mojtaba Khamenei holds the throne - and American sources at the time of writing claim he is wounded - the institution of the Supreme Leader itself is unlikely to play its former role. The new leader will likely be a political extension of the Corps rather than its overseer.
This also implies the further devaluation of elective institutions. Under Ali Khamenei, the executive branch could at least occasionally challenge the IRGC. This occurred when President Hassan Rouhani, despite the Corps' displeasure, managed to secure the nuclear deal with the U.S. in 2015. However, the current president, Masoud Pezeshkian, is far weaker and more vulnerable.
Therefore, the most likely scenario for Iran today is an authoritarian state under de facto military control, masked by a theocratic figurehead. Such a regime will almost inevitably remain aggressive. The IRGC is still largely composed of hardliners, meaning it will continue to seek confrontation with Israel and the United States while funneling the remnants of national resources into rebuilding the military machine. In search of support, this group will likely lean on China and Russia.
Yet even this course has its limits. Beijing and Moscow are preoccupied with their own problems and cannot gamble recklessly on Iran, especially given their relationships with Arab states irritated by Iranian actions. It is unlikely they will help Tehran regain its former scale of influence. Furthermore, Iran is quite simply broke. It cannot simultaneously rebuild its army, reconstruct underground infrastructure for its nuclear program, and rearm its regional proxies. As long as the regime clings to the familiar logic of aggression and refusal to compromise, it will only provoke further strikes from abroad. The rhetoric of "resistance" may comfort the apparatus, but it fails to answer the central question: what to do about the profound alienation of society and the inevitability of new outbreaks of internal unrest? To survive, the regime will have to continue betting on violence.
Ordinary Iranians have yet to find a true champion within the halls of power.
For the IRGC, this is not a problem. The Corps leadership is concerned not with the welfare of the country or the fate of its citizens, but only with preserving its own power on its own terms. Their political energy is fueled by hatred for the U.S. and Israel - a hatred that has only intensified after the war. But there are other forces within the regime - those who understand that continuing the current course leads not to salvation, but to a new catastrophe. Among them is Pezeshkian. In March, amid the war, he asked the IRGC to work with the government on preventing the economic collapse of post-war Iran. According to IranWire, when a young IRGC officer dismissed these concerns, noting that a permanent state of emergency actually benefits the regime because no one would dare express discontent, the president reached his breaking point. "That is not an answer," he declared. "What, after the war, will we need to kill another wave of protesters? Is that what you call planning?"
Admittedly, displacing the IRGC from power will be extraordinarily difficult. But paradoxically, the current crisis has made the Corps both stronger and more vulnerable. Its relative influence within the system has grown, but its absolute power has diminished. It was the Corps' own policies that brought Iran to the brink of defeat, hollowed out the economy, and turned vast masses of the population against the regime. This cost the IRGC a significant portion of its political capital within the system itself. And while Khamenei’s death gave the Corps extra maneuverability, it simultaneously deprived it of its chief patron.
Furthermore, the Corps may face purely personnel-related issues. The war has severely thinned its ranks, claiming many of its most experienced figures. Meanwhile, a significant portion of pragmatically or reform-minded politicians has survived. This includes Pezeshkian, Rouhani, and Khatami - who remains the most prominent figure of the reformist camp. Potentially, this also includes Ahmadinejad, who unexpectedly transformed into a critic of the status quo after his presidency and found himself effectively isolated. The strikes on Iran may have even helped him break out of that isolation. Finally, there are figures formally close to the hardline but not devoid of pragmatism, such as Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who has long attempted to present himself primarily as an effective manager.
All these individuals are not romantics or idealists, but seasoned bureaucratic players. Yet they are precisely the ones who might capitalize on the fact that the regime has become less monolithic. They could rally specific segments of the state, build behind-the-scenes support for a new course, and simultaneously appeal to society. If they can offer a coherent plan for economic stabilization, de-escalation, and the easing of social pressure - framed not as the destruction of the system, but as its preservation through change - the IRGC will find them much harder to ignore.
Changes One Can Believe In
There is, however, another force capable of compelling Tehran to pivot: the Iranian people themselves. They remain the ultimate source of genuine national legitimacy. Until now, they have lacked a true representative within the halls of power, but perhaps now, for the first time, a systemic player has the chance to step into that role. Moreover, the most viable way to either bypass the IRGC or force it to retreat is to appeal directly to society.
Past waves of protest failed to produce serious reforms. Yet, within Iran, groups with real influence still exist. Take, for instance, the bazaaris - small and medium-sized merchants who, while a small fraction of the population, control the traditional economy and significant urban spaces. In the early decades of the Islamic Republic, they were a key pillar of the regime, but years of economic decay have severely strained that bond. A similar situation exists for labor unions and professional associations, particularly in the energy and transport sectors. If the bazaaris and organized labor groups manage to align, they possess the power to paralyze significant portions of the economy through strikes and boycotts.
The youth factor is equally critical. The new generation feels no sacred connection to the 1979 Revolution. For them, the regime is not a history of liberation, but a lived reality of corruption, violence, and humiliation. Their coming-of-age has been defined by war, deprivation, and a lack of freedom. It is the youth who have most often become the face of protests, and it is they who have felt the state’s repressive machinery most acutely. At the same time, they are the most politically energized segment of society. Any politician capable of truly speaking to this generation would gain millions of committed supporters.
Should pragmatists or reformers manage to consolidate power, Iran’s future could indeed take a different turn. Their priority would likely be economic recovery and broadening the regime’s social base. This would inevitably push them toward seeking an exit from the endless confrontation with Washington. Such a course could take the form of either a "Grand Bargain" with the United States or a series of sequential compromises - starting with the nuclear issue, followed by military and foreign policy matters - in exchange for sanctions relief. For Iranian society, this would perhaps offer the first grounds for hope in a very long time.
In this situation, the United States should assist in strengthening these pragmatic forces not only by removing their adversaries from the hardline camp. Washington ought to engage with anyone prepared for dialogue. The mere existence of a direct channel of communication with the U.S. would bolster the influence of moderate figures within the Iranian system. Furthermore, Washington could offer Tehran limited, targeted incentives - such as partial sanctions relief - in exchange for a readiness to compromise on key issues. Even the more moderate representatives of the regime are unlikely to accept America’s maximalist demands, but they are probably capable of taking incremental steps. In the long run, such a process could address not only the nuclear topic but also broader questions of foreign and military policy. Simultaneously, Washington could push for the expansion of social freedoms and an end to the persecution of religious minorities - steps that would lower the level of internal tension within Iran itself.
Of course, this is no panacea. The pragmatists within the regime are by no means democrats; they are thoroughly systemic figures, and the responsibility for the country’s catastrophic state lies not only with the hawks but also with those who coexisted with them for years. However, despite all the blows it has sustained, the regime in Iran has not collapsed. As of yet, there is no ready, viable alternative capable of immediately replacing it. That is why the most realistic way to change Tehran for the better is to work with those inside the system who recognize the necessity of change. They understand the internal mechanics of power. They know how to operate within its logic. And after decades of near-total dominance by ultraconservatives, they may, for the first time, have a real chance to turn the country in a different direction.