Is The Iranian Regime in Trouble?

 By Henry Srebrnik, [Saint John, N.B.] Telegraph-Journal

On Oct. 3, 2023, Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei addressed a large crowd of government officials and international visitors in Tehran. When Khamenei’s remarks turned to Israel, he insisted that the Jewish state was a cancer that “will definitely be eradicated.”

Four days later, Hamas attacked Israel, and today the Middle East is a very different place. Iran’s Shia proxies and allies, Bashar al-Assad’s Syria and Hezbollah, have been largely vanquished, and Israel has destroyed much of Tehran’s military infrastructure.

So might it, instead, be Ian’s regime that will be “eradicated?” Many have made similar predictions over the past 45 years, and the theocracy remains standing, and a formidable foe, one that might yet become a nuclear power. Should the two most powerful states in the Middle East fight a full-scale war, that would have a devastating effect on the region and the global economy. Twice in 2024, they have launched direct missile attacks on each other.

Tehran and Damascus were allied for many decades, dating back to the Islamic Revolution of 1979. In the 1980-1988 Iranian war with Saddam Hussein’s Iraq that followed, Bashar al-Assad’s father, Hafez, supported Iran, which survived Iraq’s assault.

The alliance between the Shia clerics in Iran and the Assads, who were from the minority Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shia Islam, helped cement Iran’s power in a predominantly Sunni Middle East. The toppling of the Iraqi dictator in the American-led 2003 war also opened Shia-majority Iraq to ever-growing Iranian influence.

The Arab Spring in 2010–2011 had been a challenge to the Islamic Republic, especially when the unrest in Syria widened into a civil war. Tehran provided fighters, fuel and weapons. More than 2,000 Iranian soldiers, including generals, were killed.

With help from Hezbollah and Russia, Iran managed to prop up Assad for more than another decade. By improving its position in Syria, Tehran was able to ensure that Hezbollah remained the dominant force in Lebanon, as well.

In recent years, Iran seized on growing regional chaos, including the civil war in Yemen, to expand its reach with its support for the Houthis. The Iranian regime looked stronger than ever, putting the fear of God, so to speak, into its Arab Sunni rivals, especially Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states.

But now Israel has destroyed decades of Iranian investment in Hezbollah in an abrupt and humiliating fashion. Israeli forces have killed nearly the entire upper echelon of Hezbollah’s leadership, including its longtime leader, Hassan Nasrallah, and destroyed much of the group’s weaponry. “Israel has greater freedom of action in Iran today than ever before. We can reach anywhere in Iran as needed,” declared Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Khamenei is putting on a brave face. “Iran is strong and powerful, and will become even stronger,” he claimed, in his first speech after the toppling of Assad. He insisted that the Iran-led alliance in the Middle East, which still includes Hamas, Hezbollah, Yemen’s Houthis and Iraqi Shia militias, would only strengthen.

But so far the evidence belies his words. The last public sighting of Assad was in a meeting with Iranian Foreign Minister Sayyid Abbas Araghchi Dec. 1, when the Syrian president vowed to crush the rebels advancing on the capital. Iran’s ambassador to Syria, Hossein Akbari, described Assad as the “front end of the Axis of Resistance.” Yet when the Assad regime collapsed, a weakened Iran was unable and unwilling to fight for him. All of this has left the regime reeling.

Will a humiliated Iran now redouble its efforts to go nuclear? It has been estimated that Iran could now enrich enough uranium for a weapon within about a week, if it decided to, though it would also need to construct a warhead and mount a delivery system, which experts say would take months or possibly as long as a year.

Incoming U.S. President Donald Trump will try to re-impose his “maximum pressure”' strategy on Iran, predicts Raz Zimmt, a senior researcher at the Israeli Institute for National Security Studies. “But I think he'll also try to engage Iran in renewed negotiations trying to convince Iran to roll back its nuclear capabilities.”

The Supreme leader is now 85 years old, and even before the recent escalation between Israel and the Islamic Republic, discussions about Khamenei’s succession were already ongoing. These concerns have now intensified. In recent meetings with the Assembly of Experts, the body responsible for selecting the next Supreme Leader, Khamenei urged members to be ready to swiftly choose a successor if needed.

Assembly member Heydari Kashani described them as taking place in an atmosphere of “martyrdom.” According to Kashani, participants wept as Khamenei emphasized the need for the Assembly to quickly select a new leader in his absence. This underscores concerns about potential unrest and the heightened risk of the regime’s collapse without Khamenei.

Escalating tensions with Israel, the re-election of Donald Trump, and mounting public discontent over shortages of electricity, natural gas, and fuel have placed the regime’s survival in jeopardy.

“Khamenei goes to bed worrying about his legacy and transition and is looking to leave Iran in a stable place,” according to Sanam Vakil, director of the Middle East and North Africa program at the London-based think tank Chatham House. We shall know soon enough.