The Islamic Republic's authority is a casualty of its war with Israel
Over a week has passed since the war between Israel and the Islamic Republic began, with hostilities now paused in a fragile ceasefire. Senior regime officials who haven't been killed are nowhere to be seen. There is no trace of the fiery speeches made by Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commanders to crowds of 'millions'. Public statements have been reduced to a few remarks by Abbas Araghchi, a handful of MPs, and Mohsen Rezaei – the perennial presidential candidate who did not even make it onto Israel's assassination list.
Since the war started, there have only been two pre-recorded messages from Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, delivered from an undisclosed location, both promising continued war and further destruction. Meanwhile, Masoud Pezeshkian, the Islamic Republic's president – who failed to implement even basic safety measures like shelters or warning sirens – dismissed the threat by saying Israel will be 'pitiful'. At the same time, his spokesperson urged citizens to ignore Israel's evacuation and attack warnings. State broadcaster IRIB, the regime's main propaganda tool, even aired footage of Israeli strikes on Iran while falsely presenting it as footage of Iran's missile attacks on Israel. This was after IRIB's headquarters came under attack.
This dark comedy truthfully depicts a regime that, after 46 years of threats, repression and killing its own people, has dragged its defenceless hostage citizens into war.
The crumbling of the Islamic Republic's edifice is now seen not only by Iranians but by its neighbours and the wider world. And this is truly could be a point of no return.
A regime that called itself the 'superpower of the region' and claimed its proxies would set the Middle East ablaze should it come under attack, has left its own west, east, south, north and centre completely unprotected for over a week. At the same time, it launched missiles at Israeli civilian areas, effectively inviting more airstrikes on Iranian soil.
These Israeli attacks, regardless of how precisely they target the Islamic Republic's military, security or nuclear assets, inevitably harm ordinary people. Millions of Iranians experienced their second war [after the horrors of the Iran-Iraq war in the 80s]. In a blackout caused by deliberate internet and phone disruptions, they wait, anxious and distressed, hoping for a future of a free and prosperous Iran. Even the youngest generations have not been spared the nightmare of war under this regime.
This war brings the end of the Islamic Republic closer than ever. And that ending began when the Iranian people rose up nationwide, rejecting both the reformists and hardliners of the Islamic Republic, as Independent Persian has documented.
CBS reports that Western diplomats are privately discussing a post-Islamic Republic future and potential replacements. Some major media outlets, which have been deliberately ignoring figures like Prince Reza Pahlavi for four decades, have begun to shift their stance.
Time magazine, which featured Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi on its cover just months before their downfalls, has now chosen a fading image of Ali Khamenei for its latest cover.
Saddam was captured by US forces nine months after his Time cover, on December 13, 2003, hiding in a hole underground. But in reality, his regime began to end twelve years earlier when he invaded Kuwait and was met with Operation Desert Storm – a US-led coalition that decimated Iraq's infrastructure.
The gap between Gaddafi's Time magazine cover and his death at the hands of protesters was just six months. Although Time never featured Bashar al-Assad on its cover before his downfall, his was a different fate. The Syrian president – a close ally of the Islamic Republic and recipient of billions of dollars taken from the Iranian people – fled to Russia in the dead of night at the last moment, leaving even his closest allies stunned and bewildered.
Whether the war between Israel and the Islamic Republic results in the regime's collapse or Tehran officials manage to find a lifeline in the shaky ceasefire, the image of the Islamic Republic – and of the Middle East – will never return to what it was before the early hours of Friday, June 13. The true victors of this war are the people of Iran.
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We spoke to Ansari about how her background influences her approach to one of foreign policy's most intractable issues. It's a topic I not only grew up learning about at home but also studied formally during my undergraduate years. I have a minor in Iranian studies, I speak the language [Farsi], and I wrote my college thesis on Iran's nuclear breakout capacity. So I've been working on and thinking about these issues for a long time. When it comes to US-Iran policy – especially during the Trump administration – I think there has been a significant lack of knowledge. And even within Congress, there's often limited information about the historical and political context – not just since 1979, but also what led up to that point and how we arrived at the current situation. I don't believe the strikes were the right move for several reasons. First and foremost, we wouldn't even be in this position if Trump hadn't unilaterally withdrawn from the JCPOA [in 2018]. That agreement would have prevented Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and created a framework for diplomacy. Even after the withdrawal, we were in the midst of negotiations. Based on briefings I've received from subject matter experts, those negotiations were progressing – until the US suddenly shifted the goalposts and demanded zero uranium enrichment, which had never been part of the deal. That effectively derailed talks. Beyond that, Trump never made the case to Congress or the American public. There was no presentation of intelligence justifying strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities. In a country with such a fraught history of military interventions in the Middle East – from the 1953 CIA-orchestrated coup in Iran to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan – that lack of transparency is especially dangerous. I'm not familiar with all the specifics of that proposal, but I see what you're getting at. And I do think Trump's actions have emboldened the Islamic Republic, a regime that is deeply unpopular with the majority of Iranians. Since the recent escalation, we've seen reports that hundreds of people have been arrested on espionage charges – charges often used by the regime to imprison political opponents. Iran's most notorious prison, Evin, is full of some of the country's brightest minds, including Nobel laureates. It's heartbreaking. Trump's actions have not only hurt US foreign policy interests and increased the risk of a wider war, but they've also given the regime cover to intensify its domestic repression. During the past two weeks, we've even seen the government black out the internet to prevent communication with the outside world. This is a regime focused entirely on its own survival – and it will do whatever it takes, including more arrests and crackdowns. We should be supporting Iranian civilians, not strengthening the regime or risking another war. Exactly. 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That's because most of our families came here after fleeing it, either during the revolution in 1979 or in the years since. But there's a wide range of views on what the solution should be. Some Iranian Americans, including a sizable portion who voted for Trump, believed he would help topple the regime. I remember when Trump posted 'Make Iran great again', a segment of the diaspora was genuinely excited. Many of those people support the son of the former Shah as a potential leader. Others – myself included – strongly oppose US-led regime change. The US has a bad track record in this region. The 1953 coup that overthrew Prime Minister Mosaddeq is still remembered bitterly by many Iranians. He was democratically elected and wanted to nationalize Iran's oil, but the US and UK didn't want that. So they overthrew him. Then came the Shah, then the revolution, and now this regime. So while we all oppose the current regime, there's disagreement about what comes next and how to get there. 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