After the ayatollahs: Who rules Iran next? - analyisis

For decades, the Islamic Republic of Iran has been treated as a permanent fixture of the regional order, be it a hostile and destabilizing one, but at least a known enemy. But now, the Islamic Republic is under unprecedented strain, and the succession question has been brought to the fore.

After surveying the landscape of exiled factions, internal reformists, military structures, and ethnic movements, it is clear there is no guaranteed heir. What there is, instead, is a set of legitimate options.

Before any discussion of successors, one structural constraint must be understood. Any government perceived by ordinary Iranians as having been installed by the United States or Israel faces a legitimacy deficit that may prove insurmountable. Israel and the US have stated their goal is to help Iranians, after thousands have been massacred, in their own goal of overthrowing the regime.

This is the Egyptian model of a controlled transition in which the military preserves state institutions, suppresses disorder, and eventually negotiates terms with external powers. It is stabilizing in the narrow sense. It is also deeply problematic. Over decades, the IRGC has built an economic empire to rival its military interests, and is a political player deeply invested in the continuation of a revolutionary ideology. A junta composed of senior IRGC commanders would likely preserve the security apparatus, continue selective repression, and offer the West a “safer” authoritarianism rather than genuine democratic reform.

Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, the son of the last shah, has positioned himself to be an alternative leader over the past several years. He has cultivated relationships with Western governments, built visibility in Israeli policy circles, and presented himself not as a would-be monarch but as a secular transitional figure committed to a democratic Iran.

His name recognition inside the country is genuine, particularly among older Iranians who remember the relative prosperity of the pre-revolutionary era. Since the beginning of the protests within Iran in December, Pahlavi has transitioned from a figurehead to attempting to direct and support the protesters from outside the country, and it is his name Iranians protesters inside the country are calling for. He also has one of the only concrete plans for transition with the Iran Prosperity Project, and has the backing of millions of Iranians. Perhaps most importantly, Pahlavi has repeatedly stated his plan to hold a referendum for the Iranian people to decide their future, be it a parliamentary monarchy or a republic.

The problem is potentially organizational. Pahlavi commands a diaspora following but has no domestic political infrastructure. The prince has stated his desire to return to Iran and lead the transition, but as of writing, no concrete timeline is in place.

The problem for the MEK is reputation. Among monarchists, their connection to the 1979 revolution is unforgotten, helping bring the Islamists to power. Also, the MEK’s collaboration with Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq War, a conflict that killed hundreds of thousands of Iranians, has left it politically radioactive inside the country across ideological lines. Its internal structure, widely described as cult-like by former members, raises serious questions about its democratic commitments. Serious analysts of Iranian affairs broadly agree that the MEK could not form a legitimate government that Iranians would accept.

Iran’s reformist tradition, historically represented by figures associated with former presidents Mohammad Khatami and Hassan Rouhani, is perhaps the most institutionally capable political tendency available, though few Iran watchers believe reformists within the regime are genuine reformers. However, they understand the mechanisms of government. They know the bureaucracy, and they have experience managing a complex state. In a technocratic transitional council, they would be indispensable.

Their liability is their association with the system they would be inheriting from. For many Iranians, particularly the urban, educated youth who drove the Mahsa Amini protests, the reformists are one and the same as the regime. They represent the Islamic Republic’s attempt to manage its own contradictions without resolving them. Trusting them to dismantle a system they spent careers operating within requires a leap of faith that many Iranians are not prepared to make.

Any serious successor arrangement must also grapple with Iran’s ethnic geography. Persians constitute roughly 60% of the population; the remainder includes Azeris, Kurds, Arabs, and Balochs, many of whom have armed political organizations and longstanding demands for autonomy or independence.

Kurdish groups, in particular, have maintained disciplined political and military structures for decades. Baloch nationalist movements in the southeast have intensified. In a power vacuum and with reports already emerging from Iran on Israel possibly arming the Kurds, these movements would not wait.

Unlike other US-led regime changes, such as Afghanistan and Iraq earlier this century, the US and Israel may need to remain the most disciplined about staying out of the succession question.

US President Donald Trump has declared that the goal of military action is regime change, but no plan for the aftermath has yet been presented. Foreign powers may help create the conditions for the regime’s fall. The future political order of Iran, however, will have to be determined by Iranians themselves.