Eurasia Press & News
On 13 June, Israel launched Operation Rising Lion, a preemptive military campaign aimed at crippling Iran’s nuclear capabilities.
But with symbolic references to the pre-1979 monarchy embedded in the operation’s name, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu explicitly appealing to the Iranian people to “rise up,” observers believed that the message was clear: this war was about more than uranium enrichment.
For years, Israel’s “Begin Doctrine” justified strikes on regional adversaries developing weapons of mass destruction. But Netanyahu’s rhetoric, repeated since 2022 and intensified after the collapse of Bashar Al-Assad’s regime, suggested he viewed the Islamic Republic itself, not just its nuclear program, as the existential threat.
His calls for the Iranian people to “stand up for freedom,” paired with a stated desire to avoid civilian casualties, indicated a bet on popular unrest and elite fragmentation within the Ayatollah regime.
US President Donald Trump took a more provocative tone after ordering strikes on three Iranian nuclear sites on Sunday. While he did not explicitly call for regime change, his comments on Truth Social suggested openness to the idea, undercutting the unified message from members of his inner circle, who emphasised that the US objective was limited to dismantling Iran’s nuclear capabilities.
Yet, as a fragile ceasefire announced by Trump hangs in the balance, Israel’s gamble could carry profound risks. Analysts from within the Islamic Republic argue that such a discourse may, in fact, yield the opposite of its intended effect.
Rather than destabilising the ruling system, they say, these calls strengthen the grip of Iran’s ultraconservative camp and could consolidate their hold on power.
The unintended consequences
Emad Abshenas, a former Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance under President Hassan Rouhani and a prominent figure within Iran’s reformist movement, dismissed the notion that war or airstrikes would topple the regime.
“The Iranian system is not akin to the Arab or Western governments that collapsed under foreign wars or interventions,” he told The New Arab.
“Its ideological and institutional architecture is unique and deeply embedded in both security frameworks and social structures, making any scenario of ‘collapse’ highly unrealistic.”
Abshenas also argued that Iran’s reformist current has seen a significant erosion of its public credibility, particularly following its failure to deliver concrete results through engagement with the West.
The 2015 nuclear deal, once heralded as the reformists’ gateway to global reintegration, effectively unravelled after the Trump administration’s withdrawal and triggered a “widespread domestic disillusionment”.
The collapse, he argued, opened the door for hardliners to seize the narrative, accusing reformists of having “invited ruin through their false openness” to Western powers. The subsequent military confrontations have only furthered this perception.
“There is also a consequential shift within Iran’s military hierarchy,” he said, pointing out that Israeli assassinations of key commanders from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and army, many known for their pragmatic approaches, have led to their replacement by younger, more radical elements.
These new leaders, he warned, harbour “an overt desire for vengeance and display an inclination for aggressive confrontation with the West”.
Ultimately, Abshenas argued that the West’s bet on regime collapse or internal reform is misguided. It overlooks Iran’s deeply entrenched system, which he saw as an interwoven network of ideological, military, and social institutions resistant to outside pressure.
“Instead of weakening the regime, foreign aggression often strengthens it, providing a pretext for internal crackdowns and consolidation of power,” he explained. “To assume that regime change would usher in a secular, pro-Western Iran is dangerously naive.”
Conservative consensus
In a dramatic escalation, US forces launched a series of airstrikes targeting Iran’s nuclear facilities, including the Isfahan reactor and the heavily fortified Fordow and Natanz sites.
The Trump administration described the campaign as a “complete dismantling of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure,” an unprecedented blow to Tehran’s decades-long ambitions.
Masoud Fekri, a prominent academic and former advisor in President Masoud Pezeshkian’s administration, agreed with Abshenas that such strikes are unlikely to bring about regime change.
A known voice within the reformist camp, Fekri acknowledges Iran’s mounting internal crises, from political repression to the erosion of civil liberties. He concedes that the ruling hardliners need “serious and comprehensive policy revisions”. Still, he firmly rejects the notion that military pressure or foreign intervention can dismantle the Islamic Republic.
“Most Iranians, even those critical of the regime, reject externally imposed change,” Fekri explained. “It’s a matter of sovereignty.”
He drew parallels to the US-led invasion of Iraq, which dismantled a dictatorship but unleashed decades of chaos, sectarian violence, and institutional collapse.
“Imposing regime change delegitimises local reform movements and destroys the prospect of organic political evolution,” he warned.
In Fekri’s view, Iran’s ability to endure an open military confrontation with Israel, even at high cost, could paradoxically strengthen the ruling establishment. Surviving the onslaught, he argued, would grant the hardliners a symbolic victory and buy them time to reassert control over Iran’s fragmented political landscape.
Ultimately, Fekri sees Iran’s future as being shaped by internal dynamics, not aerial bombardments or foreign policy manoeuvres.
“The Iranian political system is not static,” he said. “But it cannot be redesigned through force. Any durable transformation must come from within.”
Seyed Mousavi, head of a prominent research centre in Tehran and a staunch conservative, echoed a rare point of consensus with former minister Abshenas as well: the idea that Iran’s political system is on the verge of collapse is deeply misleading.
Speaking to The New Arab, Mousavi dismissed reports of regime instability as “fabrications,” asserting that the system remains “strong and cohesive,” and is in no danger of losing its grip, militarily or politically.
Mousavi, who has long opposed the reformist push for Western rapprochement, drew on the 2015 nuclear deal to make his case.
He called the agreement “a very bad experiment,” arguing that its collapse revealed the fragility of betting on Washington.
“Khamenei himself was initially opposed to fresh talks with the US, believing the country to be an untrustworthy actor,” he said, “but he, nevertheless, permitted then-President Rouhani’s administration to proceed, only for the results to validate our fears.”
According to Mousavi, the outcome was nothing short of “a strategic disaster,” plunging Iran into a broader military confrontation and solidifying conservative scepticism toward diplomacy.
Mousavi’s view is emblematic of what now appears to be a consensus across Iran’s ruling elite: negotiations with the West are no longer a viable strategy.
A ‘politically senile regime’
Yet, outside the regime, dissenting voices continue to challenge that narrative.
Mohammad M., a political dissident from the ethnically Arab Ahvaz region of southwestern Iran and now living in exile in Paris, offers a radically different perspective. Speaking on condition of anonymity, citing safety concerns for family members still in Iran, he argued that the Islamic Republic is facing a slow but irreversible internal decay.
“This is a politically senile regime,” he said. “It is approaching its end under the weight of growing domestic unrest and sustained external pressure.”
M. believes the continuation of open conflict with Israel will accelerate the collapse of the system, as Iran’s internal disintegration has reached a point where the regime cannot sustain itself over the medium term.
“The Revolutionary Guards and the hardline clerical establishment have gutted the nation’s resources, channelling oil revenues into Iran’s sprawling foreign influence apparatus, at the expense of domestic welfare,” he said. “The military has turned Iran into a vessel for regional adventurism.”
More than just economically vulnerable, M. argues, Iran is now exposed on a security level as well.
“The ease with which Western powers, and particularly Israel, have repeatedly penetrated the country’s most sensitive institutions, from nuclear sites to military leadership circles, can only be blamed on systemic intelligence failures, which showcase just how vulnerable the entire system is.”
