After the Ayatollah
Summary: while Israel has dealt a massive blow to Iran’s Axis of Resistance and attention remains riveted on the Israel-Hamas ceasefire deal a former Middle East diplomat assesses scenarios for what may happen in Iran when the country’s Supreme Leader departs the stage. In the form of a diplomatic note, he addresses eventualities should Ayatollah Khamenei die or be incapacitated while circumstances are much as they are now, without speculating about the effects of potential future external disruptive events.
We thank Sir Richard Dalton for today’s newsletter. Sir Richard is a former senior member of Britain’s Diplomatic Service. His assignments included British Ambassador to Libya and Iran. He retired from the Diplomatic Service in 2006.
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The Grand Ayatollah Sayyid Ali Khamenei, Supreme Leader of Iran, meeting with Iran’s Interim President Mohammad Mokhber and members of late President Ebrahim Raisi’s administration in July 2024 [photo credit: Supreme Leader]
The context is the aspiration - of most Iranians, and the fear of some of them - for fundamental change, and the growing sense at the start of 2025 that the nitham- the ruling system - has run out of options to make people's lives better, and hence of ways to survive, and is under greater external pressure than ever.
The theory - The Experts Council succession committee has been deliberating on the potential event for years; either a single new Supreme Leader is chosen, or a Council of Three is set up by the Experts' Council to take charge until consensus on a new one emerges.
It is likely that the clerics and the security forces would hang together, on the grounds that, if they didn't, the fate of the Islamic Revolution would be sealed and they could hang separately....
Prediction is out of the question; description of possibilities, however, with a crude idea of likelihood attached, is useful. Bear in mind that the following possibilities are not distinct or exclusive of other ones: one or more could succeed to one or more of them.
- The first scenario for the day after the departure, is Repression and Continuity. The heat of aspiration is smothered, once more. But it remains hot under the ashes. The Iranian ruling system continues, as at present, to muddle through, though under continued internal and external stress. I give this a 20% chance.
Nevertheless, given
- the widespread belief, including among traditionalist clerics, that wilayet al faqih has been an aberration in Iran's history
- the resentment of the nitham and of corruption and religiosity, and the yearning for change and for freedoms including amongst some of the security forces and their families
- the tradition of street-resistance and strikes, regional discontents, the existence of a reform faction (albeit suppressed) including civil society bodies aiming at change and of a vocal and wealthy diaspora
- factional and personal rivalries within the elite....
..... a period of uncertainty may ensue and disorder cannot be ruled out.
There are Other Scenarios, if it doesn't all run smoothly according to the theory, i.e. if continuity breaks down.
First, three scenarios involving a break with the past:
- A Counter-revolution that gathers leaders, an ideology and weight leading to the overthrow of Islamic government. Waves of strikes, protests, killings, funerals and repression - as in 1978/1979 - might arise and be sustained for weeks. Perhaps, after months, the state's servants' appetite for repression might wane. But the initiation and growth of an authentic broad-based anti-regime coalition and political movement is more difficult today than it was during the 1979 revolution. And there remains some popular support for the government and, more important, widespread recollection of the human and material cost of 1979, accompanied by horror at the thought of a major breakdown leading to further disruption of people’s economic life-lines and to violence. 20%
- Putsch. If they thought the rug might really be pulled from under them by popular feeling, as happened in Egypt in 2012, and in Syria in 2024, the IRGC commanders might step in and impose martial law, assuming that they thought they had their troops behind them, and elbow the current system aside, or set up and manipulate a new Supreme Leader. 25%
- If the security forces were to break up and to back different factions, if resistance in the periphery led to regional rebellions, there could be a period of Civil war. Iraqi Kurds, Pakistani Baluchis, Azerbaijan, Islamic state, Saudi Arabia and UAE, the US and Israel might all fish for their various interests (such as backing their ethnic relatives inside Iran, revenge, or to back winners, or to kill off Iran's civil nuclear programmes) in troubled Iranian waters, prolonging the misery. 15%
Next, two scenarios based on continuity, but with change:
- The nitham holds the ring, and Launches a National Dialogue to attempt to plot a way forward that would achieve consent of the majority within, or with some changes to, the constitution of Iran; starting with re-licencing of the Reformist parties and perhaps proceeding via elections to a "constituent assembly" and referendum. There is talk about this, but it will remain talk only unless the pressures massively increase, leading to the main power centres seeing it as the only way to dilute popular opposition, co-opt the middle class and avert total loss of power. 5%
- Continuity, with Repression of disorder and top-down limited reforms: for example, curbs on the violent suppression of protests, more relaxed dress codes and guidance patrols, and release of political prisoners. Intended to take the sting out of the enforcement of the nitham's codes, and achieve social peace, this could backfire on the ruling system as many would take it as sign of weakness and up the pressure: for that reason, it would be opposed by many in the nitham. 15%
A word about the diaspora. There is no secular "Khomeini" in the wings. Nor is there a big movement for change with leaders and followers. It is a truism that there are factions, and back-biting among them. The Pahlavis are not the answer.
Freed peoples that are given an opening to a new destiny tend to follow those who are perceived to have done most for their liberation - and it is not clear yet who that will be.
Rebirth pangs
Clearly, national dialogue, reform and evolutionary change leading to democracy is much to be preferred. But indicating some of the requirements for success shows how difficult it would be to start out:
- Orderly arrangements to succeed Khamenei
- The new leader and his allies realise that Ayatollah Khomeini‘s legacy to Iran has to change, with the republican, representative and deliberative elements given weight at the expense of the religious and prescriptive elements
- Such a realisation would have to lead to:
- the military and security agencies standing back
- legitimation of political parties
- mobilisation of embryonic non-Persian regional political groups on lines parallel to, rather than at odds with, the Persian majority, i.e. little or no violent or non-violent separatism
- repeal of the laws prohibiting political activity critical of the nitham and of the constitution that sustains it
- new laws on freedom of speech and organisation
- an end to the powers of the expediency council to determine who can stand in elections for the legislature,
- retirement of old-school judges…… and many more such cadres.
- emergence of new and widely appealing leaders
Whatever might happen during a rebirth, there would be winners and losers. And there will probably not be in Iran a South African-style reconciliation of former enemies and universal acceptance of a new dispensation. Iran does not yet have the moral, institutional or community-based resources to quickly bring about a wide-scale acceptance and tolerance of the other. Violence will be close to the surface, and may break out – whether the violence of mobs or of governments, the violence of protest or of repression.
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