With Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, dead, what is next for Iran?

President Donald Trump appealed to the Iranian people to rise up, oust the regime, and install a democratic government. Will that happen? There are good reasons to be skeptical.

Geopolitical Futures founder George Friedman wrote:

Regime change is not easy. Destroying a government requires more than random assassinations; it requires the destruction of the physical infrastructure of how a government functions—office buildings, communications capabilities, computers that contain information on citizens, and so on. Decapitation and regime change require disabling the government from functioning and, at times, permitting chaos (dangerous if the public favored the government’s ideology and policies). A new version of the old government might emerge, as could a regime even more hostile to the U.S. and Israel. What the public in Iran feels about the government is not clear to me, but if Iranians are hostile to Israel and the U.S., then the logic of regime change means that a new government must be imposed. Put simply, decapitation may not end the threat without an ongoing presence.

That’s the key. Ensuring a U.S.-friendly regime may require boots on the ground—something that seems to have little support within the Trump administration or the American people.

Furthermore, the Iranian government is not your standard dictatorship. It is a theocracy.

Typically, the decisive moment in a revolution comes when the regime’s security forces refuse to kill civilians. In the summer of 1789, French soldiers refused to disperse anti-establishment protesters and even joined them in storming the Bastille. In March 1917, Russian soldiers revolted rather than shoot striking workers. In 1979, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi fled the country rather than order troops to suppress protests.

Yet in Syria in March 2011, the Syrian Army did fire on protesters, and the regime stayed in power for nearly 14 more years.

• In a theocracy where members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps believe they are doing the will of Allah and fighting the forces of darkness, that moment when soldiers or their commanders refuse to murder innocent protesters and the regime begins to crack will not come easily. Iranian regime agents and troops have already killed tens of thousands of their own people. They’re unlikely to draw the line at a few more.

A Temporary Leadership Council has taken the authority of the former supreme leader. Under the Iranian constitution, a successor to Khamenei must be elected by a two-thirds majority in the Assembly of Experts, comprised of Shiite Muslim clerics. About half of these “experts” were chosen by Khamenei, so their choice of successor will be someone in the same mold.

Bottom line: Americans—not to mention Iranians—are up against much more than just Khamenei and a few top men. They are up against the whole system.

Some shifts in the regime are possible. With the nation at war, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps could seize power and become the dominant force in the country. Or Iran could follow in Venezuela’s footsteps, with someone in the current regime negotiating an end to U.S. attacks, being portrayed as a moderate, and giving the U.S. a chance to claim victory and walk away, allowing the regime to recover to fight and terrorize another day.

Our main story today states:

It is unclear exactly how this situation will play out. Often events take turns very different from what we expect. But biblical prophecy is clear about the outcome. As impressive as Israel’s accomplishments have been, and as much as one may wish to see the demise of this violent, oppressive regime, somehow Iran is going to preserve its considerable power—as well as its extremist temperament and aspirations. …

Prophecy also shows Iran will continue to attack Israel. … In the end, the Iran that emerges will be more than capable of embroiling the world in a devastating war. Iran will attack Europe with a violent and bloody push. Much violence and death is yet to come from this radical nation.

Watch for Iran’s belligerence to continue after these attacks. It will probably hold up its ability to survive two massive attacks from the U.S. and Israel as proof of its strength and divine backing. Before long, it will once again seriously threaten the peace of the world, pushing and provoking a “whirlwind” of mass destruction, exactly as the Bible prophesies and Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry has warned for more than 30 years. Read his booklet The King of the South.