Can US-Israeli strikes topple Iran’s government?

One of the stated objectives of the US and Israeli strikes against Iran has been “regime change”.

In a video message delivered shortly after launching the strikes, US President Trump urged Iranians to “take over” their government by seizing “control of (their) destiny”.

In the following hours, Trump said he had fulfilled his “promise” to help Iranians and that it was “up to” them to topple their government.

So far, US-Israeli strikes have killed Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and several top military commanders, including the army chief of staff, defence minister and head of the Revolutionary Guards.

However, experts warn that the US-Israeli strategy rests on a dangerous illusion: the belief that decapitation strikes – aimed at eliminating top leadership – alone can bring about a change in government.

The constitutional arrangement in Iran to ensure the continuity of government in the event of war has already come into effect. 

It has activated Article 111 of its constitution, forming a three-member transitional council comprising President Masoud Pezeshkian, Chief Justice Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei, and senior cleric Alireza Arafi.

The 88-member Assembly of Experts is now tasked with selecting a successor to Khamenei.

Mustafa Caner, assistant professor at Sakarya University’s Middle East Institute, tells TRT World that the Iranian system is operating exactly as designed. 

The transitional setup is far from an improvisation.

“Continuity is the paramount characteristic of the Iranian political system,” he says.

“There is no legal lacuna or institutional ambiguity that would generate a power vacuum,” Caner says. 

Wartime conditions may, however, slow the process.

“Political leaders and military commanders [are] operating in close coordination,” Caner says, adding that the state apparatus, including bureaucracy, military commands, and provincial governors, continues without interruption.

Gokhan Ereli, an Ankara-based independent researcher specialising in the Middle East, is more cautious about the gap between legal procedure and real power.

Khamenei’s unique “charismatic authority” that he cultivated over decades cannot be instantly replaced, he says.

He tells TRT World that Iran’s succession system is designed for crisis moments, but insists that analysts must separate “procedural continuity and political legitimacy”.

In the post-1979 era, the governance structure rested on two pillars: clerical legitimacy and the security and economic muscle of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), a multi-service primary branch of the Iranian armed forces.

Without a single supreme arbiter like Khamenei, the world may see the IRGC turn into a collection of competing military-economic factions, Ereli says.

The system appears functional on paper, but the real process behind closed doors is a “fragile negotiation between senior clerics and ambitious generals”.

The IRGC’s provincial networks and “mosaic defence” structure, however, make an outright collapse of the Iranian government unlikely, he says. 

A poor tool for regime change

Experts cast serious doubts over the notion that air strikes and targeted killings of key figures can force regime change.

Ereli calls sustained decapitation tactics “historically poor tools for regime change within themselves”.

They degrade operational coordination, but are unable to dismantle an apparatus whose roots run through black markets, intelligence services, provincial bureaucracies, and economic holdings, he says.

“It cannot be dismantled from the air,” he says.

According to Caner, there is no historical record of air strikes alone leading to a swift regime change.

He points to the precedent the US set in Iraq, where even a full-scale invasion and ground occupation produced not democracy but years of civil war and instability.

“When it comes to Iran, the situation is even more complicated due to the country’s strong sense of nationalism and substantial state capacity,” he says.

The multi-layered power structure in Iran “complicates any US or Israeli attempt to secure a swift victory through a decapitation strategy”.

Experts do not see a viable internal force ready to seize power as the country transitions into a post-Khamenei era.

Any change in government that favours the Western and Israeli objectives requires a “viable, organised domestic alternative” ready to seize the levers of state power and prevent a descent into warlordism, Ereli notes.

“Currently, no such unified opposition exists inside Iran,” he says.

Without it, decapitation risks “a failed state or a desperate military junta rather than a democratic transition”.

Caner echoes this view, dismissing diaspora opposition figures who court Western and Israeli support.

“Many figures attempt to build careers as leaders of the opposition in the diaspora. But they lack a genuine political base inside Iran. They usually receive support from the Israeli lobby or neoconservatives in the US,” he says.

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan has repeatedly expressed the same view.

He dismissed the idea of regime change through air strikes as a “pipedream”.

“The regime won’t change through an air strike,” he said, adding that military strikes against the country could weaken the state but without resulting in a change of government.

Public mood: national unity 

The US and Israeli air strikes against Iran seem modelled on the same decapitation strategy that had delivered quick results in Venezuela two months ago when the US forces raided and abducted its then-president, Nicolas Maduro.

The US used a combination of targeted action and pressure on the political leadership, enabling a new domestic figure to assume power almost immediately.

State institutions remained intact, and public life returned to normal within days.

The episode set a precedent for Washington and Tel Aviv that a swift leadership-removal operation can topple an adversarial regime without a messy ground war.

But the calculation has so far proved wrong in Iran's case. 

Instead of capitulating, Tehran has responded with sustained missile and drone barrages against US bases across the Gulf. It has also imposed a de facto blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway through which roughly one-fifth of global oil trade passes.

In short, Iranian forces continue to operate under the transitional council, and the state apparatus has shown no sign of rapid deterioration.

Meanwhile, public sentiment in Iran seems to have contradicted the US-Israeli expectations so far.

Drawing on years of engagement with Iranian society, Caner says the predominant reaction to the foreign attack is national unity against the aggressors.

“In moments of external threat, many citizens appear to suspend, or at least bracket, their grievances towards the government. The distinction between state and nation begins to erode,” he says.  

Military strikes are widely seen “not as an assault on a particular administration… but as an attack on Iran as a civilisational and national entity,” he adds.

While Western media have highlighted pockets of celebration in major cities, Caner cautions against overinterpreting such scenes.

“Both Western media and social media platforms often amplify particular voices in ways that distort their actual societal weight,” he says.