How long until the Iranian regime collapses?

[mids2019]

I think days......

The dismantling of its defence systems, the panic in Terhan coupled with decapitation of the senior ministry leadership alongside important government institutions makes control increasingly hard for the regime.

I think the lack of good options for Iran has made them separately wave a white flag attempting to get back to the negotiating material but maybe it's just too late?

I know Netanyahu is now saying that Khamenei has to go (since the bombing of the hospital).

But regime change wasn't the reason given for starting this war. The reason given was that Israel believed that in the last few months Iran was accelerating towards building a nuclear weapon.

Compromises will have to be reached all round. Or at least I hope compromises can be agreed, even if both Israel & Iran feel annoyed about the concessions they have to make.

Imagine if Iran's regime drags it's people into a war with the US.

They are already unpopular - this would sign their death warrant one way or the other & possibly even by their own people.

Another great article from my confirmation bias.. https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/toppling-irans-supreme-leader-could-be-a-mistake/

So, as Iran faces its greatest external threat since the Iran-Iraq War of 1980-88, what are the prospects for regime change in Tehran and who might come next after Khamenei? Nicholas Hopton, director-general of the Middle East Association, and former British ambassador to Iran, Libya, Yemen and Qatar, is sceptical. ‘It seems to me that in appealing to the Iranian people, Prime Minister Netanyahu is possibly being either disingenuous or overoptimistic in hoping that will lead to regime change, or at least a regime more palatable to Israel and the West. The one thing likely to unite sentiment within Iran is opposition to external interference, as the country’s long, complicated history shows us.’

Reza Pahlavi, son of the last and ultimately despised shah, is also on manoeuvres, arguing that the end of the revolutionary regime is nigh. His candidacy – reports say he is ‘not necessarily’ looking for the restoration of the monarchy – has a tone-deaf shamelessness that is briefly entertaining, but the less said about him the better. He reminds me of the late Sharif Ali bin al-Hussein, the charming, self-styled Crown Prince of Iraq who popped up in Baghdad in 2004 and did the rounds, claiming to be the legitimate heir to a nonexistent throne.

All of which is to suggest that when leaders launch ambitious military interventions and dangle the tantalising, headline-grabbing prize of regime change before us, a smidgen of caution is advisable. As for those hoping for a sudden outbreak of liberal democracy in Iran – or post-Assad Syria for that matter – Charles Gammell, a former Foreign Office official and Iran expert, has a stark warning. Given that the ayatollahs have already driven the opposition abroad, underground or into their graves, he doubts there are many suitable candidates left. ‘The patterns of repression, corruption and vice that we saw under the Pahlavi regime have simply been repeated – on steroids – by the Islamic Republic, and there is every chance that the psychological wounds inflicted by Khamenei and his ilk would produce an anti-western, anti-liberal and repressive post-Islamic Republic Iran. Beware those who promise the sunlit uplands of liberal democracy.’

I agree and articles and talk on regime change seem to be missing what the focus is for the G7.

It's not why it's happening. Although it might happen anyway.

Got my weekend viewing sorted !! Ralph Fiennes as well.

Got mine sorted as well. Munich. Seen it 3 times but it's never enough.

Never seen Munich ... maybe I will over the next few days.

Hated Ralph Fiennes with a passion in Schindler's List @sualipa

Then fell in love with him in The English Patient.

A very talented actor.

Yes a great movie in every respect. Coup53 went firmly under the radar - essentially Britain stole wholesale Iran's oil wealth and assasinated the man who tried to regain sovereignity for his own country.

Fab film, some eye candy as well - to boot!

I might give that a go. I notice Ralph Fiennes is in it?

It's an excellent film that should be standard viewing for many commentators on the current situation.

The funny thing is that Britain attempted to get the US involved in the coup to help the UK to sustain its footprint in West Asia. Afterwards America decided that actually involvement in the region would be to their own benefit and began the process of becoming the dominant power in the region.

Oh God he was pure evil but he played that part so well. Now Liam as Oscar...breathtaking but I found that about the film, especially John Williams' soundtrack. Agree with you on how lush Ralph was in the English patient.

Anyway, I digress

Yes they dramatize some of the story from record that they have obtained with RF playing the main protaganist.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coup_53

Yes and didn't follow is into the breach over end of Empire Suez.

You just know it will be good then 👍

Yup, Eisenhower basically forcing France, Israel and the UK to stop their little adventure was probably the last time an American administration has intervened in the region to ordinary Americans actual benefit.

I've been watching Simon Reeves travels across Scandinavia, Mediterranean and Tropic of Capricorn on i-player. Mediterranean was filmed in 2018. Capricorn in 2008. Bit chilling when his driver pointed out the roundabout where daesh crucified traitors. Really interesting series. He travels in Lebanon, Israel, Gaza, Libya, Algeria, Egypt, Saudi....

Apparently he wrote a book in 1998 , (the new jackals) , featuring among others Osama bin Laden.

Reeve's thesis is that a group of several thousand men who fought against the soviets during the Afghan War of the 1980s would later dominate international terrorism. He warned that many of these men, known as the "Afghan Arabs", had become the core of Al-Qaeda and constituted a new breed of terrorist, militants with no restrictions on mass killing. Reeve concluded that, by 1998, the world was entering a new age of apocalyptic terrorism, and predicted that Al-Qaeda would launch massive attacks on Western targets.

Very interesting stuff.

You've reminded me @quantumbutterfly about the film based on Navy Seals taking out Bin Laden. . Been meaning to look it up but couldn't remember it's name. Of course, one conspiracy theory is that Bin Laden didn't exist but that's another story.

Some good recommendations here - thanks everyone 😀

FT again it really is a great paper and if I was richer I wouldn't nick it but needs must.

https://archive.ph/5tYAG

He added that Israel’s assault had widened rifts within the opposition: “Some oppose it, while many of Mr Pahlavi’s supporters have voiced support.”
“There are a lot of people in Iran who also oppose the Islamic republic and they have paid with their lives, with their livelihoods,” said Milani, a professor at the University of South Florida. “It’s hard for me to see how they’re just going to go away and let somebody else come and take over.”

The additional risk for Pahlavi, who met Netanyahu while visiting Israel in 2023, is that he will be viewed as a collaborator with Iran’s aggressor, eroding what support he has in the republic, analysts say.

“What people will gravitate towards is someone who is going to turn the lights back on, who will bring order and stabilise relations with the outside,” he said. “That would rally the bureaucracy.”

Iranians’ biggest fear would be the fragmentation of the multi-ethnic nation of 90mn people, having witnessed the carnage in neighbouring Iraq in the wake of the US-led 2003 invasion that toppled dictator Saddam Hussein, as well as the civil wars that followed 2011’s popular uprisings in Syria and Libya.
Milani said those conflicts, as well as Iranians’ own experience of the 1979 Islamic revolution, had made the middle class — the main driver of change — wary of any push for regime change.

“They have become much more reluctant to participate unless they are given a degree of assurance that what is going to replace the Islamic republic would be better than what we have today,” he said.

People are idiots if thet think that whatever replaces this regime will be any better. You have to be absoluitely deluded to think that the outcome will be any different from Aghanistan.

What about Israel killing tens of thousands of Palestinian people and still being treated like a victim in the conflict by so many?
Absolutely not justifyinf Iranian regime btw, just interesting how easily people are swayed by "killed 100 of people" but not by "murderdd 15000 children".

Do Israelis execute their own women?