00:00So let's raise the big question, Ayatollah Khamenei's future, will Iran see a regime change as Israel appears to be claiming it will?
00:11Why is a regime change in Iran not so easy in the first instance to give it some context?
00:16Remember this is a very robust theocratic system that has resisted external and internal pressure for decades.
00:25They fought a nine-year war with Iraq and survived. They've survived a long period of isolation from the world and yet continued.
00:34There's the loyalty of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards. They work on fear. Let's be clear, this is a regime where fear also works along with faith.
00:42Faith and fear work together when it comes to Ali Khamenei and the clerics who rule Iran.
00:49So nationalistic sentiment has been fueled by anti-Iran rhetoric of US and Israel.
00:55So there is that core sense of Israeli pride, Iranian pride which will come in and Khamenei hopes to benefit from that.
01:04Remember also there is no real opposition in Iran over these years.
01:08A very fragmented opposition that has been unable to challenge the regime effectively all these years.
01:15And there is the regional influence through proxies in the so-called axis of resistance.
01:20Yes, they weakened Hezbollah, Hamas, Houthis.
01:23But the truth is that Iran remains a central player in the Middle East.
01:29That's the question I want to ask.
01:31Will there be regime change in Iran?
01:34It's a question that could affect even this part of the world.
01:37Barbara Slavin, fellow at the Stimson Center and author, joins us.
01:41Thanks very much, Barbara, for joining us.
01:43Let's go straight to that question.
01:45How easy do you believe it is for the United States and Israel if they were to work in tandem in the weeks ahead to bring about a regime change in Iran?
01:55Well, first of all, thank you for having me.
01:58I don't think it's that easy.
02:00And I think we have to understand that Ayatollah Khamenei, yes, he is the supreme leader of Iran, but he presides over a regime that has many members, many constituents, that operates through a kind of consensus.
02:16He's not Saddam Hussein, you know, he's not a one-man band in the way that so many dictators and potentates in the region are.
02:26He is replaceable.
02:28If the Israelis carry out threats or the U.S. carries out threats to assassinate Ayatollah Khamenei, he will be replaced.
02:37And he's 86 years old.
02:39So there has been a succession plan that has been there, I'm sure, for many, many years.
02:44We also have the question of not just the government bureaucracy, but the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the IRGC, which is really the backbone of the regime.
02:55And although the Israelis have decapitated the IRGC, it is a big organization and I think 150,000 members.
03:04It will be able and has, as we've seen, been able to respond to the Israeli strikes by retaliating and causing significant damage and loss of life in Israel.
03:16So, no, I don't think regime change is something you do like that.
03:20That said, these attacks have exposed the vulnerability and the failures of the regime in a really graphic way.
03:30Their inability to foresee them coming to protect their elite and also the policies that they've espoused, which have motivated the Israelis to do this in the first place.
03:43You know, I just want to play a graphic, Barbara, on this big question that we posed.
03:48Is the West and Israel underestimating Iran?
03:52Factor number one, Iran's military is formidable in asymmetric warfare.
03:57You cannot deny that Iran has a large pool of missiles.
04:01They're not quite, therefore, like the Houthis, Hezbollah, Hamas, that have relied on Iran's funding.
04:06Factor number two, thousands of ballistic missiles and drones still exist in Iran's arsenal.
04:12Factor three, Iran is a very large country, economically resilient through, of course, its exports, especially oil, that it's tried to non-West allies.
04:20Strategic ties with Russia and China provide tactical backing.
04:24And the fifth factor, proxy groups that expand Iran's regional influence in mid the Middle East.
04:30The sixth factor, end facility, nuclear facilities in Nathans, Fordo, which are, Fordo is underground, resilient to external strikes.
04:38The reason I put these factors up, Barbara, there was there's a belief that we saw Saddam Hussein's regime crumble when the United States joined the war against terror in the early 2000s.
04:49Is Kamini going to be like Saddam, someone who the Americans can take out?
04:54Well, as I said before, you know, he may be killed in a missile strike somehow, although I'm sure he's well underground and protected at this point.
05:04But there are others who would step in.
05:05It's a large country.
05:06It has 90 million people.
05:09So, you know, and the United States is not invading Iran.
05:13There will be no boots on the ground.
05:15This is an air war.
05:16And no war has ever been definitively won or lost based on airstrikes.
05:22I mean, if you look at the U.S. experience with Iraq, there were many cases where the U.S. bombed Iraq, bombed facilities and so on.
05:30And it took a U.S. invasion by ground forces to eventually get rid of Saddam Hussein, despite economic sanctions, all the pressure that was put on Iran during the 1990s.
05:41So, no, this is not how regime change will happen.
05:45But there is deep anger and unease in Iran over the conduct of their foreign policy and their military policy, over the nuclear policy, whether it was worth it to spend blood and treasure on this program, that it seems quite obvious that the West and Israel are not going to allow Iran to maintain.
06:08The question we all have is whether Iran will still be able to covertly develop a nuclear bomb.
06:14India should know something about that.
06:17Certainly, it's likely that they have moved material and equipment to undisclosed locations.
06:24And that, of course, would be the ultimate irony, that Israel bombs Iran to get rid of the nuclear program, and that causes Iran to develop a bomb.
06:32You see, you mentioned briefly that there is an element of unease, unrest, with a regime that's been in power for almost half a century.
06:42Ayatollah Khomeini came to power 79, we're in 2025, so that's 46 years.
06:47Do you believe that if there was the slightest opportunity that the people of Iran had, would they want to see the clerics who have ruled them for these four and a half decades go?
06:59Or do they still have a lot of support on the street, given the fact that faith and fear, as I said earlier, coexist today in Iran?
07:07I think the regime is incredibly unpopular, and if they ever had real elections, it would be gone in a heartbeat.
07:15But for it to fall while a foreigner, a foreign power, is attacking the country is very different.
07:22And you've seen, even from Iranian dissidents in the West, that there has been a kind of rallying effect against what is seen as attacks that have gone way beyond the nuclear and military infrastructure that have hit apartment buildings.
07:38You remember the Israelis used to be famous for their sort of surgical assassinations.
07:42They would catch one man on the street.
07:44Now they're bombing apartment buildings in order to kill university professors, and they're killing lots of civilians.
07:51So this has caused, obviously, a big response.
07:54The other question is, what comes next?
07:56If you get rid of the Islamic Republic, what follows?
07:59Is it better?
08:01And one fear that Iranians have is that the real Israeli game plan is not regime change, but destabilization and fragmentation.
08:10That the Israelis want Iran to collapse, that they want pieces of it to fall off, that they want ethnic minorities to rise up,
08:17that they can't bear the thought of a powerful Iran, no matter what its government.
08:22So I think we should be fairly cautious about predicting, A, regime change, and B, what would follow?
08:28You mentioned what would follow, because we saw with Saddam Hussein, when he fell, for a while there was complete chaos in Iraq.
08:38There's also a belief that the opposition is simply not strong enough in Iran.
08:42Most of the opposition activists have either fled the country or have disappeared.
08:48There are huge questions over human rights violations, so the fear factor.
08:52But the truth also is that a lot of close aides of Khamenei have been either assassinated or taken out.
08:59Or he finds himself, some believe, isolated.
09:03Do you believe that there is, as you said earlier, a succession plan in place?
09:08Who will replace Khamenei in the worst-case scenario for Iran?
09:13Well, it could be another Ayatollah.
09:16It could be his second son, Mojtaba.
09:19Any number of clerics in the so-called Assembly of Experts,
09:22which is the body that is nominally charged with choosing the Supreme Leader and supervising the Supreme Leader.
09:28It could be a military commander, someone whose name and face are not familiar to us.
09:34So, you know, I think it's very hard to speculate.
09:37But Iran is pretty tough, and as you pointed out, it's very large, and people will hunker down and, you know, get through this.
09:45I think a bigger question is, how long will Israel keep this up?
09:49You know, when will Israel run out of missiles?
09:53How long will the United States continue to support Israel in this campaign?
09:57Will it, you know, go on forever?
10:00This is not like Russia-Ukraine.
10:02I mean, I think there's going to have to be some sort of end to this,
10:06because I don't think that Israel can sustain, certainly not at this tempo, can sustain a war like this.
10:14So, final question, a quick answer, Barbara Stavien.
10:17And how do you, if you were to, if you were to put a pundit's hat on, do you believe the regime will survive or is it its last stand?
10:26I think in the short term it will survive.
10:29I think in the long term, no.
10:30Okay, short term, it will, you're saying, will survive in the long term.
10:36Now, how long is long term is the big question, Barbara?
10:40In the long term, we're all dead, as they say.
10:42That's right.
10:43Your guess is as good as mine.
10:46Okay.
10:47Thank you very much.
10:48Barbara Stavien, joining me there from the Stimson Center, someone who's tracked Iran very, very closely.
