A more dangerous, repressive junta is arising out of Iran’s ashes

The U.S. and Israeli campaign against Iran’s Islamic regime has already rewired power inside Iran. What is now emerging not collapse, but consolidation: a Shiite junta that could be described as the Third Islamic Republic.

On the one hand, this new Iran’s conventional and nuclear capabilities have been seriously degraded. On the other, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has seen its position strengthened. It will surely intensify repression and turn the closure of the Strait of Hormuz into a lever that can trap the region and the global order in crisis.

In public, the Shiite mullahs dominate Iran, but operational authority has over time concentrated within the security apparatus — the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the intelligence services and the security networks. War has only accelerated this shift.

Under external pressure, the regime has thus moved not toward reform or negotiation but toward militarization. The decapitation of senior commanders and the targeting of main hubs has weakened the system, but it has also created an opening for radical elites to move up.

Strikes on headquarters and logistical networks have degraded the regime’s ability to manage security coherently. But redundancy was built into this architecture long ago. Parallel chains of command span the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the intelligence agencies. This averts systemic collapse at the cost of slower coordination in decision-making.

As commanders have died off, the system has devolved into increasingly reactionary crisis management and heightened repression. Vacancies are filled on the basis of loyalty rather........

© The Hill