Donald Trump’s recent pronouncement that the war with Iran, which he termed “a little excursion”, would be over “pretty quickly” adds strength to the increasing consensus that the regime of the Islamic Republic will survive the latest combined American and Israeli assault.

But how long it will survive – or what might follow from the future disintegration of the regime – are significant questions which remain unanswered.

In the short to medium term it would appear that regime survival is all but guaranteed. There are a number of reasons for this. Despite the deaths of so many senior regime figures – including the supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, in the first day of the war – its basic leadership structure seems intact. The influential speaker of parliament, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, and the head of the supreme national security council, Ali Larijani, and many other senior figures remain in place. The swift, if somewhat surprising, selection of Khamenei’s son, Mojtaba, as his successor can be read as signifying continuity in the midst of war. Nor is there any evidence to date of significant defections from the regime’s military or security apparatus. This is, at least in part, due to the extent to which the fearsome Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is embedded within the country’s economy, controlling – according to some estimates – up to 50 per cent of Iran’s wealth.

As a result, military commanders have a material stake in its survival that transcends ideological commitment. Indeed, reliance on the regime’s security apparatus is central to plans drawn up after last year’s 12-day war with the United States and Israel to deal with any threat of possible civil war. According to recent reports, sources within the IRGC have outlined preparations for any such scenario.

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