Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is dead, but regime change will require more than airstrikes by Israeli and American forces. His death puts pro-democracy Iranians at risk of being massacred by the heavily armed IRCG, whose soldiers have vowed to defend the regime to the last drop of their blood.

The Operation Lion’s Roar and Operation Epic Fury need to protect those defenseless Iranians by way of taking over Tehran as US forces did in 2003 when they stormed into Baghdad to topple the regime of Saddam Hussein.

The Iranian regime has reportedly killed at least 32,000 of its own people because the Iranians fought the dictatorship without using weapons. Now that the IRGC is excessively furious at the demise of its supreme leader, more civilian victims would fall if they were left alone in their noble struggle for freedom.

A strong impression that has formed within the international community is that if the IRGC was not able protect its own supreme leader and only learned about his tragic death after Israeli air strikes, it cannot and will not protect ordinary Iranians — all the more so those freedom-seeking protesters, many more of them are bound to die as a result.

It is not enough for President Donald Trump only to call on the Iranians to seize the momentum without sufficiently aiding them on the ground — Operation Lion’s Roar and Operation Epic Fury need to be there with the protesters on the ground to ascertain a regime change, if indeed that is what these operations aim to achieve. Otherwise, the death of Khamenei would only trigger an endless civil war that would claim many more innocent lives.

Critics would argue that President Trump is a double-standard leader, because while promulgating the Board of Peace for Gaza, he is waging a war against Iran. But I am tempted to assume that what the US and Israel are doing is actually an act of crushing the head of the snake to cripple the tail, discouraging Iranian proxies from launching further strikes against Israel.

Khamenei’s tragic death must have reached Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, Houthis, and the militias in Iraq as an unexpected hard blow to their faces, sending them into confusion as to what to do next to retain their image.

For the mission of the Gaza Board of Peace to succeed, the utmost prerequisite is to terminate once and for all the financial and weapons supply chains to Iranian proxies, and  eliminating the Iranian supreme leader is a logical way to achieve that goal. This, I think, is what President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have in mind.

Because the International Stabilization Force (ISF) cannot fully disarm Hamas and incapacitate the other resistance forces so long as those supply chains are still operational.

Therefore, the United Nations Security Council needs to create the right atmosphere for peace — instead of resuming its fruitless verbal battle over the attacks on Iran — if indeed the UNSC is honest about restoring peace and stability in Gaza in accordance with its own Resolution 2803.

Diplomatically, the IRGC’s missile attacks on US military assets in Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait, and Jordan are actually direct attacks on the sovereignty of those countries, because unlike US embassies elsewhere, the plots of land housing those bases are not owned by the US; they are integral parts of those Arab countries. It remains to be seen how the Arabs interpret such blatant violation of their sovereignty.

If continued, such attacks could cause those Arab countries to rally behind the US — whose security umbrella they desperately need — against Iran; and in the process erode any left-over sympathy for the Iranian proxies fighting Israel. What may have slipped the IRGC’s mind is that attacking US bases in Arab countries is like burning the bridge at both ends. And that is what the loyalists of the dictatorial regime are doing.

From the Iranian regime’s perspective, however, those resistance forces — dubbed terrorists by the US, Israel, and European Union — are “independent freedom fighters” in the words of Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi. He denies the notion that Iran has been supporting those groups in any manner.

The foreign minister’s statement is well understood, given his loyalty oath to the late supreme leader and the fact that he is the voice of a dignified nation. But apparently he needs to reposition himself under the current circumstances, because while he is a seasoned and well-spoken diplomat that Iran needs, a possible regime change — if indeed it happens — would require total adjustment of his diplomatic posture.

Mr. Araghchi has been a tough senior negotiator because he is a man of decided principles to uphold the regime’s stance, and he cannot go against what the IRCG wants — the reason why five rounds of nuclear talks with the US ran aground over the past year. But putting the lives of so many innocent Iranians in danger only to defend one’s principles is not a win-win solution; it is a lose-lose approach.

At a time when the world’s most powerful military is making Iran a legitimate target of attacks amid a lack of concrete military backing from Tehran’s strategic partners such as Russia, China, North Korea, and Pakistan, defending one’s principles to victimize thousands of citizens is not the right way to avoid a bigger catastrophe. Iranians need peace and stability to rebuild their economy, not endless animosity to ruin their fate.

But the Iranian regime is not just fighting a war against the US and Israel; it is fighting a war against its own people. Nowhere in history has there been a country winning a war when its government and military lack support from within their own country. If Khamenei’s successor — whoever he may be — wishes to rebuild the country’s dignity, national unity and cohesion must be the utmost priority to realize. And this is not happening.

Just as big is the duty to defend the country against any military aggression is the duty to reestablish national unity and cohesion. This principle applies to any country, not just Iran. Here lies the daunting task of Khamenei’s successor, and nobody knows for sure if at all democracy can return to Iran, given the iron-clad system of Shiite Islamic theocracy in place there.

If Mr. Trump and Mr. Netanyahu are honest about restoring relations with Iran as a nation, they need to rebuild the bridge of peaceful relations after the war, focusing on amity and cooperation as well as prosperity for the people of Iran.

Operation Lion’s Roar and Operation Epic Fury may need to be replaced with Cyrus Accords as proposed by exiled Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, invoking the memory of the great Persian king who in 538 BC ordered Israelite captives to return and rebuild the Second Temple in Jerusalem.

But only a regime change can usher that in — which is still a remote possibility. And that will not happen if Khamenei’s second son, Mojtaba Khamanei is appointed the next supreme leader. So the battle can stop, but the war will go on endlessly.

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)