Three weeks into the war, Israel and the US have indeed carried out something akin to regime change in Iran: The supreme leader has been replaced by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Consequently, Iran’s decisions are far less theological and far more military, existential, and strategic.

The lack of clarity regarding the condition of the new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei  — who is thought to have been wounded on the first day of the war — only strengthens the assessment that decisions are now mainly being made on a hardline axis, between parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and IRGC commander Ahmad Vahidi.

That hawkish line can be seen in Iran’s continuing attacks on the Gulf states and in the helplessness of relatively less extreme government figures, some of whom are trying to find a diplomatic path to end the war.

On Saturday, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian spoke with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and proposed that BRICS (the economic bloc that includes Brazil, China, India, Russia, the United Arab Emirates, and South Africa) begin negotiations with the US and Israel to halt the fighting.

In all likelihood, the request was not coordinated and does not align with the IRGC, which at this stage feels that despite the heavy toll, it can still stand up to the two powers attacking it.

The appeal to India is a desperate move by the Iranian president, who already got a cold shower from the IRGC after declaring two weeks ago that Iran would stop attacking neighboring countries – only to be undercut, minutes later, by a missile attack on the United Arab Emirates.

On Saturday, for the........

© The Times of Israel