Two months ago, the Iranian regime was at its most perilous state since it came to power in 1979.

Already facing heavy international sanctions, the regime — itself born of a revolution sparked by popular discontent — confronted widespread unrest at home, as anger over dire economic conditions turned into nationwide anti-government demonstrations.

But excitement among regime opponents abroad over the prospect of its downfall quickly turned to horror as the Islamist theocracy launched a brutal crackdown, killing as many as 30,000 protesters, according to some counts.

The massacre showed the regime to be willing and able to do whatever it took to stay in power, even if it meant slaughtering its own people by the thousands.

While regime change is not an explicit goal of the joint Israeli-US military campaign against Iran, both US President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have made clear that they hope the offensive will create the conditions for the mass opposition movement to return to the street and topple the ayatollah rule, this time without being cut down.

But over three weeks into the war, the campaign’s success in creating those conditions is far less clear than either Trump or Netanyahu suggests. And talks announced by Trump on Monday aimed at ending the war indicate that the regime may indeed remain in power, even if the US leader claims regime change has already been effected.

While airstrikes and targeted killings of leaders have weakened the regime materially, they may also be reinforcing its internal cohesion, hardening its capacity for repression, and exposing the absence of any credible political alternative, experts say.

If the Islamic Republic is to fall — with a more welcome replacement taking power — it will require addressing all three factors.

Preconditions for a revolution

Historically, mass protest alone is not enough to bring about a political revolution — what matters more is whether popular unrest translates into cracks within the ruling regime itself. Otherwise, the united rulership tends to suppress opposition.

“There has to be some break in the security and elite apparatus. Without it, it’s difficult to see… almost any regime collapsing,” said Ray Takeyh, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

According to Jack A. Goldstone, Hazel professor of Public Policy at George Mason University, conditions necessary for a revolution to occur include “a fiscal crisis, divided elites, a diverse oppositional coalition, a convincing narrative of resistance, and a favorable international environment.”

Around the height of January’s protests, he assessed that the Islamic Republic was the closest it had ever been to meeting all of those conditions, the main impediment being that the regime’s security forces remained loyal.

As a broad rule, regimes fall when these forces either defect or are defeated on the ground by an opposition force.

But thus far, the US-Israeli campaign has not resulted in any such cracks visible from the outside, and it may have had the opposite effect, bolstering elite and military loyalty to the regime. Nor has it helped a viable alternative leader emerge, demoralizing the opposition and depriving it and any who might conceivably defect of a common point to rally around.

Iran’s January protests were an encouraging indication of approaching regime change, according to Goldstone, who said that a follow-on revolution would have been likely “within a matter of months.”

“The protests had spread to become national: crossing regions, ethnic groups, and even different economic classes,” he said.

While there were not yet defections in the elite and military apparati, the former appeared to be plausible: “There was clearly some fracturing in the political elite,” with some leaders calling for more meaningful negotiations with Washington, serious economic reforms, and the possibility of going in “a more moderate direction” once the 86-year-old supreme leader Ali Khamenei died.

Criticism of the regime’s immense........

© The Times of Israel