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West Asia is passing through one of its most critical phases in the last half-century. Even as Oman-led diplomatic talks with Iran were expected to resume this week, the United States (US) and Israel launched unexpected and unprovoked strikes against the country, killing top leaders and hundreds of civilians, including children in an elementary school. The central question today is whether regime change in Tehran has become a likely scenario amid attempts to reorganise the state’s leadership structure.

At present, the regime change sought by the US and Israel appears far from certain. While the attacks have weakened Iran’s leadership structure, the political system has not collapsed. Instead, Iran seems to be preparing for a complex internal transition.

Reports indicate that the Assembly of Experts has selected Mojtaba Khamenei, the second son of the late Ali Khamenei, as the new Supreme Leader. Until this leadership is fully consolidated, a three-member interim leadership council – comprising President Masoud Pezeshkian, Chief Justice Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Eje’i, and the cleric Alireza Arafi – was attempting to maintain administrative continuity.

In this uncertain moment, the decisive factor will be Iran’s security apparatus, particularly the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). The IRGC is not simply a military institution. It is also a powerful political actor and a vast economic network. Whoever emerges as Iran’s next political authority will need the support, or at least the neutrality, of this organisation. If the IRGC remains unified, the existing system of governance could continue even in the face of severe external pressure.

The IRGC is one of the two principal armed forces in Iran, alongside the regular military known as the Artesh. It was created after the 1979 Iranian Revolution, when the revolutionary leadership under Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini distrusted the Shah’s former army because of its close ties with Western powers. The new regime, therefore, established the IRGC as an ideological force dedicated to defending the revolution and the Islamic political system. The Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s transformed it from........

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