What After Khamenei’s Death? And When Will the Regime Collapse?

These are the two questions that Egyptian and European media outlets and journalists who contacted me over the past 24 hours have not stopped asking, persistently seeking a logical answer to them.

In response to the first question, I state clearly:

The realistic scenarios, given the structure of the regime, are confined to the following:

First: Raising military and security readiness, because the moment is read in Tehran as an opportunity for internal and external penetration.

Second: The formal constitutional path:
According to the Iranian constitution, upon the death of the Supreme Leader or his inability to perform his duties, mechanisms for the transfer of power are activated. Most notably, the Assembly of Experts assumes the role of selecting the Leader, with temporary transitional arrangements stipulated (in Article 111 of the Iranian Constitution).

However, a political reading of reality indicates that this path remains largely formal, while the “actual” path is determined by the balance of power among:

• The Revolutionary Guard and its apparatuses (security, intelligence, economy),

• The networks of the Leader’s Office,

• Oversight and vetting institutions (such as the Guardian Council, through its control over elites),

• In addition to the influential bloc of clerics within the Assembly of Experts, constitutionally tasked with selecting the Leader.

Third: One of three models of power transition is likely to occur:

1. A “consensus conservative successor” ensuring regime continuity:
This is the most likely scenario in ideological systems under wartime conditions—selecting a figure who reassures the Revolutionary Guard, guarantees the continuation of security and regional policy lines, and provides religious legitimacy. This scenario reduces the likelihood of rapid collapse but increases the probability of intensified internal hardline policies and a widening of the war in retaliation for the Leader’s killing.

2. Collective leadership reflecting a balance among ruling factions (through a prolonged transitional phase):
If agreement on a single name cannot be reached quickly, the state may in practice be run by a group of power centers (even if the constitutional form suggests otherwise), with the aim of navigating the wartime moment and preventing infighting within the elite. This scenario typically emerges when strikes have hit the “command nerve” and created multiple power vacuums—something that has partially occurred thus far.

3. Predominance of the Revolutionary Guard (deeper militarization of the regime):
Not necessarily through an overt coup, but through the expansion of the Guard’s influence over selecting the next Leader and determining policy and internal security, while maintaining a religious or institutional façade to preserve legitimacy.

But when will the regime in Iran collapse?

In response, I say:

There is no answer with a specific or precise timeframe that can be stated with confidence (a month or a year), because collapse is not a clock to be read. It is a set of conditions which, when combined, transform the regime from “cohesion under pressure” into “disintegration.” What can be stated with precision are the conditions or indicators that, if clearly visible, make collapse temporally probable.

Decisive indicators:

1. A split within the security elite and the Revolutionary Guard—a fundamental and severe split, not merely a political disagreement; meaning:

• Clashes between intelligence agencies and field commanders,

• Or the emergence of “two chains of command” within Tehran.

2. The state’s failure to pay salaries or basic subsidies, or a currency collapse that paralyzes major cities (widespread administrative paralysis):
At that point, protests shift from political demonstrations to social unrest that cannot be contained.

3. Erosion of the security apparatus’s ability to control the streets:
Demonstrations alone do not bring down a regime, but the inability or refusal of intervention units to act, or the fragmentation of control centers, is what leads to collapse.

4. Loss of control over peripheral regions or vital corridors:
Through major unrest in border provinces or supply routes, or a clear inability to manage external conflict without internal breakdown.

5. The emergence of an organized alternative (even a “salvation council” or coalition) capable of assuming control of the state:
Regimes do not fall merely because people are angry or external pressure exists; they fall when someone emerges to take power or when state institutions disintegrate to the point of vacuum.

Conclusion:

• The realistic answer to “What comes after Khamenei?”: the constitution provides the framework, but the Revolutionary Guard determines the outcome, while the Assembly of Experts legitimizes the result more than it creates it.

• The realistic answer to “When will the regime collapse?”: when the cohesion of the security apparatus and the state’s economic base (security + money) breaks down, or when the forces constituting the regime fracture internally. Otherwise, the regime may endure for a long time even amid heavy losses.

Cairo: 5:00 p.m., local time.