President Donald Trump has claimed repeatedly in recent days that the air war on Iran has ousted the regime, but there is no indication that the authoritarian government has lost its grip on power or that successors to assassinated leaders have made a break with the Islamic Republic\u2019s ideology, according to multiple Western officials, U.S. intelligence assessments and regional analysts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The U.S. and Israel say they have killed numerous senior figures in the clerical regime since they launched their campaign against Iran on Feb. 28, including the former supreme leader, Ali Khamenei.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Airstrikes have killed Ali Larijani, secretary of the Supreme National Security Council and one of the country\u2019s most powerful officials; Mohammad Pakpour, the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps; the ministers of intelligence and defense; and a slew of other senior commanders, according to Israeli officials.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But the regime shows no sign of unraveling, and the people who have replaced senior leaders are known as equally hard-line or arguably even more militant than their predecessors, according to Western officials and experts on Iran.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIran\u2019s new leaders have the same ideology. All are committed to the principles of the 1979 revolution and will rule with greater brutality given their lack of legitimacy. They fear normalization with the U.S. more than conflict with the U.S.,\u201d Karim Sajadpour, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, wrote on social media.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s unclear whether the administration has found a senior leader in the regime who would be willing to shift the country\u2019s relationship with the U.S. and accede to Washington\u2019s demands, as was the case with the successor to Venezuela\u2019s president, Nicol\u00e1s Maduro, who was captured in a U.S. military raid and brought to the U.S. for prosecution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Siamak Namazi, an American businessman and Iran analyst who was held hostage for nearly eight years by the regime, said gauging the regime\u2019s moves is now much more difficult after so many leaders were killed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhat makes this regime more difficult than ever to predict is the U.S. and Israel just blew up a lot of decision-makers. We don\u2019t know who is in charge week to week,\u201d Namazi said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After the supreme leader, Khamenei, was killed on the first day of the war, Iranian government officials announced that his son, Mojtaba, had taken over. He has earned a reputation as a hard-line loyalist to the regime with close relationships to other senior militant figures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Trump has said that it’s unclear whether Mojtaba is alive or dead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), seen as the most powerful arm of the regime, with both military and economic reach, appears to remain firmly in control and may be in a stronger position than before the conflict, experts say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe IRGC\u2019s power as an economic and political actor, whether directly or through its veterans, had already been evident \u2014 and increasingly seems dominant,\u201d said Ali Vaez, Iran Project director for the International Crisis Group think tank.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And it appears that the senior figures who seem to be in power are from the more hard-line elements of the Revolutionary Guard, some observers say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe most security-oriented hard-line group within the Revolutionary Guards are now in power, calling the shots,\u201d Namazi said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As of March 18, U.S. intelligence agencies assessed that the Iranian regime remained \u201cintact but largely degraded due to attacks on its leadership and military capabilities,\u201d National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard told lawmakers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Two officials in the Middle East region say it is difficult to determine who is in charge in Iran. One of the officials said that a coherent succession process had been in place but that for a country at war with lines of communications disrupted, it is just not clear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Trump\u2019s top diplomat said as recently as Monday it is uncertain who is in charge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt\u2019s very opaque right now,\u201d Secretary of State Rubio told Al Jazeera in an interview. \u201cIt\u2019s not quite clear how decisions are being made inside of Iran.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Trump said Wednesday that the “regime president” had asked the U.S. for a ceasefire but did not provide details about whom he was referring to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Iran\u2019s New Regime President, much less Radicalized and far more intelligent than his predecessors, has just asked the United States of America for a CEASEFIRE!” Trump wrote on Truth Social.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A veteran of the regime has emerged as a potentially key figure after the deaths of other leaders: Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the hard-line speaker of parliament who has deep ties to the Revolutionary Guard. It\u2019s unclear whether Ghalibaf is the person Trump has referred to as a more \u201creasonable\u201d figure passing messages in indirect talks with the U.S. But Trump did indicate that the U.S. is in contact with Ghalibaf in a recent interview with the New York Post.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ghalibaf, 64, one of Iran\u2019s leading conservative figures, is a former commander who has held top political posts for more than 20 years. He also was the country\u2019s chief of police and has overseen crackdowns on protests and internal dissent. During his 12-year tenure as mayor of Tehran, Ghalibaf was accused of corruption, which he denied.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He once boasted in an audio recording that he was proud that he took part in beatings of unarmed protesters in 1999. \u201cI was among those carrying out beatings on the street level, and I am proud of that. I didn\u2019t care I was a high-ranking commander,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Vaez, with the International Crisis Group, said: \u201cGhalibaf is, above all, ambitious. That means that at various points in his career he has worked with various ideological currents in the system, neither among the regime\u2019s most extreme hard-liners nor one of those urging major reforms to the system.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n