“Undermining this moment of relief for many repressed Iranians is that killing Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is a perilously simple fix to a very complex problem,

Tel Aviv, Israel — Undermining this moment of relief for many repressed Iranians is that killing Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is a perilously simple fix to a very complex problem.

Khamanei’s rule was marked by mismanagement, and ultimately ended with one of the more brutal episodes of his trademark repression – the violence his regime meted out to keep power.

His removal has sparked celebrations in Tehran, as well as 40 days’ official mourning and huge pro-regime crowds – but also a struggle for what remains of the regime to work out what comes next.

Israeli officials have hinted the strike was expedited to exploit a daylight window of opportunity when senior Iranian leaders met. And US President Donald Trump appears to have reached again for the Venezuela playbook, suggesting he had a successor in mind – as he did after the capture of Nicolás Maduro, anointing deputy leader Delcy Rodriguez as his preferred interlocutor.

When asked late Saturday, Trump notably declined to say who he thought would play that role in this case. Soon, though, Tehran will have to announce a succession plan.

But Iran is absolutely not as persuadable as Venezuela has been so far.

For 47 years, a theocracy has turned into an autocracy and kleptocracy. A large proportion of the country’s more than 90 million people rely on the regime for their livelihood, and a minority have blood on their hands from helping it repress dissent.

When the Assad regime in nearby Syria collapsed in late 2024, its security forces had been hollowed out – and its economy ravaged – by years of civil conflict. Iran’s security forces have just had a refresher course in the power of savagery, as they put down January’s uprising.

The US and Israel seem united in their assessment that removing the top layer of Iran’s regime will leave them in a better place.

As well as Khamenei, defense minister Aziz Nasirzadeh, head of the Iranian Security Council Ali Shamkhani, and commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Mohammad Pakpour were all killed in a matter of hours. This is a security elite just recently reconstituted after the decimating of June’s 12-day war.

Who steps in?
But history lacks good examples of air campaigns that have easily toppled regimes and led to replacements that the attackers preferred.

Hardliners will race to fill the void, simply to survive. They may be reluctant to be next in the US-Israeli crosshairs, but that fear has not led to a shortage of candidates in the past. Is it possible a consensus emerges that, to endure, the autocracy must make peace with the US and the region, and feign moderation for a while?

Perhaps. But that risks projecting the weakness Tehran is so allergic to.

There is no easy replacement government-in-opposition-on-a-box that Trump can promote.

Reza Pahlavi, heir of the long-deposed shah, cannot swan into Tehran and pick up the reins without risking an angry IRGC trying to kill him. There is no opposition really left inside Iran. As in Caracas, any solution will likely have to come from inside the remnants of the regime.

In many ways, missteps by Khamanei have made the US and Israel’s job easier. His repression and economic mismanagement mean Iran is in desperate and self-evident need of change, his people yearning to be freer and richer.

His clear orders to retaliate so ferociously to these strikes – carried out, it seems, posthumously – have enraged most of the region, hitting neighbors who had urged the US to back away from strikes, now livid that their civilians have come under Iranian missile and drone attack. Iran seems to keep making itself weaker, but it does not stop.

A momentous risk now is fracture; that no single faction wins out, and patchwork violence and celebration split Iran, leading to a collapse that destabilizes not only the nation, but the region.

Trump’s limited attention span and allergy to protracted military involvement simply reinforce this risk. The president lacks the political capital at home, the preparation of his electorate for war, or the resources in theatre to fight this battle for months.

He has also kept his goals slim and achievable. Iran’s nuclear program, its missiles, and its ability to harass the US, he can claim, have taken another huge hit. Trump never explicitly declared regime change was his goal – he simply encouraged it. He can declare victory at a moment of his choosing, regardless of what it means for Iran’s future.

The superior technology, intelligence and firepower of the United States and Israel enabled them to conjure a swift and simple solution to their enduring Iran problem. But it has yet to address the glaring and perhaps insurmountable complexities of Iran that have kept it a thorn in the United States’ side for half a century.