Javier Gil is a professor at the University of Navarra and author of the book ‘The shadow of the Ayatollah, a history of the Islamic Republic of Iran’. He is also an expert on the Middle East and weekend news analyzes the attack by the US and Israel on Iran and the possible repercussions that this will have on the Ayatollah regime.
In his opinion, the US and Israel are going to do everything possible to end the regime of the Islamic Republic and to create the conditions that allow this change. But in this the participation of the Iranian population is necessary, “what Trump has said is true with that message he has sent to the citizens, it is now or never.” A regime change will depend on whether the Iranians “heed the call of Trump and Netanyahu and take to the streets, as they did in January to bring the system to collapse.”
The plan of Israel and the US: the policy of “decapitation”
Regarding the consequences of the attack, Gil believes that it will take several days to see “to what extent this campaign is succeeding and what the attitude of the Iranian population is.”
What the US and Israel are doing is dividing the tasks to each pursue a different objective. In the case of Israel, it is carrying out what is called the “decapitation policy”, that is, focusing on “decapitating the elite of the Islamic Republic.” They have bombed the supreme leader’s residence, the president’s residence and “it appears that they are trying to eliminate the leadership of the Revolutionary Guard”, while the US is focusing on attacking ballistic missile facilities.
For now, the nuclear program is being kept out of the attacks, but “it cannot be ruled out” that it will be done in the coming days.
Does the Ayatollah regime have any chance of prospering?
With the supreme leader’s whereabouts unknown – although according to Iranian television, he would be preparing for a televised speech – it is “likely” that the regime has prepared a succession plan: “It is up to the assembly of experts to choose a successor, but Khamenei has probably given instructions on who could succeed him.”
The problem? Two mainly:
- There is no consensus in Iran on who should succeed the supreme leader: Khamenei is betting on his son, but there are other candidates such as the president of Parliament.
- May these figures also be targets of Israeli bombings, “if not today, then in the coming days.”
End of cycle
Could this attack turn out to be one of those challenges that President Trump finally takes a step back from? For Gil, it has been demonstrated that Trump is “perfectly capable” of doing everything he is doing: “I think that if Trump sees that in the coming days this regime change is not going to occur or if he sees that he has sufficiently degraded the ballistic missile and nuclear program, he is capable of ending the military operation and disengaging from the war.”
What is clear is that this operation gives the impression of being “an end of cycle”, the end of 47 years of “cold war” between the US and Iran, and makes it clear that “Trump has been the first president who has dared to respond directly to Iran’s aggression.”
In Gil’s opinion, “all North American presidents have suffered some type of aggression by Iran in the Middle East over the last 47 years and Trump is the first president who has decided to break with this dynamic and respond directly by attacking Iranian territory.”
