Regime change in Iran is underway — and it won’t be easy

It’s rare that the citizens of a country under attack venture into the streets to cheer the enemy’s bombs, but that’s what happened in Iran in the hours after the United States and Israel launched a comprehensive attack on the ruling regime.

In parts of Tehran and other cities, ordinary Iranians celebrated news that the regime’s “Supreme Leader,” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had been eliminated.

The death of Khamenei — the Middle East’s longest-serving dictator, in power since 1989 — is a moment of extraordinary significance.

It may yet result in the unraveling of the Islamic Republic that has reigned Iran for nearly half a century.

Regime change is no longer whispered in Washington. It’s openly discussed.

For 47 years, Washington has tried everything short of it to tame the Islamic Republic.

Diplomacy. Sanctions. Concessions. “Engagement.” Military deterrence.

Every approach has failed.

President Donald Trump’s announcement of “Operation Epic Fury,” coordinated with Israel’s “Operation Lion’s Roar,” was telling.

He did not outline a post-ayatollah blueprint.

He did not name successors.

Instead, he made two objectives unmistakably clear: dismantling Iran’s nuclear and missile threats, and giving the Iranian people a real chance to topple their oppressors.

Trump’s view is straightforward.

The United States must eliminate the external threat Iran poses to Israel, America, Europe and its Arab neighbors, but what replaces the regime inside Iran is up to the Iranian people.

That distinction matters.

No one should pretend there is a ready-made government-in-waiting.

Reza Pahlavi — the late Shah’s son who is popular inside Iran — has done serious work on transition planning. But planning is not power.

There is no certainty about who governs Tehran the day the clerical regime collapses.

Iran is also not a monolith; it is a mosaic — including Azeris, Kurds, Arabs, Baluch and others.

Just last week, five Kurdish factions formed a united front against the regime.

Beyond them stand communists, dissident Islamists and other opposition movements — hardly natural allies of the United States.

Could Iran fracture along ethnic lines? Could another radical faction try to seize the vacuum?

The odds are not high — but they are not zero.

Regime change would be complicated. It would be contested. It would be messy.

We need to plan.

But let’s be clear: the survival of this regime — a nuclear-seeking, terror-sponsoring, protest-crushing dictatorship — is far more dangerous than the risks that come with its collapse.

The alternative to uncertainty is continued tyranny. And that is worse.

Another nuclear deal would only delay the inevitable.

More sanctions without decisive action won’t break a regime willing to impoverish its own people to stay in power.

Limited strikes that merely “set back” the program invite Tehran to rebuild it.

We should be clear-eyed: So long as this regime survives, the threat survives.

History is rarely neat. As Immanuel Kant observed, “Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made.”

The Iranian people overwhelmingly want change. They have risked their lives for it.

America’s role is not to pick their leaders — it is to remove the regime’s ability to threaten the world and to give those brave citizens a fighting chance.

With Khamenei’s demise, it’s in America’s interest to cultivate an enlightened leadership capable of governing Iran, as Ronald Reagan did in Eastern Europe during the twilight years of communism.

But let’s not be under any illusion that regime change, the best possible outcome, will be the easiest one.   

Mark Dubowitz is chief executive of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, where Ben Cohen is a research fellow.