My questions revolve around how a new regime could actually come into power, who would steer it from the inside, what would the structure look like, how it would deal with the remaining aspects of the current regime, such as the IRGC, and how it would change the posture in the region towards Israel. Can this state be hoisted into the modern world?
The short answer, of course, is that we do not know--but that's never any fun!
How a new regime comes into power depends mightily on how the existing regime is removed from power.
If, as a hypothetical, the Iranian people do rally around Reza Pahlevi, a national uprising as we have seen in other countries (Romania, Ukraine, the Philippines, et cetera) pushes the mullahs out of power (and possibly out a literal window). At some point during or just after that, Pahlevi returns to Iran after decades in exile (a moment not unlike Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini returning to Iran in 1979 after his years in exile). He would then have to gather together a transitional government to both keep things running and write a new constitution. If he does this well and retains public support throughout within a few months the transitional government yields to a newly elected government.
Alternatively, if, as is being speculated by Israel, Khamenei is already dead and the Iranian people do not rally around Pahlevi, then we could see regional IRGC commanders leverage their position to seize power in whatever parts of Iran they can. In that scenario, Iran devolves into anarchic civil war not unlike Libya after the fall of Qadaffi. In that scenario, a new regime emerges only after the various IRGC commanders have killed off most of the competition.
With events still fluid in Iran, your guess is as good as anyone's as to which scenario we will see. The two I've outlined are not the only possible scenarios, either.
While the what-ifs can be a perverse intellectual pleasure, when we return to the real world we still come back to "we don't know."
One can hope that the US/Israeli planners have thought these questions through. That exiled leaders are poised to re-enter and take the wheel. It could be disastrous if the IRGC scenario you outlined goes down.
When the protests against the Khamenei regime first erupted at the end of 2025, corporate media in particular seemed inclined to advance a narrative of Reza Pahlevi as the leader of the moment.
He's a problematic figure mainly because he's the son of the Shah the Islamic Revolution deposed in 1979, and the Shah was not always the kindest of autocrats to the Iranian people.
However, the corporate media narratives highlighting his messages on social media purportedly where he's speaking to the Iranian people definitely support a thesis that Pahlevi is being "groomed" or prepared to establish a transitional government should the Iranian people topple the Khamenei regime.
Will the Iranian people let Pahlevi "take the wheel"? We don't know the answer to that either.
Watching Trump’s State of the Union address I thought, okay, now he’s going to turn his attention to Iran, as that’s next on his busy agenda. Couple of days went by, I turned my own attention to other matters, then BOOM!
And we’re barely into Year Two.
Peter, I hope you can watch for the coming big geopolitical signs. Do the Chinese/Hong Kong stock markets crater, as they realize how this will affect their energy supply? Does Putin react, in noticeable ways? Does this seem to push forward the troubles in Cuba? You know what I mean - dominoes could start falling, and you’re the insightful genius to see the patterns!
We can easily conclude that this will have major impacts on both Russia and China.
China is Iran's principal oil customer, and Iranian oil accounts for a substantial fraction of China's energy imports (and China imports roughly 75%-80% of its oil). If those oil flows are disrupted China gets an oil shock not unlike the oil shocks endured by the United States back in the 1970s (the last one, ironically, was triggered by the upheavals in Iran that brought down the Shah).
Russia has been a major purchase of Iranian drone technology. It is unclear how drone hardware Iran is actually exporting to Russia, as Russia has reached an agreement to license Iran's drone tech so that they could manufacture Iranian Shahed drones domestically. How much of the underlying production Russia can accomplish on its own and how much it still needs to import some or all of the raw materials needed to assemble a Shahed 136 or 139 drone is an unknown.
At the same time, the removal of Iran from the oil suppliers being service by the now -infamous "shadow fleet" potentially gives Russia more ships to evade sanctions to sell oil abroad—or it makes it even easier to identify and target "shadow fleet" vessels, limiting Russia's ability to bypass sanctions to bring in desperately needed oil revenue.
There are multiple scenarios which could unfold for both Russia and China. We do not yet know which ones will prove to be the case.
There is much to speculate on. Very few verified facts to support conclusions. It's normal and natural to do so; but we should be conservative in analysis at this time. Iran is still a demonstrated dangerous and treacherous adversary.
I sincerely wish for the evildoers to be vanquished, but reality may prove a lesser result. Better than before, but still not a US & Israel friendly state.
Quite so, and for that reason I am very deliberately not drawing any specific conclusion, save the obvious one that, geopolitically, this is "yuge".
It is easy to see these events are significant. It is far less easy to see what that significance actually is.
It's not even a question of unverified facts. It's a question of facts still flowing in, and events still unfolding. We can't engage in any Monday morning quarterbacking because, if anything, we're not even at halftime yet!
My questions revolve around how a new regime could actually come into power, who would steer it from the inside, what would the structure look like, how it would deal with the remaining aspects of the current regime, such as the IRGC, and how it would change the posture in the region towards Israel. Can this state be hoisted into the modern world?
The short answer, of course, is that we do not know--but that's never any fun!
How a new regime comes into power depends mightily on how the existing regime is removed from power.
If, as a hypothetical, the Iranian people do rally around Reza Pahlevi, a national uprising as we have seen in other countries (Romania, Ukraine, the Philippines, et cetera) pushes the mullahs out of power (and possibly out a literal window). At some point during or just after that, Pahlevi returns to Iran after decades in exile (a moment not unlike Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini returning to Iran in 1979 after his years in exile). He would then have to gather together a transitional government to both keep things running and write a new constitution. If he does this well and retains public support throughout within a few months the transitional government yields to a newly elected government.
Alternatively, if, as is being speculated by Israel, Khamenei is already dead and the Iranian people do not rally around Pahlevi, then we could see regional IRGC commanders leverage their position to seize power in whatever parts of Iran they can. In that scenario, Iran devolves into anarchic civil war not unlike Libya after the fall of Qadaffi. In that scenario, a new regime emerges only after the various IRGC commanders have killed off most of the competition.
With events still fluid in Iran, your guess is as good as anyone's as to which scenario we will see. The two I've outlined are not the only possible scenarios, either.
While the what-ifs can be a perverse intellectual pleasure, when we return to the real world we still come back to "we don't know."
One can hope that the US/Israeli planners have thought these questions through. That exiled leaders are poised to re-enter and take the wheel. It could be disastrous if the IRGC scenario you outlined goes down.
When the protests against the Khamenei regime first erupted at the end of 2025, corporate media in particular seemed inclined to advance a narrative of Reza Pahlevi as the leader of the moment.
He's a problematic figure mainly because he's the son of the Shah the Islamic Revolution deposed in 1979, and the Shah was not always the kindest of autocrats to the Iranian people.
However, the corporate media narratives highlighting his messages on social media purportedly where he's speaking to the Iranian people definitely support a thesis that Pahlevi is being "groomed" or prepared to establish a transitional government should the Iranian people topple the Khamenei regime.
Will the Iranian people let Pahlevi "take the wheel"? We don't know the answer to that either.
Watching Trump’s State of the Union address I thought, okay, now he’s going to turn his attention to Iran, as that’s next on his busy agenda. Couple of days went by, I turned my own attention to other matters, then BOOM!
And we’re barely into Year Two.
Peter, I hope you can watch for the coming big geopolitical signs. Do the Chinese/Hong Kong stock markets crater, as they realize how this will affect their energy supply? Does Putin react, in noticeable ways? Does this seem to push forward the troubles in Cuba? You know what I mean - dominoes could start falling, and you’re the insightful genius to see the patterns!
We can easily conclude that this will have major impacts on both Russia and China.
China is Iran's principal oil customer, and Iranian oil accounts for a substantial fraction of China's energy imports (and China imports roughly 75%-80% of its oil). If those oil flows are disrupted China gets an oil shock not unlike the oil shocks endured by the United States back in the 1970s (the last one, ironically, was triggered by the upheavals in Iran that brought down the Shah).
Russia has been a major purchase of Iranian drone technology. It is unclear how drone hardware Iran is actually exporting to Russia, as Russia has reached an agreement to license Iran's drone tech so that they could manufacture Iranian Shahed drones domestically. How much of the underlying production Russia can accomplish on its own and how much it still needs to import some or all of the raw materials needed to assemble a Shahed 136 or 139 drone is an unknown.
At the same time, the removal of Iran from the oil suppliers being service by the now -infamous "shadow fleet" potentially gives Russia more ships to evade sanctions to sell oil abroad—or it makes it even easier to identify and target "shadow fleet" vessels, limiting Russia's ability to bypass sanctions to bring in desperately needed oil revenue.
There are multiple scenarios which could unfold for both Russia and China. We do not yet know which ones will prove to be the case.
There is much to speculate on. Very few verified facts to support conclusions. It's normal and natural to do so; but we should be conservative in analysis at this time. Iran is still a demonstrated dangerous and treacherous adversary.
I sincerely wish for the evildoers to be vanquished, but reality may prove a lesser result. Better than before, but still not a US & Israel friendly state.
Quite so, and for that reason I am very deliberately not drawing any specific conclusion, save the obvious one that, geopolitically, this is "yuge".
It is easy to see these events are significant. It is far less easy to see what that significance actually is.
It's not even a question of unverified facts. It's a question of facts still flowing in, and events still unfolding. We can't engage in any Monday morning quarterbacking because, if anything, we're not even at halftime yet!