After Khamenei’s death, unravelling of the regime

The Islamic revolution is a spent force as it has devoured its own children at home and overplayed its hand abroad

- Sreeram Chaulia

The regime's strategic assets -- its controversial nuclear programme and vast missile stockpiles -- have been paraded as inalienable crown jewels of the Islamic Republic.

(WEST ASIA NEWS AGENCY VIA REUTERS)

Following the killing of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in the opening salvos of a devastating military campaign by the US and Israel, his son Mojtaba has reportedly been anointed as successor.

It raises a fundamental question whether the Islamic Republic, which is at its weakest point since its formation, can carry on amid mounting internal unrest and relentless external attacks?

It is worth recalling that Iran’s system of rule of clerics under Khamenei’s mentor and Shia religious authority, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, was the outcome of a mass revolution in 1979 that overthrew a US-and Israel-backed absolute monarchy. Today, the boot is on the other foot, and the revolutionary regime is tottering under the double whammy of weakened domestic legitimacy and concerted foreign pressure from the same US and Israel.

The State that Khomeini built and Khamenei consolidated by mixing theocratic Shia fervour, anti-imperialistic martyrdom ideology, and civilisational exceptionalism is facing an existential crisis thanks to the erosion of domestic support within Iranian society. Three factors — political, economic and social — have contributed to the hollowing out of broad-based internal legitimacy of the Islamic Republic, leaving it vulnerable to external threats.