Khamenei's death is not the end, cracks in Iran's regime may come

He's dead. Finally. Iran's Supreme Leader, the sinister octogenarian Ali Khamenei, has met a well-deserved end at the hands of a joint US-Israel strike.

He died, as he lived, by the most extreme violence. His end was as fitting as it was squalid: buried beneath a pile of rubble as his world crashed in around him.

I've been waiting for this all my life ever since my family fled Iran in the 1970s as religious fanaticism gripped what was once the most cosmopolitan state in the Middle East.

From my earliest childhood in north-west London, I remember hearing grown-ups discuss the bearded men in flowing robes and turbans (amamahs in Persian) and the damage they had done to Iran.

Finally, after almost half a century, their sordid reign might be coming to an end.

However, while I welcome the death of a man responsible for so much suffering, I'm also cautious.

Cautious because I understand that Khamenei's death is not decisive. He was already nearing the end of his life, and the regime had long been preparing for succession.

The death of his 56-year-old son and possible heir Mojtaba alongside him – which has been reported but not yet confirmed – would be perhaps more significant.

But the surgical strikes against Tehran – which have so far killed a series of top officials including Iran's Minister of Defence, the Head of the Military Staff of the Supreme Leader of Iran and the Commander of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) – have been the easy part.

What comes next will be crucial. Khamenei's death is only the beginning of a process that by no means guarantees a better future for Iran. Ending this malignant regime is one thing, but ensuring that what replaces it is better is another entirely. And that is what really matters.

The key point is that without a coherent and organised opposition, and without a credible leader to rally around, any successor is almost certain to come from within the regime itself.

Who might that be?

During the 12-day conflict with Israel last June, Khamenei reportedly identified three possible successors: the head of the judiciary, Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei; his chief of staff, Ali Asghar Hejazi; and Hassan Khomeini, the grandson of the Islamic Republic's founder.

All are regime insiders. All are senior clerics. This matters, because under the constitution the Supreme Leader must be a cleric appointed by the Assembly of Experts.

To my mind, however, a more plausible figure has always been Ali Larijani, Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council and one of the most experienced operators in the system.

During recent internal unrest, Khamenei increasingly entrusted Larijani with the day-to-day running of the state, sidelining President Masoud Pezeshkian in the process. True, Larijani is not a cleric. But Iran has long functioned less as a pure theocracy than as a praetorian state, heavily shaped by the IRGC.

In recent months, Larijani's influence has only grown. He has overseen the suppression of protests, managed relations with key partners such as Russia and Qatar, handled sensitive nuclear diplomacy, and helped prepare Iran for confrontation with Israel and the United States.

He will undoubtedly be high on any Israeli or American target list. Donald Trump appears to understand this dynamic – that true regime change will require consent from at least some of the forces that sustain the mullahs in power. As Israeli and US forces pounded Iran, Trump addressed members of the IRGC directly.

'Lay down your weapons and have complete immunity, or in the alternative, face certain death,' he urged. He also claimed Iranian military and police were 'seeking immunity and potentially turning against the regime'.

Now Trump says the regime has reached out: it wants to talk – and he's happy to oblige. 'They want to talk, and I have agreed to talk, so I will be talking to them. They should have done it sooner... They waited too long,' he said.

It is typical Trump. The solution is always a deal. And why not? A similar play worked in Venezuela, after all. Trump removed president Nicolas Maduro after several people in his administration opened communication channels with the Venezuelan government.

They included Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who reached out to vice-president Delcy Rodriguez (now interim president) to ensure a smooth succession after Maduro was captured and taken to the US.

But Iran isn't Venezuela.

That's not to say Trump's ploy won't work or can't. Right now, each and every senior figure in Iran will be thinking of their next move. With their leader gone and their military capabilities degraded by the hour, some might indeed calculate that Trump's offer is the best deal they're going to get.

But I can't help thinking back to the 1979 Islamic Revolution that drove my family from the country and brought the mullahs to power.

In the aftermath, members of the Shah's secret police, the hated SAVAK, were hanged in the street. Years of anger against their brutality came pouring out, and the people took their revenge. No 'deals' would have saved them.

Given the regime's brutality – particularly that of the IRGC and its street enforcers, the Basij – which has far surpassed anything seen under the Shah, I cannot see Iranians being content to live under, let alone be governed by, some of their worst oppressors.

Senior figures might be offered some form of 'witness protection' arrangement abroad. But it's difficult to imagine many trading their mansions in North Tehran – a lovely place where my own family once lived – and their looted millions for anonymous middle-class obscurity in South Dakota.

The best hope for Iranians is that an opposition force emerges that, even if not democratic, is at least sane.

Here again, I turn to the lessons of 1979. That revolution had many strengths, not least that it was built around the leadership of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the first Supreme Leader and founder of the Islamic Republic.

As soon as the Shah fled the country, Khomeini was there to step into his shoes.

But when, amid the Arab Spring of 2011, Egyptian protesters forced Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak to resign, there was no one to take his place and the void was quickly filled by the Muslim Brotherhood – a far more sinister outfit than Mubarak's regime.

This is the problem Iran's protesters face today. There are millions of them, but they have no leader. If the hated mullahs fell tomorrow, what would replace them?

Many look to Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, the son of the Shah overthrown in 1979. But he has lived in the US for nearly five decades. I am also doubtful he possesses the political skill required.

There is no doubt Pahlavi has become a powerful symbol for many. During recent protests, demonstrators across the country chanted his name. He might serve as a symbol around which a transition of power to a more Western-facing regime might occur.

But this is far from certain.

I repeat: we can only welcome the death of Khamenei. But this is just the beginning.

My dream of sipping tea and eating chelow kabab in North Tehran might be a little closer, but it's not yet time to book my flight.