Will the ongoing US-Israeli strikes against Iran result in regime change in Tehran? And if a change does take place, will the new Iranian regime be democratic and accountable?
There is a growing view among the experts that despite the assassinations of Iran’s senior political and military leadership, including the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, air assaults alone will not be enough to tame the survivors at the senior level of the theocratic regime, particularly the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
So the attacks on Iran can continue for a month or two, and there could be the need for the involvement of US ground troops, something that US President Donald Trump is reportedly reconciled to now. But there is no doubt that Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will ultimately prevail.
However, it seems difficult to provide a categorical answer to the second question.
Both Trump and Netanyahu have been on record that, apart from removing the menace of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, their fight against Iran is to help the Iranian people secure freedom from the evil and oppressive Islamic regime.
And by doing so, they are, in fact, promoting the cause of democracy and its accompanying liberal values. The conventional wisdom here is that a more democratic world is a safer world.
However, if history is any indication, then they may not necessarily achieve the above goal.
A regime change through outside military intervention, per se, does not usher in democracy. In fact, there has been a growing scholarly consensus that these foreign regime-change operations by the United States are often ineffective and produce deleterious side effects.
For example, out of 28 cases of American regime change identified by political scientists Alexander Downes and Jonathan Monten, only three (Japan, Germany, and Panama) proved successful in building a lasting democracy.
Countries like Japan and Germany were success stories because of additional factors that were lacking in other cases, it is said.
Apparently, three internal factors are associated with successful externally-led democratization: economic development, social and ethnic homogeneity, and a previous history of democratic government.
The wide range of liberalizing reforms initiated by the United States during the military occupations of Japan and West Germany beginning in 1945 succeeded in part because these countries already had industrialized economies with low levels of ethnic and linguistic diversity, according to this theory.
Germany, before the advent of Nazism under Adolf Hitler, had experience with democracy. Japan had limited experience with democracy before 1945, most notably during the “Taishō Democracy” period (roughly 1912–1926). This era had featured a functioning party system, expanded suffrage, and active parliamentary debate.
Besides, the sustained, well-resourced American involvement in Germany and Western Europe (e.g., the Marshall Plan) and the US guidance toward building new democratic political institutions, such as sponsoring elections, proved enduring.
Importantly, the US intervention and the prolonged presence in Japan, Germany, and elsewhere in Western Europe were most welcome by the people of these countries. Apparently, the American presence neutralized the possibility of the resurgence of Fascism/ Nazism in Europe and the militaristic regime in Japan.
After all, those regimes were comprehensively defeated by the Allied forces. In fact, increased American interference in their political and economic development made them secure against their new principal enemy, the Soviet Union, during the Cold War.
However, these factors have been missing in the wake of changes in other regimes, forced by outside/American interventions. These changes have taken place in countries unsuited for a quick transition to democracy because they lack robust economic development, capable local bureaucracies, or prior experience with representative government.
On the other hand, it has been seen that since 1953 (e.g., Iran, when the Shah rule was restored ), though the US has pursued numerous regime changes, these changes have not resulted in the ushering in of democracy but replacement of leaders with pro-Western dictatorships rather than democracies, such as in Guatemala (1954) Chile (1973), and Venezuela (2026).
After coming to power in the wake of US-backed coups, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi in Iran, Carlos Castillo Armas in Guatemala, and Pinochet in Chile established virtual dictatorships, not democracies.
Incidentally, the Venezuela model of Delcy Rodríguez is very much in the diplomatic lexicon these days. Here, President Trump targeted the removal of Nicolás Maduro to install an interim government. This approach relied on intense military coercion to oust Maduro, but not his authoritarian regime. Rather than a swift democratic transition, the approach has been characterized as a shift to “regime management,” focused on controlling the existing apparatus through a new, compliant leadership.
Delcy Rodríguez has emerged as Venezuela’s acting president. The “model” she represents is said to be a shift towards a more pragmatic, technocratic, and market-friendly version of “Chavismo,” aiming to stabilize the economy while maintaining the political structure of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV). And all this has been permitted because it benefited America’s economic interests, not because it promoted democratic ideals.
The lesson is obvious. The real change of a regime is the “Institutional Change”, not “Leadership Change”. Interventions that “decapitate” a regime by removing an individual leader but leave the wider political institutions intact are the least likely to promote democracy.
Then there are the cases of Afghanistan (2001), Iraq (2003), and Libya (2011), where the US and its allies intervened and succeeded in changing the regimes.
Before intervening, they thought there were alternatives or opposition leaders who, on the one hand, could establish and nourish democratic and accountable regimes, and, on the other, had the people’s support and confidence.
For instance, Ahmed Chalabi, the leader of the Iraqi National Congress and a key intelligence source in the run-up to the 2003 Iraq War, helped convince US officials that Iraqi civilians “would welcome U.S. and allied forces with parades, flag waving, and an eagerness for democratic government.” Such assurances proved to be absolutely groundless.
In the process, the US found its intervention for regime change in Iraq very costly. For example, it is said that the war in Iraq resulted in approximately 4,500 U.S. military fatalities and over 100,000 Iraqi civilian deaths (according to conservative estimates), at an estimated financial cost of over 4.5 trillion dollars, including the cost of funding military operations, interest payments on the debt incurred, and long-term medical care for injured veterans. Yet after a decade of war, these efforts produced little democratic progress.
Examples in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya also exposed some other weaknesses in the ouster of a regime through foreign interventions. One such phenomenon is the likelihood of a civil war in a country that has been intervened in, because regime-change missions weaken existing state institutions and create a power vacuum, allowing resistance and rebel movements to grow.
Overthrowing a government often causes its military to disintegrate, leading to long-term insurgencies and a heightened risk of civil war. This is particularly so when a country is heterogeneous in ethnic compositions, with conflicting ethnicities wanting either their respective representatives to be the leader or separation to have their own country.
Keeping the aforesaid factors in view, one may look at the present situation in Iran. And here, three factors are worth noting:
One, as EurAsian Times had once explained, there is no single alternative leader who will be accepted by the Iranian people once the theocratic regime is toppled. There have three three principal identified Iranian groups known in the recent three decades to have attempted a change in the Mullah-led regime in Tehran – People’s Mujahideen, also known as the Mojahedin-e-Khalq (MEK) or People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI), which is primarily based in exile; “the Green Movement,” which emerged during the contested 2009 presidential elections, ending with hard-liner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s fraudulent reelection; and Reza Pahlavi, the son of the former Shah of Iran, who lives in exile in Washington DC but is keen to return to Iran and lead what he says a democratic regime to reclaim his father’s throne.
Both PMOI and the Green Movement have never been supporters of the United States. Their antipathy toward Washington is well-known. That leaves only the younger Shah. But the Trump Administration does not seem very confident in his ability and acceptability among the Iranian people, which is why the US President has not thought it fit to meet him despite his numerous requests for an appointment.
It may be noted that in a recent press interview, Pahlavi has said that he is prepared “to lead this transition from this tyranny to a future democracy,” adding his aim is a peaceful change “by means of national referendum and constitutional assembly,” and that he is “more than ever ready to step in Iran” for the “ultimate battle…..My role is to help my compatriots achieve that goal… I’m impartial as to what the ultimate result will be, so long as it’s a secular democracy….I’ve trained all my life to serve my nation. I’m more than ever ready to step in Iran as soon as the situation warrants itself, and I’ll be there among my compatriots to lead the ultimate battle.”
The two leaders also discussed Iran, with Trump saying that if Tehran rebuilt its nuclear facilities the United States would “knock them down.” (Photo by Jim WATSON / AFP)
However, all told, at this moment, there is no visible alternative in Iran that is strong enough to overcome the strong resistance to and suppression by the mullah regime.
Two, Khamenei may have been killed, but the armed forces and the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which was central to enforcing his rule, remain formidable. The IRGC controls vast economic and military assets. Therefore, without decoupling the military from the economy and political decision-making, systemic change is a formidable task.
Three, attacks on Iran have reportedly revived activism among Iranian Kurdish or Baloch citizens. In fact, there have been some clashes between some Kurdish opposition groups and the IRGC. This, in turn, could spark concerns among neighboring states in the Gulf, Syria, and Turkey, as these ethnic groups are also present in those countries, evoking anxiety about another failing state along their periphery, which could jeopardize their own security and economic plans.
Thus, Trump has a daunting task ahead in effecting regime change in Iran. A simple top-level regime change without real structural reforms, such as judicial independence, will be only superficial. In that case, it will lead to further instability rather than a transition to democracy.
As in Japan and Germany (then West Germany), a prolonged and assured American involvement in Iran under a new government is the key.
But are the Americans and their allies prepared to accept this?
- Author and veteran journalist Prakash Nanda is Chairman of the Editorial Board of the EurAsian Times and has been commenting on politics, foreign policy, and strategic affairs for nearly three decades. He is a former National Fellow of the Indian Council for Historical Research and a recipient of the Seoul Peace Prize Scholarship.
- CONTACT: prakash.nanda (at) hotmail.com
