U.S. intelligence indicates that the Iranian regime remains unified and that there are no signs of an imminent collapse, according to two sources with knowledge of the matter.
NBC News reported yesterday that there are no indications of major fissures within the regime or breakaway opposition factions, according to current and former U.S. officials, lawmakers and experts.
U.S. intelligence assessments of the relative staying power of the regime have been consistent, the sources said.
Before the start of the U.S.-Israeli campaign against Iran, the CIA concluded that if the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was killed in the airstrikes, he could be replaced by equally hard-line officials from within the regime, including the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
The CIA declined to comment on intelligence analyses.
In addition to the CIA assessment, a separate analysis from the National Intelligence Council, conducted before the military operation was launched Feb. 28, found that it was unlikely that the U.S.-Israeli aerial attacks would topple the theocratic regime. The prospect of an opposition movement’s taking power was also seen as remote, the sources said.
The Washington Post first reported the National Intelligence Council analysis.
The NIC falls under the authority of the director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard. The National Intelligence Director’s Office has declined to comment on the report.
Karim Sadjadpour, an expert on the Iranian regime and a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, wrote in The Atlantic that the military and clerical apparatus in Tehran appears intent on doubling down on its hard-line outlook and repression with the recent selection of Khamenei’s son, Mojtaba Khamenei, as the new supreme leader.
“President Trump may have hoped the elimination of the Islamic Republic’s longtime supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, would produce an Iranian Delcy Rodríguez—a pragmatic insider who would capitulate to American pressure—but it has instead spawned a budding Iranian Kim Jong Un,” Sadjadpour wrote, referring to the new president of Venezuela and the leader of North Korea.
