Strike on Iran

We are in the state of 'blackout' in the West. We know very little about what is going on. The attack on the regime in Teheran seems to have been a combined effort by main western agencies.

This post contains the summation of analysis by answering two questions:

• What is ‘regime change’?

• Can Israel succeed?

A short reminder

Bombing a nuclear programme out of existence is a pibe dream. This operation is about ‘regime change’ as its aim is often called, another illusion. You can destroy political institutions, but it will take generations to build new ones, simply because building political institutions is about passing norms from one generation to the next. That is state-building for beginners. The idea is often nourished by the chimera, that we can build a nation-state once the regime is destroyed. Imposing the dynamic of nation-building on a society is another illusion. Political institutionalization may facilitate a national political identity and sustain it, like we saw in Europe throughout the 19th century, but the emergence of a nation takes decades if not centuries of political institutionalization: an army is a good start for forging a political identity, but scores of institutions must work in concert for a long time for a nation to be forged: schools for indoctrination into national history, museums for sustaining the emotional belonging, epics about heroic deeds must be written, and broadcasting institutions must be created and operated to the effect of political homogenization, etc. The propaganda of ‘regime-change’ is all nonsense.

A word of caution

This just to give you the idea of what is going on. The attack on Iran is about regime destruction. According to my method of measuring societal stability (polity volatility index), Iran (2024) is 75 . That is code orange (60-80): a police state (technical term) with severe political infrastructural issues, leaving the police function on maximal alert for the social order to remain stable; when the police state breaks down, society is left in military rule (garrison state). To push it into a garrison state (code red: 80 - 100) like entity is only 5 points away in the case of Iran. But to leave it in anarchy (code purple: 100+) like Syria, Libya, and Irak, will take a huge effort, levelling cities that has been there thousands of years before Amerigo was born. One may think that this is progress or regrettable; that is not my concern. This indicates that the current regime could survive in its current form, being able to develop society further, if it sustains its reign through the current crisis without falling into code red.

Focus

Here I will focus on the policy aims, their consequences, and what we know about what happened. Destruction of the Iranian regime will leave West Asia north of the Persian Gulf in turmoil. Whether that is good or bad, or whatever, is not the topic for geopolitical analysis. Does it describe the situation in analytical terms or not, that is criterion.

Iran

Iranian society is not exactly stable; USA is code yellow (40-60), Germany is code green (20-40), and Denmark is code blue (0-20). Orange, especially this close to code red as ‘75’ indicates, can easily turn into code red, from where polities do not escape; once a garrison state, i.e., the police is corrupted and the social order is kept coherent by the strength of the army only, society cannot return to orange by its own means. From there on, tragically, the only way out is anarchy (government breakdown) and reconstruction (code purple = 100+). Here it is important to understand, that even though the politcal infrastructure is challenged, i.e., that many people are not subjected to society, state, and government, attack from the outside spurs a sentiment, that rallies many dissidents to defence of the state and its institutions in Iran. Symbolically the red flag in Jamkaran (Qom) was raised on Friday 13th 2025, following the Israeli attack: The Iranians are called to rally around revenge; not necessarily the love of government, but it implies a momentary dynamic of societal cohesion at work. The political elite in Teheran is relatively cohesive, therefore a serious attempt of regime destruction must attack the regime from the inside of the capital, fast, swift, and with high precision (se Edward Luttwark: Coup d’état, 1968), quickly replacing the leader while securing public legitimacy. The current Mossad led operation is losing steam and is running out of time. Planing has probably lasted a year, and surely US secret bases in Iraq, as well as MI6 networks have been used for logistics.

Chances of regime survival

The regime in Teheran is under pressure. No doubt. Since its inception, Sayeed Ali Khamenei has been in charge of the security cabinet (expediency council); Iraq, backed by the Soviet Union and United States of America, launched a war of attrition on the regime even before it could consolidate after the revolution in 1979. After the death of Khomeini in 1989, Khamenei became supreme leader. Sanctions imposed on Iran by UN and especially western governments, has tormented the regime and its population throughout its existence. The US loss of authority on the global stage over the last decade, has lately led to Moscow and Beijing taking interest in regime preservation in Teheran. As the attackers clandestine operators managed to disturb and bypass the advanced Iranian air defences, distribution of weapons and explosives to sleeper cells was giving momentum towards creating a rise of dissident moments. Teheran retaliated by shooting missiles at Israel. After 5 days, the regime in Teheran has levelled the military battle by deployment of special police forces in its major cities, while constantly hitting bases and critical infrastructure inside Israel. The israeli polity is also code orange (61), and with the latest development it is moving rapidly towards increasing instability (61<x). If Israel gets into trouble, the USA will step in. Teheran’s political elites are apparently still coherent (75).

The Superpower on the verge of war

If USA engages beyond its usual intelligence, logistic support and military assistance to Israel, then Teheran will be overmatched and destroyed; if not, we have a different situation: Then survival depends on attrition, i.e. if Teheran does not run out of missiles that can hit Israel, then Tel Aviv will have to change its posture. Ultimately, the success of the superpower will depend on its ability to bomb Teheran into submission like Beograd 1999. Here the resilience of shia jihadism prevalent among the Iranian security forces, may be a decisive factor. USA has the exit option to bomb the nuclear facilities at Fordow to smithereens by using large volume explosives, but compared to Top Gun II type strike, in reality, this may be very difficult. If the regime in Teheran survives one must realize, that by now, the hawks have it inside the Iranian regime: its incentive to build a nuclear weapon rose tremendously this month, but since they cannot really use it, the supreme leader may continue to hesitate in seeking a nuclear option. At some point, of course, when Iran has lost its other options, the rational thing to do would be to show the capacity to use nuclear weapons. But until now, Teheran has not left The treaty on Non-Proliferation (NPT), yet, although the order to proceed with pursuing an a-bomb, may already be in effect: the hallmark of Khamenei is expediency. More to follow on this in a coming post.

Videos used for reference and illustration of points

Disclaimer: No emotional inclinations and moralistic statements expressed by the analysts interviewed in the attached videos are shared by this author.

Scott Ritter is a former weapons inspector with extensive insight into the workings of military intelligence concerning weaponry.

Brian Berletic is an independent journalist, who is thoroughly and frantically investigating what he understands to be US Empire.

Mikael Valtersson is an independent swedish political and military analyst.

Michael Maloof is a former senior analyst at the Pentagon, specialized in Israel security policy.

Theodore Postol is Professor of Science, Technology and National Security Policy at MIT.