Excellent question - my understanding is that previous decapitation attacks were avoided due to the probability that the IRGC would take over as a simple dictatorship. Unclear what's changed now though.
My understanding is that the Iranian government is very resilient. The has been a succession plan since the 70s with a broad board of individuals who can choose the next leader.
Blowback is going to be the biggest issue here. Ali Khamenei wasn't just the leader of Iran, he was well respected for Shia muslims. While not perfectly analogous, it's close to killing the pope.
Maybe this leads to open revolt which might fully topple to government, that said, I don't think there's a US/Israel endorsed leader or goal for succession here.
It's my understanding that most ayatollahs get that title through political influence. And for Iran specifically, the supreme leader wouldn't have gotten his position without having that religious influence. It's a theocracy.
Given the outcome in Venezuela (and Trumps relationships with dictators in generally), it don't seem like that is something Trump necessarily sees as a bad outcome. As long as the dictatorship trades oil and let some American companies in, they can be as dictatorial as they want.
That’s actually not true - the Minuteman III computer was the D37D (the C was Minuteman II) and was replaced with the microprocessor-based NS-50 by end of 2007.
reply