Is the war launched by Israel and the US against Iran already over bar the shouting?
As far as the war that the Islamic Republic started in 1979, the answer is no.
The regime created by Ayatollah Khomeini built its legitimacy around its claim of fighting against the “Great Satan” and its “little” acolyte.
Almost all US presidents understood that fact.
What they all tried to achieve was a prolongation of the lukewarm version of that war in the hope that one day, who knows when, there may be regime change.
Trump is the first US president to believe that the desired change may be achievable during his tenure. And that, paradoxically, is why he may have unwittingly delayed that change with his erratic strategy.
For the first time in 48 years what is left of the Khomeinist leadership is taking the possibility of regime change seriously and is trying to deal with it.
“We need to focus on the internal front,” warns Ali Rabi’ie, a veteran regime insider.
By that he means what Islamic Majlis Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf refers to as “the street.”
The latest phase of the 47-year war has weakened the regime to the point that it fears that an end of hostilities could reignite the street.
A cocktail of explosive problems has taken shape. More than four million people have lost their jobs and thousands of businesses have been busted.
The government admits that over 5,000 public projects have been frozen for lack of funds or personnel to supervise them.
President Masoud Pezeshkian says there isn’t enough money to import petroleum from India, causing a 15 percent shortage that could bring hundreds of thousands of vehicles including military ones to a halt. (The regime spent its money building tunnels to hide its projectiles rather than refineries to process its crude oil.)
Worse still for the current leadership, the regime has lost control of the political narrative. The narrative of returning to the pre-revolution era and the constitutional form of government seems to be in the ascendancy.
Just over a year ago, the then “Supreme Guide” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned against a return to constitutional government (mahruteh in Persian) as a serious threat against Iran. In August 2025 dozens of activists were arrested on a charge of organizing events related to the 1906 Constitutional Revolution.
This month, however, Pezeshkian himself issued a long statement in praise of the once cursed “mashruteh.” That gave the green light for a series of events across Iran with some universities breaking the summer recess to mark the 120th anniversary of the Constitutional Revolution.
All that may be dismissed as a tribute that vice pays to virtue or a cheap political gimmick by clueless politicians.
Nevertheless, highlighting an alternative narrative is of crucial importance because society like nature abhors a vacuum. People want to know that by ending the status quo they won’t be jumping into the unknown head first.
The elimination of Khamenei senior has created a vacuum that his anointed successor Mojtaba isn’t able to fill if only for physical reasons.
Ali Khamenei was a Madison Avenue expert in public relations and self-promotion. Like Trump, he wanted to be constantly in the headlines, and although he seldom ventured outside his “beyt,” he was always in the news. One day he was receiving poets, another he was addressing “muezzins” from all over the country.
Foreign dignitaries and “axis of Resistance” leaders lined up for a photo-op with him.
On quieter days, he would send cables to this or that mullah or other public figure with condolences fir a loss or as a pat on the shoulder for real or imaginary success in the service of the regime. On Fridays, some 5,000 preachers acting as their master’s voice across Iran would read the text he had dictated during mass prayers.
The “beyt” was a giant octopus whose arms stretched in all directions. Military commanders were not allowed to hold meetings on their own even in an informal gathering with orange juice served. The “beyt” could summon any official, including the president, for briefing or instructions.
Referred to as “Agha” (a Turkish word meaning master) as an endearment, Khamenei had his personal representatives in every ministry, army division, major public company and even embassies in more than 40 capitals.
Having created more than a dozen “councils,” each headed by one of his acolytes, Khamenei made sure that, as the Persian poet said, not a single insect moved on a leaf without him knowing about it.
With “Agha” gone, those councils have gone into an eclipse that may never end. The Council of the Guardians of the Constitution, the Expediency Council, the Islamic Convergence (taqrib) Council, the Islamic Awakening Council, the Axis of Resistance Council, the Foreign Policy Strategic Board, the High Council of National Security, and the Assembly of Experts of Leadership haven’t had a session since “Agha” was assassinated by the Israelis.
With its speaker engaged in a power struggle, even the Islamic Majlis (ersatz parliament) hasn’t held a full session for months.
Some octopus arms have either lost their heads or some key figures in “elimination” operations by Israel or the US.
Worse still, in some cases individuals tapped to fill posts left by loss of military and/or political leaders have politely declined the invitation. Among them were a number of younger generation officers of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard which is now subject of speculations about its merger with regular army, a scheme prepared in 1999 but vetoed by “Agha.”
Under “Agha” with one or two exceptions in four decades, no senior military or political official was allowed to keep his post for more than a decade. The undeclared rationale was that in a system whose center is fixed for ever, its satellites ought to change within fixed periods.
Today, by the best count, the position of at least 20 provincial governors out of 31 and more than 20 ambassadors and at least 100 military and security commanders need to be filled either because traditional terms are over or because occupants have been “eliminated.”
It took “Agha” 30 years to design and build a system that suited him. Even if he worked double hard, Mojtaba isn’t able to bud his “beyt,” let alone the system shaped around it.
Thus, the phrase “we are at war” is a good prop to hide the regime’s impotence
In other words, by prolonging this peculiar pseudo-war Trump or whoever advises him may be helping Mojtaba or whoever plays his role to keep “the street” quiet with feigned patriotism.
