"Iran regime is going down" Topic

link

a very fine analysis of why the ayatollahs are in the long term toast

First two paragraphs:

Iran is at a crossroads. The largest and most sustained wave of nationwide protests since the "Woman, Life, Freedom" uprising in 2022 and 2023 is now sweeping the country. The current marches may soon eclipse them. What began in late December 2025 as demonstrations over a collapsing currency and rising living costs has spread rapidly across cities and regions. As repression has intensified and casualties have mounted, the protests have hardened into open demands for regime change.

No matter what happens next, there is no scenario in which the Islamic Republic survives 2026 with its power intact. Too much has happened; too many uncontrollable yet intersecting factors are conspiring to erode the regime's power. But that does not mean that revolution is inevitable and Iran will blossom into a free open society once more.

I sincerely hope so -- and also hope there are some kinetic leadership changes among the ranks of the Iranian government.

A strong and mostly persuasive analysis—but I'd qualify one claim.

Doran is right that this is no longer just a legitimacy crisis; it's a collapse of state capacity. When a government loses control of its currency and bifurcates into a rial economy for the public and a hard-currency economy for insiders, restoration is no longer on the table. In that sense, the Islamic Republic as a functioning ideological state is finished.

Where I'm less certain is the timeline. History suggests regimes can linger in a state of advanced decay far longer than analysts expect—especially when the coercive apparatus remains cohesive and opposition remains fragmented. Collapse is possible; irreversible degradation is certain. Those are not the same thing.

What we're likely watching is not a clean revolution but a prolonged phase of paralysis: more repression, less competence, increasing reliance on force, and episodic external aggression. That doesn't mean the regime recovers—it means it rots.

So yes: the ayatollahs are toast in the sense that there's no path back to intact authority. But toast can still burn the house down before it goes cold.

This certainly is the best opportunity for the Iranian people to free themselves to date--"Inshallah!"

But whenever, however, the Mullahs fall, it seems a certainty that the successor government will NOT follow the "Republic's" lifetime policy of fomenting Jihadism, annihilation of Israel, and Western Civilization in general.

Almost every rial generated by Iran's economy for these last 47 years has gone to paying for wars, local genocides, and political extremism across the world--and that even includes the internal politics and dissension here in the US.

When the Ayatollah's government is as dead as he is, just watch as the world otherwise unaccountably becomes more peaceful abroad and even here at home.

No more Hamas, Hezbollah, ISIS, Boko Haram, and countless other organizations of essentially psychotic haters who, as some have publicly said, "Worship death, not life," and have kept the Middle East in particular in chaos for decades.

Don't even be entirely surprised if with the fall of the "Islamic Republic," Zoroastrianism becomes a major force in Iran.

The ripple effect of Peace Breaking Out will circle the globe, with tsunami effects in Moscow and Beijing. Short of the fall of the Soviet Union--and maybe not short at all--the end of the Mullahs' rule may be the biggest geo-political change in decades past and even to come.

And the World Left is silent… which speaks volumes.

TVAG

I hope Trump has a way to turn a slow fall into a pushed crash. I think he has the will if his advisors can suggest a way. Of course my faith in the CIA is . . . problematical at best.

"Where there's a whip there's a way!"

or to quote that Brit general outside Ticonderoga in 1777, "where a goat can go a man can go, and where a man can go he can drag a gun"

Finally, an end to Jimmy Carters legacy in Iran.

I was in the USAF in England in 1979 when the Iranians took over the embassy, Would love to see them booted out

Do not be too sure:(

At this point it certainly looks that way … But there is more to occur before this could come about …

+1 to TVAG