Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has been exterminated in a joint US-Israeli airstrikes on Teheran. He has been replaced by Ayatollah Alireza Arafi as interim leader. A new head of state, a Shia cleric, needs to be elected by an assembly of religious experts as per the provisions of the Iranian Constitution. Having gone to this length in a matter of two days of aerial hits, the US and Israel have achieved their first goal – the hope that this could lead to a wholesale regime change. Military commanders have been exterminated too as missiles rained down on Teheran and other strategic locations. Yet, by swiftly appointing a new head of state, Iran has warned that it would make Uncle Sam and bitter enemy Israel accountable for this grave provocation. Iran has targeted Israel as also the US bases in the Middle East region through missile attacks, causing significant damage. With the US rattling the power edifice in Teheran, how the present combat progresses is anybody’s guess. No ground forces have landed in Iran from the US-Israel combine to force a ‘meaningful’ regime change. Around 200,000 US troops had landed in Iraq in 2003 in the US offensive against Saddam Hussein.
The Iranian military is strong, much stronger than Saddam’s demoralized forces in Iraq then, and might not run away from action. Yet, the assassination of Khomeini and the commanders is now bound to affect their morale. How the situation develops in the Middle East, where several other nations have been put on the defensive by Iran at this hour in the guise of missile attacks on US bases, remains to be seen. Trump’s exhortation to Iranians to take over their nation’s governance after the US hits end should be taken with a pinch of salt. He would rather try and install a regime that’s aligned with US interests.
At the same time, the footloose aggressiveness of Donald Trump after he took charge as President for a second term has increasingly been a matter of grave worry for dispensations near and far. Having effected a swift and effortless regime change in Venezuela, Trump saw an opportunity in Iran. While he and Israel cite the failure of the talks on Iran’s nuclear programme as an excuse, it’s clear that the Americans’ eyes are fixed on the vast oil reserves of both Iran and Venezuela. This, Trump found, was the time to strike – and strike hard. Vladimir Putin had shown him the way – by Russia’s abrupt invasion of Ukraine. China is in no mood to confront the US as long as its own interests are not directly hurt. Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro was ‘abducted’ to the US two months ago, with Trump citing his alleged role in ‘narco-terrorism’, leading to the formation of a pro-US dispensation there. Now, Iran’s Supreme Leader has been done to death. This, for Trump, has become the new normal in global engagements. India, the fourth largest military power, is already facing arm-twisting from Trump in the form of a huge tariff hike, not to ignore his still-unexplained intervention or interference in the military engagement between India and Pakistan in Operation Sindoor.
