Ex-Ambassador: Lessons from Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya on Regime Change in Iran

Regime Change in Iran: A Complex Discussion

• 💡 The conversation centers on the possibility of regime change in Iran, a topic introduced by President Trump and supported by Senator Lindsey Graham, contrasting with earlier administration statements focusing solely on Iran's nuclear program.
• 🎯 Former US Ambassador John Herbst and former National Security Council Director Douglas Ollivant discuss the complexities and potential outcomes of such a scenario.

Lessons from Past Interventions

• 🔑 Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya serve as hard-learned lessons, demonstrating that the US cannot effectively organize or orchestrate regime change externally.
• ⚠️ While direct US military intervention to control outcomes in Iran is not being considered, past experiences highlight the extreme difficulty and potential for unintended consequences.

Internal Dynamics and Potential Scenarios in Iran

• 🧠 The Iranian regime is considered relatively fragile, with the IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps) playing a crucial role in leadership succession.
• 🧩 Recent Israeli actions targeting the IRGC have potentially weakened its influence, opening up possibilities for internal power shifts.
• ⚡ Scenarios discussed include power devolving to other institutions like the Iranian army or intelligence services, or less likely, the emergence of opposition groups like the MEK or monarchists, or a popular uprising.

Challenges and US Role

• 📈 Iran is significantly larger and more populous than Iraq, making any hypothetical external intervention exponentially more difficult to manage.
• 🤝 The US and its allies, particularly Israel, can aim to weaken the current regime and its key components like the IRGC, but the ultimate choice of successor leadership is seen as an internal Iranian matter.
• 📊 The most likely outcome, should the current leadership be sufficiently weakened, is a shift of power to other existing Iranian institutions, though this is by no means certain.