Regime Change? What You Need to Know About Iran
By Izzy Knaus – Rise to Peace Fellow
The eruption of open conflict in Operation Epic Fury between Iran, the United States, and Israel in early 2026 marks the definitive end of years of covert confrontation and proxy skirmishing. The joint campaign–designed to cripple Iran’s nuclear and military capabilities–has shifted the regional security order toward direct state-on-state warfare not seen in decades. With the death of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the disarray of his succession council, Tehran faces its gravest internal instability since 1979.
The war has transformed Iran from a shadow orchestrator of proxy forces into the central battlefield of Middle Eastern power politics. Competing factions within the Islamic Republic—reformists, hardline clerics, and the Revolutionary Guard—are struggling to preserve their influence under relentless bombardment and economic isolation. The question of succession is rapidly blending into a struggle for regime survival.
The conflict’s secondary effects are already global. Energy markets remain volatile as attacks, blockades, and tanker disruptions push oil and gas prices higher, testing European and Asian economies. Maritime insecurity in the Strait of Hormuz has resurrected old debates about global energy dependence and naval projection. Meanwhile, diplomatic fractures have widened within NATO and the EU–some states backing U.S. force projection, others condemning unilateral escalation.
Regionally, the war’s geography now spans Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, and the Gulf–blurring lines between fronts and proxies. Israeli offensives along the Lebanese border, combined with Iranian missile and drone strikes across the Middle East, herald a return to full-spectrum warfare that could redraw red lines across the entire region. China’s mediation attempts and Turkey’s NATO entanglement underscore how rapidly this conflict could globalize.
In effect, what began as a U.S.-Israeli operation to preempt Iran’s nuclear capability is evolving into a contest over the post-Iran regional order: whether the Islamic Republic’s collapse produces fragmentation, a military-led continuity regime, or an unpredictable revolutionary outcome. However the battlefield map shifts, the strategic reality is now set–Iran is not just a player, but the epicenter of a regional system in violent transition.
Proxies and the “Axis of Resistance” in Active Combat
Iran’s “Axis of Resistance” functions as a decentralized, Tehran-orchestrated network designed to exert pressure on adversaries through synchronized proxy actions, rather than direct confrontation. This structure links disparate groups—Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Iraqi Shiite militias, and Yemen’s Houthis—into a cohesive strategy that amplifies Iran’s reach while minimizing risks to its core territory.
Historically, Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack initiated a multi-front escalation, with Hezbollah’s rocket barrages from Lebanon, Iraqi militia drone strikes on U.S. bases, and Houthi interdictions of Red Sea shipping forming interconnected pressure points. These operations share Iranian-supplied weapons, training, and command signals, creating a “ring of fire” around Israel and U.S. interests that forces resource diversion and diplomatic strain.
Following U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran in late February 2026, Tehran most likely issued direct activation orders to its proxies, transitioning from opportunistic harassment to coordinated retaliation. Houthi attacks on U.S.-aligned shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden intensified immediately, using Iranian ballistic missiles and drones to target tankers and naval assets, in lockstep with Hezbollah ground incursions in Lebanon and Iraqi militia assaults on Gulf bases.
This synchronization reveals the Axis’s true nature: not independent actors, but extensions of IRGC-Quds Force operations, calibrated to exploit geographic depth and impose asymmetric costs. Even as proxies face degradation–Hamas decimated in Gaza, Hezbollah strained by Israeli offensives–the network’s resilience lies in its redundancy, ensuring persistent threats to maritime trade, energy flows, and regional stability.
The Axis endures as a model of hybrid warfare, blending militia swarms with missile/drone barrages to contest superior conventional forces. Direct hits on Iran have not dismantled it; instead, they’ve spurred adaptive escalation, with proxies absorbing losses to maintain pressure on Israel, the U.S., and Gulf states. This dynamic locks the conflict into a protracted, multi-domain struggle, where proxy activation remains Tehran’s primary tool for survival and retaliation.
Regime Survival vs. Regime Change
The ongoing war has crystallized into an existential contest for Iran’s leadership, pitting the theocratic regime’s desperate bid for survival against explicit U.S. and Israeli objectives to destabilize or topple it. After decapitation strikes and relentless targeting of command structures, Tehran’s rulers face not just external bombardment but internal repression on a massive scale–thousands arrested, internet blackouts enforced, and dissent crushed to prevent uprisings amid economic collapse and daily casualties.
U.S. President Trump and Israeli leaders have escalated rhetoric with overt appeals to the Iranian people, urging them to “rise up against the oppressors” and promising support for a post-regime future. This marks a doctrinal shift from containment to regime change, framing the conflict as
liberation from 47 years of clerical rule, with military operations now prioritizing disruption of IRGC loyalty and economic lifelines.
Yet regime failure carries profound dangers: a fragmented power vacuum could spawn warlordism, ethnic separatism in Baluchistan or Kurdistan, and uncontrolled nuclear remnants. Iran’s proxy network–Hezbollah, Houthis, Iraqi militias–might splinter without central funding, triggering uncontrolled adventurism or realignments with Russia and China. This precarious dynamic underscores the war’s high stakes: victory for one side risks chaos for the region.
Scenarios: How This War Ends
Three endgames shape the Iran conflict’s trajectory, each balancing military outcomes, internal dynamics, and global stakes, with direct bearing on terrorism, regional power balances, and pathways to sustainable peace in line with long-term peacebuilding priorities.
Scenario 1: Negotiated De-escalation
Tehran’s temporary leadership, battered by strikes and economic strangulation, signals readiness for talks after 4-6 weeks via backchannels in Qatar or Oman, offering verifiable nuclear dismantlement, IRGC proxy drawdowns in Yemen and Iraq, and ballistic missile caps for partial sanctions relief and Gulf-funded reconstruction. U.S.-Israeli operations wind down under UN monitoring, stabilizing oil flows. Terrorism ebbs as cash-strapped Hezbollah and Houthis scale back, enabling a Gulf-Arab détente that sidelines Iranian influence. Regionally, a humbled regime reinforces deterrence without upheaval, though hardliner resurgence risks renewed proxy games. For peacebuilding, this opens modest space for civil society and women’s rights reforms, fostering a pragmatic Iran less export-oriented in its ideology, if external aid prioritizes inclusive governance over vengeance.
Scenario 2: Messy Regime Change
Sustained decapitation, urban unrest, and IRGC defections precipitate collapse within 2-4 months, echoing 1979’s revolutionary fervor or a praetorian coup, birthing a fragmented transition council amid ethnic revolts in Kurdistan, Baluchistan, and Khuzestan. External powers–U.S. airlifts to moderates, Saudi backing for Sunnis–fill the vacuum, but proxy implosion unleashes rogue Houthi salvos and Iraqi militia terror cells targeting Gulf targets. Terrorism spikes short-term, fracturing the regional order into proxy-free zones (Gulf, Levant) versus chaos belts, with Turkey and Pakistan eyeing border gains. Peace prospects hinge on rapid federation and diaspora return: a decentralized Iran could demilitarize, curb radical export, and integrate economically, aligning with Rise to Peace ideals through empowered local institutions—yet state failure risks a Somalia-style quagmire.
Scenario 3: Prolonged Attrition War
Iran’s asymmetric depth–missile stockpiles, proxy rings, Russian S-400s, Chinese drones–prolongs fighting into 2027+, with Hormuz chokepoints, Red Sea blockades, and Hezbollah attrition grinding U.S. resolve amid domestic war fatigue. Proxy escalation amplifies terrorism via drone swarms on European refineries and militia raids on Jordan, eroding U.S.-centric order as NATO splinters and BRICS exploits energy chaos. Regionally, stalemate entrenches militarized frontiers, emboldening authoritarian playbooks globally. Post-war Iran, if any, emerges as a fortress state under military rule, isolated and vengeful, with peacebuilding near-impossible without exhaustive Marshall Plan-scale aid; sustained diplomacy must preempt this by bolstering moderates early, averting a cycle of enmity that poisons generations.
Rise to Peace’s Questions for the U.S. Intelligence Community
- How should the U.S. and its allies prioritize between eliminating Iran’s remaining nuclear materials and mapping what is left of its advanced missile and drone capabilities after Operation Epic Fury?
- What safeguards are needed to prevent unsecured or partially destroyed nuclear infrastructure from becoming a proliferation risk if the regime collapses or fractures?
Civilian protection and urban unrest - As mass protests, mourning gatherings, and street mobilization surge after Khamenei’s death, what tools can the U.S. intelligence community use to track civilian movements in real time without enabling or causing mass casualty events?
- How should civilian-protection imperatives shape targeting decisions when Iran’s security forces deliberately embed among protestors and dense urban populations?
IRGC and proxy networks - With the IRGC and the “Axis of Resistance” now in open, synchronized combat, what kinds of network mapping (supply chains, financial flows, command hierarchies) are most urgent to rapidly degrade Iran’s capacity to wage a regional campaign?
- How can U.S. and partner intelligence best distinguish between Iran-directed proxy operations and more autonomous militia behavior as Hezbollah, Hamas, Iraqi militias, and the Houthis absorb heavy losses?
Leadership succession and regime futures - In an unstable succession environment after Khamenei, how should analysts prioritize profiling potential future Supreme Leaders and IRGC power brokers, and what indicators would signal a shift toward either hardline consolidation or messy regime change?
- What are the most responsible ways for outside powers to influence Iran’s leadership trajectory without triggering a wider civil war or state collapse?
Great-power and regional involvement - Given reported Russian intelligence and materiel support to Tehran, how should U.S. planners weigh the risk of escalation with Moscow against the need to cut off Iran’s external lifelines?
- How might Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Turkey, and other regional actors recalibrate their strategies if the conflict evolves into a prolonged war of attrition rather than quick regime change or negotiated de‑escalation?
U.S.-Israel coordination and new security architectures - What forms of intelligence sharing with Israel are most likely to reduce civilian harm in Lebanon and Iran while still neutralizing Hezbollah and other Iranian-backed forces?
- Could emerging partnerships with non-state or sub-state actors such as the Kurdistan Region form the backbone of a new regional security architecture after the Iran war, and what long-term risks would such alignments carry?
Strategic endgames and peacebuilding - Across the three endgames—negotiated de‑escalation, messy regime change, or prolonged attrition—which outcome would best align with long-term goals of constraining proxy violence, stabilizing governance, and protecting civilians, and why?
- What specific questions should the U.S. intelligence community be asking now to ensure that today’s targeting and alliance choices do not foreclose tomorrow’s opportunities for peace and regional reconciliation?
Iran is not just another crisis hotspot but the hinge of a wider systemic transition in the Middle East, where choices made in the coming months will reverberate across energy markets, alliance structures, and global norms on the use of force. Whether the conflict ends in negotiated de‑escalation, messy regime change, or prolonged attrition, the stakes extend far beyond Tehran: stabilizing postwar governance, constraining proxy violence, and protecting civilians will determine if this war yields a more secure regional order or locks the world into a new era of chronic instability.
