The future of Iran
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For decades, Iran was able to project power across the Middle East using its network of proxies. That meant any strikes against it could threaten to trigger a formidable response. But Israel's attacks this week have exposed just how vulnerable Tehran now is. US President Donald Trump, meanwhile, has kept the world guessing about whether Israel's superpower ally would join in its airstrikes.

Plainly put, Iran is in a crisis. Its future is uncertain. It's an open question how long its leader can survive or stay in power. In this special episode of Reuters World News, we hear about Iran's current capabilities and what the future could look like with or without the supreme leader. I'm your host, Tara Oakes, in Liverpool.

I'm joined by our Middle East lead writer, Angus McDowell. Hi, Angus. Hi, good to talk to you. Good to talk to you. I mean, it's been an extraordinary week, right? How has it been reporting on this from your side? It's been an extraordinary week for anyone who looks at Iran or who has covered Iran, as I've been doing since 2003 when I went to live there for four years.

And what we're seeing now is potentially the biggest moment, certainly in all of that time, maybe stretching back as far as the revolution in 1979. So yeah, it's been a really big week. What are your memories of living in Iran like? Well, Iran is such an interesting country. I was living in Tehran. I was a young journalist, not very experienced, and working there as a freelancer. And

And I found Iran such a wonderful country. It's fascinating history. You could really develop some strong friendships and explore the country and explore its sort of rich hinterland. Wow. And this news over just the past week.

We want to put it into a bit of context first for the listeners. So even before this week, Iran's influence has rapidly diminished in the past few years and from when you lived there. What's happened in terms of that power dynamic? I'll start off quite a long way back, if that's okay with you, just to set the scene a bit. Go for it.

Before the revolution, up until the end of the 70s, Iran was a monarchy under the Shah and it was a close Cold War ally of the United States. The Shah has our support and he also has our confidence. We have no intention of interfering in the internal affairs of Iran. But discontent had been growing there, fed by inequality and anger at political repression.

And the clergy had played a big role in nationalist politics against Western imperialism all the way back to the 19th century. And then when the revolution came and the Shah was ousted, it was the clerics who headed the new Islamic Republic. And they created this role of supreme leader.

Now, they were committed to spreading the revolution as far as they could and to fighting what they saw as Western imperialism in the Middle East, including battling Israel and, as they saw it, liberating Jerusalem.

So there's been a very long period of decades in which Iran has been a really a kind of an open foe of Western countries and Israel, and also with very complicated relationships and rivalry with a lot of the other countries in the Middle East.

It used its ties with fellow Shiite Muslims around the region to build a network of armed groups that had a powerful role in a range of countries and could help Tehran extend its influence. So that's how things have been. But things have started to change over the past couple of years, even before what happened this week. How so?

The war in Gaza was the critical moment, the pivotal moment, really. It spilled over into Israel taking out Iran's main regional ally, Hezbollah, in Lebanon. And that also contributed to the fall of another big Iranian ally, the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. And that all meant that by the time this latest attack

bout of conflict began last week, Iran was looking much weaker than it had before. So if we backtrack a bit, the Supreme Leader, what exactly does that role encompass? Because it's unique to Iran, right? Yeah, so Iran has this absolutely unique system. It's based on this idea of felayati fakir, and that's this

idea that was developed by the Shiite clergy in Iran that because ultimate power on earth is meant to be held by the 12th Shiite Imam who disappeared centuries and centuries ago, that until that Imam returns to earth, then power should be held by the people who are best equipped to

to interpret what the Imam would have wanted and that person should be a supremely knowledgeable pious just

cleric, an Ayatollah. And the first of these to rule in Iran was Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. He was the father figure of the revolution. But Khomeini indicated he will maintain control and direction of the government because he believes there should be no separation of church and state. And Khomeini said he does not want a democratic republic. He wants an Islamic republic. He was incredibly charismatic and

Because he had played such a dominant role in the revolution, it meant that in the years afterwards, his writ was obeyed without question. Now, when he died, the present supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, took over. And he didn't have that charisma and he didn't really have the same religious qualifications. He was a bit of a surprise choice.

And I think that others in the system may have thought the role of supreme leader will become less influential and other power centres, the elected president and government and so on, would gain a bigger role. But in fact, Khamenei leaning quite heavily on the Revolutionary Guards, which are a military unit that answered directly to him rather than up through the defence ministry and to the president,

by leaning on them and other parts of the system that obeyed his authority, he's really eliminated pretty much any other threat. And he has unquestionable control over pretty much every aspect of the Iranian system. And that's been the case up until this last week, right? But

After these days of conflict with Israel, what's the state of Iranian political, military and religious leadership now? Well, it's hard to say. The strikes that Israel has carried out have a bit like what they did in Lebanon last year when they decapitated the leadership of Hezbollah, which is a group that was set up by the Revolutionary Guard.

The strikes just now in Iran have taken out a whole range of Revolutionary Guard commanders and that has certainly left Khamenei looking pretty isolated. And it means that the Islamic Republic is facing its most dangerous moment in decades, perhaps its most dangerous moment ever.

with the question of how far the supreme leader will be able to continue to exert his authority, now suddenly opened up again. What exactly are Iran's capabilities? How much do we know about that? What power does he have to exert? Well, Iran has been able to continue firing missiles at Israel. It's unclear exactly

quite what its stocks of missiles are and how long it can continue to do that. And of course, although Hezbollah, its strongest ally, has been pretty heavily hammered and is not really able to play the role that Iran used to hope it would be able to play in a conflict with Israel, they do still have allies in Yemen, the Houthis, and there are armed groups in Iraq which are closely allied to Tehran.

But really, the card of last resort is the one that Iran has been pretty unwilling to play so far, though it has signalled that it's considering playing, and that's throttling global energy supplies by cutting off the Strait of Hormuz, which runs between Iran and Oman, with attacks on tankers, or even by targeting oil and gas facilities around the Gulf region. But

But so far it's resisted doing that because it knows that that really would draw in the Americans and it was cut off Iran from any hopes of maintaining relationships with the Gulf Arab countries that it's grown friendlier with over the past couple of years and could leave it in an even more precarious situation. And perhaps...

President Donald Trump in the US has said that he doesn't want Iran to be able to develop nuclear weapons ever. So what do we know at this point about their nuclear capability? The dispute over Iran's enrichment of uranium and various other nuclear processes that it's been developing is

has rumbled on for more than 20 years. It's involved the imposition of an awful lot of sanctions on Iran and it led finally during the Obama presidency to a deal between Iran and six world powers that placed a whole load of constraints on Iran's ability to enrich uranium and included

supervision by international inspectors. Now there were a lot of people in Western countries who posed that deal and thought it was too lax and when Donald Trump became president in January 2017 he shortly afterwards revoked the treaty. Now there hasn't been another one and Iran and the United States have again been negotiating to try to find some kind of resolution over the past couple of months.

And that's where we were when Israel commenced its strikes just over a week ago, saying, as it often has in fact, that Iran was much closer to being able to build a nuclear bomb than other countries accepted. Now, of course, that's a disputed statement. The Iranians certainly dispute it. And I think the intelligence communities of the United States and other countries

have also previously indicated that they didn't think that Iran was currently attempting to develop a bomb. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that Israel's military attacks could result in the toppling of Iran's leader and that Israel would do whatever's necessary to remove the existential threat posed by Tehran.

How likely is regime change looking as an end result at present? Well, it's incredibly hard to say how this will all play out.

The most likely scenarios that would involve toppling the ruling establishment and system in Iran would require either a major internal uprising or some kind of intervention by part of the military, a coup of some kind. But we haven't really seen much sign of that yet, though of course that's not to say that neither of those things will happen.

And you've written about the apparent increasing isolation of Khamenei. If Iran did continue with this system of the supreme leader, but he was replaced, who could succeed him? It's not really clear who would or could replace Khamenei. For years, he has appeared to be maneuvering his son Mujtaba into the role of heir apparent and cementing his ties with the Revolutionary Guard.

But the past week's strikes may have changed all that, and even if the clerical council responsible for naming a new supreme leader was able to meet despite the war, and of course it's not clear that they could, it's hard to predict who they might pick. On top of that, it's quite hard to say whether or not a new supreme leader would be able to maintain the same kind of authority over all the different branches of the system that Khamenei has managed to build up during his many years

at the top. And you've written about how fragmented Iran's opposition currently is. Can you give us a picture of that? Iran's opposition certainly is fragmented, but I think it's quite important to divide between what's going on inside the country and the groups outside. Within the country, there have, of course, been these major protest movements that have grown up at spontaneous moments over recent decades.

But none of them have really produced an organised opposition movement or kind of clear leadership.

And it's entirely possible that there are profound differences between what even the people who were involved in those protests would want for Iran's future. Now, outside Iran, there are far more organised groups. There are the monarchists who want the late Shah's son to take over. And there's the Mujahideen-e-Khalq, which is a revolutionary group that was very active in the 1970s and 80s, which fell out with the other revolutionaries and went off into exile.

But the monarchists and the Mujahideen supporters are ideologically diametrically opposed to each other and it's also far from certain whether either group has much backing in Iran right now.

And currently, we have no idea what's going to happen on an hour by hour, never mind a day by day basis or beyond. But do we have any indication at this point of what the reaction would be in the wider world to the fall of Khamenei if it happened?

The current Iranian authorities have not been popular with most of their neighbours or with the West for a very long time. And I'm sure that in some quarters, both in Arab countries and in Western countries, and most obviously in Israel, there would be an awful lot of rejoicing at their fall. But I think there'd probably be a lot of trepidation too,

Everyone remembers what happened to Iraq after Saddam Hussein was toppled.

And the idea of Iran, a much larger country that is located in such a critical area and with these long borders with other potentially fragile countries, the idea of all of that collapsing into a chaotic mess is something that I think a lot of countries would really fear. And of course, then there are an awful lot of other countries that aren't part of the West or belong to the Arab neighbours that have

sometimes feared Iran. There's Russia, which has developed a fairly good relationship with the Iranian authorities. There's China, which has a strong working relationship with them. And countries, other countries around the world. And of course, I think they would be really alarmed at the idea of an American-backed military campaign taking out another government that it didn't like.

And what about the alternative then, that Khamenei continues in power, albeit after this week of really intense strikes on the country and key military leaders and allies hit? What would that look like regionally and inside Iran? I think it's very hard to say. A lot of analysts that I've spoken to think that he would emerge weakened and that the whole system of rule in the Islamic Republic would emerge very weakened.

And quite what the ramifications of that would be are difficult to predict. Of course, Iran has had a history of internal issues with its ethnic and religious minorities, the Kurds in the West and the Baluchis down along the borders with Pakistan and Afghanistan. And it's possible that a weakened government in Tehran could lead to a renewal of

separatist or other activity in those regions and of course you would also probably expect that if they did survive and the current authorities in Iran would again try to lean on external networks that they have to restore their influence

position around the Middle East. Now, whether they could do any of all that is anyone's guess. And if there was regime change or a deal, what would removal of sanctions do for the potential of Iran's economy?

Iran is a major energy producer and I think an awful lot of Iranians believe that it has been long held back economically by the sanctions and because of the poor relations that exist between Iran and a lot of the rest of the world. Now, Iran has a pretty advanced education system by the standards of the region and it has very big engineering and other capabilities

sectors that have managed to flourish even under sanctions and with Iran's isolation. So I'm sure there are an awful lot of Iranians who would very much hope that the removal of sanctions and an Iranian reintegration into the sort of international system would allow Iran's economy to really flourish. So just paint us a picture. What is life like right now for those ordinary Iranians?

I think for a lot of people it's pretty terrifying. Israel has ordered various parts of Tehran to be evacuated. And we're talking about pretty big areas that have hundreds of thousands, if not a million or more residents who are given a few hours notice to leave their homes. That's a really frightening and unsettling experience for people, as is the sound of

bombs hitting their city. And I think that life right now is very anxious for an awful lot of Iranians. Thank you to Angus and all our teams around the world for reporting on the Iran-Israel conflict.

The Reuters World News team includes Gail Issa, David Spencer, Christopher Waljasper, Sharon Reich-Garson, Kim Van El and Jonah Green. Our senior producers are me, Tara Oakes and Carmel Crimmins. Our executive producer is Lila DiCretza. Engineering on this episode is by Josh Sommer and Christopher Waljasper. Make sure to follow us on your favourite podcast player and we'll be back on Monday with our daily headline show.