After 6 months of war, US must prepare for a future after Iran’s government falls

Six months into the war, the central question about Iran’s regime is no longer its missile arsenal, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ (IRGC) ability to menace the Strait of Hormuz, or how long the confrontation can endure. The deeper question is political and historical: Who governs Iran? Is it Mojtaba Khamenei, whose position at the apex of the system remains opaque; Masoud Pezeshkian, whose office of president was never designed to hold sovereign power; or the IRGC, which after decades of accumulating military...