Why Iran’s Supreme Leader will lead a very different nation when leaving your hiding place

The war of recent weeks has significantly weakened Iran and its supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Who is Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader after spending about two weeks in a secret bunker somewhere in Iran, during the conflict between his country and Israel, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatola Ali Khamenei, may want to use the opportunity of ceasefire to go public. On Thursday (26/6), Khamenei made his first video pronouncement since the US attacks to his country. According to him, “nothing significant” occurred in nuclear facilities attacked earlier this week. Khamenei is 86 years old and became the supreme leader of his country in 1989. It is believed that he was hidden and incommunicable, fearing being murdered by Israel. Apparently not even the leading Iranian government authorities had been contacting him. The leader was reportedly advised to be cautious, although the fragile ceasefire negotiated by US President Donald Trump and Emir do Qatar, the Tamim Bin Hamad al-Thani. Trump was supposedly instructed Israel not to kill Iran’s supreme leader, but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not rule out this possibility. When – or even – Ayatollah Khamenei leaves his hiding place, he will find a scenario of death and destruction. No doubt he will try to restore his image. But Khamenei will also face new realities and even a new era. After all, war has significantly weakened his country and himself. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is 86 years old and became the supreme leader of his country in 1989 Reuters rumors about dissidents in the high command during the war, Israel quickly took the control of much of the Iranian airspace and attacked the country’s military infrastructure. High commanders of the Iranian Army and Revolutionary Guard were quickly killed. The extension of military damage is still uncertain and contested. But the repeated bombings to the basis and facilities of the Army and Revolutionary Guard suggest that the degradation of Iran’s military power was substantial. Militarization, for a long time, consumes a vast portion of the nation’s resources. Iran’s well -known nuclear facilities surrendered to the country about two decades of American and international sanctions, with an estimated cost of hundreds of billions of dollars. Now these facilities have been damaged by air attacks. But it is still difficult to evaluate the extent of damage. And many ask that it served all this. The war has significantly weakened Iran Getty Images/BBC A large number of Iranians will personally hold Ayatollah Khamenei for putting Iran on collision with Israel and the United States, which eventually ruined their country and their people considerably. They will blame Khamenei for promoting the ideological goal of destroying Israel, something that many Iranians do not support. And they will also blame it for what they understand as foolishness-their belief that reaching nuclear power would make their regime invincible. Sanctions paralyzed the Iranian economy, reducing one of the world’s leading oil exporters to a small and slaughtered shadow of what it was in the past. “It’s hard to estimate how long the Iranian regime can survive subject to such significant pressure, but it seems the beginning of the end,” says Professor Lina Khatib, a visiting academic at Harvard University in the United States. For her, “Ali Khamenei will probably become the last ‘supreme leader’ of the Islamic Republic, in the full sense of expression.” Large number of Iranians will be responsible for Ayatollah Khamenei for placing Iran on a collision with Israel and the United States AFP/Getty Images/BBC and have been rumors about dissent on the country’s high command. At the height of the war, an Iran Semiofficial news agency said old important figures of the regime have requested the intervention of the most discreet religious academics in the country, trying to change their leadership. These academics are independent of Ayatollah and are in the sacred city of Qom. “There will be an investigation,” according to Professor Ali Ansari, founder and director of the Institute of Iranian Studies of the University of St. Andrews, the United Kingdom. “It is very clear that there are huge disagreements between leaders and also immense dissatisfaction among ordinary people,” he says. ‘Anger and frustration will increase’ in recent weeks, many Iranians have faced conflicting feelings between the need to defend Iran and its deep grudge over the regime. They spoke in favor of their country and took to the streets, not to defend the regime, but to take care of each other. The reports are of wide solidarity and proximity. People in the villages and smaller cities, away from large urban areas, opened the doors for those fleeing the bombing in large cities. Traders offered discounted basic products and neighbors knocked on each other to see if they needed anything. But many people also knew that Israel probably sought a change of regime in Iran. Many Iranians want the change of the regime. But they may reject a change engendered and imposed by foreign powers. Ayatollah Khamenei is one of the longest autocrats in power in the world. And in his nearly 40 years of leadership, he decimated the opposition of the country. The opposition political leaders are either in prison, or fled from Iran. And abroad they were unable to elaborate a position that unified opposition to the Iranian regime. Oppositionists could not establish any kind of organization that could be able to assume power in the country if the occasion arose. The collapse of the regime could have been a possibility if the war of the last two weeks remained indefinitely. But during the two weeks of conflict, many believed that the probable scenario for the day following the fall of the current regime would not be the seizure of power by opposition, but the country’s entry into chaos and anarchy. “Domestic opposition is unlikely to overthrow the Iranian regime,” according to Khatib. “The regime follows strongly internally and will reinforce oppression to crush dissidents.” The Iranians now fear that the regime will increase repression. At least six people have been executed in recent weeks since the beginning of the war against Israel. They were accused of espionage to the Jewish state. And the authorities claim to have arrested about 700 people under the same accusation. An Iranian woman declared to the Persian service of the BBC that, more than the death and destruction caused by war, her fear is that a wounded and humiliated regime directs her anger against her own people. “If the regime is unable to provide basic goods and services, anger and frustration will increase,” Ansari according to. “I see a process in steps. I don’t see it as something that, in the popular sense, will necessarily be rooted long after the end of bombing.” Few people in Iran believe the ceasefire negotiated on Monday (23/6) will last a long time. Many believe that Israel has not yet ended its attacks, now that the country has complete superiority in the skies of Iran. Iran’s ballistic missiles most of Iran’s ballistic bases seem to have escaped destruction. Israel had a hard time locating them, as they are installed in tunnels inside mountains across the country. Israel’s defense forces chief of staff, Eyal Zamir, stated that when his country launched his first attack on the Islamic Republic, “Iran had about 2,500 surface missiles.” The missiles fired by Iran caused deaths and considerable destruction in Israel. The Jewish state must be concerned about the 1,500 possibly remaining missiles, still in the hands of the Iranian side. There are also serious concerns in Tel Aviv, Washington and other capitals in the region and the West, that Iran can still run to build a nuclear bomb – a goal that the country has always denied so far. Iranian nuclear facilities, with almost all certainty, were damaged – or possibly rendered unusable – during the bombing of Israel and the United States. Iran, however, claims that it has transferred its highly enriched uranium stock to a secret and secure place. This 60% uranium stock, if enriched up to 90% (which is a relatively easy process), is sufficient to produce about nine bombs, experts. Shortly before the war began, Iran had announced the construction of a new secret installation of uranium enrichment, which should soon go into operation. The Iranian Parliament has decided to severely reduce its cooperation with the United Nations atomic regulatory body, the International Atomic Energy Agency (AIEA). This measure still requires approval, but if it comes into force, it will leave the country one step away from its withdrawal of the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons, as proposed by the row authorities that support the supreme leader, releasing Iran to build the bomb. Ayatollah Khamenei can now have the confidence that its regime has survived. But sick and 86 years old, he also knows that his days of life may be numbered. Therefore, it may want to ensure the continuity of the regime with a transition of peaceful power, to another senior religious or even a council of leaders. In any case, the main remaining commanders of Iranian revolutionary guard, loyal to the supreme leader, can seek to exercise power behind the scenes.

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