An analysis of US rhetorical interference and the structural realities of Iranian power
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However, read closely, it reveals something deeper and more persistent: not only an anachronistic vision of the world order, but a structural misunderstanding of the Iranian political system and the role that leadership plays within it. This analytical deficit is not trivial; in fact, it decisively shapes the effectiveness, or lack thereof, of any American strategy toward Tehran.
On the surface, the statement seems to align with a well-known tradition of North American foreign policy: the belief that non-aligned political systems can be reconfigured from the outside through pressure, sanctions, or, if necessary, military force. But in the Iranian case, this premise is particularly inadequate. This is not only because Iran has demonstrated a remarkable capacity for institutional resilience since 1979, but because the very concept of "leadership" in the Islamic Republic does not correspond to the categories implicit in contemporary Western political language.
To speak of "looking for a new leader" presupposes that political power in Iran is personalizable, interchangeable, and, ultimately, capable of being reordered by external actors. That assumption ignores the fact that the Supreme Leader—the Rahbar—is not simply a ruler in the classical sense, but the embodiment of a political principle that articulates sovereignty, legitimacy, and historical continuity. In this sense, the error is not merely diplomatic; it is conceptual.
Supreme Leader is the architect of political order
For the Islamic Republic, the figure of the Supreme Leader, currently Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, cannot be understood as an individual detached from the system he represents. His function exceeds the personal dimension and is embedded in a much broader institutional and ideological logic. The principle of Wali-ye Faqih (Guardianship of the Jurist) does not merely designate a specific person, but rather a central political signifier around which the entire post-revolutionary state is organized.
This signifier binds together a series of fundamental equivalences: Islamic popular sovereignty, revolutionary continuity, national independence (esteghlal) and resistance (moqavemat) to external hegemony. The Supreme Leader operates as the nodal point of this chain, conferring coherence on a system that combines Islamic and republican elements in a distinctive way. His legitimacy derives neither exclusively from religious authority nor from a direct electoral mandate, but from a particular fusion of Islamic jurisprudence and popular will, as articulated after the 1979 revolution.
From this perspective, to interpret the Supreme Leader as a “ruler” who might be replaced through external pressure is to misread the Iranian political grammar altogether. The issue is not simply that leadership is not chosen in Washington, but that its function is not comparable to that of a conventional head of state. To attack the individual is, in the system’s internal logic, to attack the very principle that guarantees the continuity of political order. Hence, personalized threats tend to produce the opposite of their intended effect: they reinforce internal consensus around the figure they seek to weaken.
The role of the Supreme Leader is concretized through a set of clearly defined prerogatives. He is commander-in-chief of the armed forces, including the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC); he appoints the heads of the judiciary and key state media; he designates six of the twelve members of the Guardian Council; and he exercises influence over an extensive network of economic foundations (bonyads). Yet to reduce this concentration of authority to the notion of “power behind the scenes” would be misleading. His authority is public, constitutional and central. It is the position that confers power, and the individual who exercises it so long as he meets the requirements laid down by the system.
Succession, resilience and the fallacy of external analogy
One of the most persistent misunderstandings in Western analyses of Iran is the tendency to project analogies drawn from other contexts in which leadership change has triggered systemic transformation. In the Iranian case, such analogies are particularly misplaced. The political system is designed precisely to ensure the continuity of the principle of Wali-ye Faqih beyond the individual who embodies it at any given moment.
The Assembly of Experts, a body composed of clerics and directly elected by the public, holds the constitutional mandate to select, supervise, and dismiss the Supreme Leader. While this mechanism does not conform to liberal standards of political alternation, it performs a crucial function: it ensures a controlled succession that preserves the ideological core of the system. The recurring external question of who will succeed Khamenei is relevant only insofar as it is understood that the transition is intended to reproduce the existing order, not dismantle it.
This does not imply the absence of internal tensions. Iran is a political system marked by multiple disputes within the sphere of politics itself. These tensions, however, operate within a shared framework. What may appear from the outside as fragility or paralysis is often the way in which the system manages its contradictions without calling its foundations into question. Social protests, real and significant, have coexisted for decades with a notable degree of institutional stability.
In this context, the idea that external pressure — rhetorical or military — could precipitate a leadership change with transformative effects reveals more about American expectations than about Iranian realities. Far from weakening the system, such threats tend to reinforce the narrative of a “besieged nation”, a discursive resource that the Islamic Republic has deployed effectively since its inception.
Military escalation without a political objective
The most sensitive dimension of this analytical deficit emerges when rhetoric translates into concrete military movements. The reinforcement of the US military presence in the region — including the deployment of carrier strike groups in the Persian Gulf — significantly expands the range of options available to Washington. From a strictly technical standpoint, the United States retains overwhelming military superiority and the capacity to conduct high-precision operations against selected targets.
The central problem, however, lies not in operational capability but in the absence of a clearly defined political objective. What strategic outcome is being sought? A limited strike, even if it were to inflict meaningful material damage, would be unlikely to alter the foundations of Iran’s political order or its strategic orientation. On the contrary, external aggression would tend to reinforce the perception of a systemic threat, consolidating the logic of national defence and reaffirming the state’s role as the guarantor of sovereignty in the face of outside pressure.
A broader campaign, for its part, would exponentially increase the risk of a regional escalation that would be difficult to contain. Iran has structured its security doctrine over decades around deterrence and asymmetric response capabilities, precisely to ensure that the use of force by external powers is not perceived as a low-cost option. The activation of these balances would affect not only Iran, but the regional system as a whole, with direct implications for energy security and the stability of multiple actors.
In the absence of a coherent political horizon, the resort to force thus risks becoming a self-contained instrument, disconnected from any strategy of resolution. Military pressure, when not subordinated to a realistic diplomatic framework, tends to generate cumulative insecurity rather than sustainable political outcomes.
From this standpoint, President Trump’s remarks are not only ineffective in practical terms; they also contribute to a dynamic of confrontation grounded in faulty assumptions. By personalizing the conflict and suggesting the possibility of a “new leader”, US rhetoric ignores the fact that the core of the Iranian system is not organized around interchangeable individuals, but around structural principles of sovereignty and independence. In that sense, rhetorical and military escalation does not open a path towards resolution, but prolongs a cycle of tensions whose outcome remains undefined.
The apparent pauses that sometimes follow these episodes should not be mistaken for lasting de-escalation, but rather understood as intervals within a broader confrontation. So long as the political and historical realities of Iran remain misunderstood, each new move risks reproducing the same errors — at growing cost to regional stability and the international order.
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