In The Spectator, John Jenkins compares the current situation in Iran with that of Iraq in 2004 as the war began. Unlike in Iraq, the opposition to Iran’s regime is also an opposition to its religious theocracy. So, Jenkins explains, the opposition is unlikely to replace an old theocracy for a new one. He writes:

And that matters. Saddam was not notably religious, though he made an effort to co-opt religion in the 1990s. So, when he fell, the dominant opposition to him was inevitably religious – in the same way as it had been in Iran in 1979 – because it could mobilize support in a way its more secular opponents could not. But Iran has been through all that and come out the other side. The opposition now rejects any role for religion in politics because it has seen what it does. And it commands massive support. As long as the IRGC remain cohesive and retain their weapons and wealth, that support cannot make a difference. But if the IRGC were to lose that power – and that is clearly one of the aims of this campaign – then it would lose its ability to stop a civil state emerging.

Whether such a state will in fact emerge after the destruction of much of the Iranian theocratic state’s capacity is, of course, another question. When the Constitutional Revolution failed – with the forced dissolution of the Second National Assembly in 1911 – it precipitated a decade of chaos and violence. That was ended by a coup led by the commander of the Iranian army’s Cossack regiment, Reza Khan, the founder of the Pahlavi dynasty and the grandfather of Reza Pahlavi who, from exile in the US, has been calling for insurrection. Perhaps we shall see Iran again descend into internal disarray. It wouldn’t be the first time. But, unlike Iraq, Iran has a memory of other times when collapse happened and a new Iran was eventually born out of the ashes.

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