No one doubted America’s ability to unleash hell. The question is how it handles what comes next

Iran’s second supreme leader is dead. Will there be a third?

Ayatollah Khamenei was the head of one of the world’s worst regimes. Mass murderers at home, patrons of terrorist networks abroad.

Indeed, the sting of its terrorist tentacles reached Australia in at least two attacks against Jewish targets designed to foment division in 2024.

The ayatollah will be mourned by very few; only his cronies at home and terrorist movements abroad.

True, Russia and China protested against the Israeli-American attack. But only because Iran is a useful ally in supplying oil and drones for them to use against the West, not because they care about Shiite fundamentalism or enjoyed Khamenei’s after-dinner repartee.

Yet the regime survives. The Israeli-led decapitation assassinated not only Khamenei but also at least seven more of the regime’s top military and intelligence commanders.

In a striking role reversal, the entire operation, months in the planning, appears to have been led by Jerusalem with Washington cheerfully following an Israeli script. We are left to wonder about the relationship between the US and Israel to understand which is the follower and which is the leader.

But the decapitation of the regime is not enough to remove it. It won’t liberate Iran’s people from its savage brutality, reverse its economic decline or cut its lifelines to Hamas and Hezbollah.

That’s why Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu have appealed to the people of Iran to rise up against the government apparatus that the ayatollah leaves behind.

There’s no doubt that most Iranians are fed up with the ruling regime. Not all might care about the repression of Iran’s women, but the entire population has suffered from raging inflation and the fact that medicines and other essentials have become unattainable.

Many thousands of brave protesters have lost their lives in efforts to change it. Just last month regime thugs killed an estimated 30,000 protesters in two days, according to data leaked from Iran’s health ministry to Time magazine.

But in the past week we’ve learned that Khamenei anticipated the possibility of his own assassination by nominating a successor; he named Ali Larijani, the very official responsible for these shocking mass murders of peaceful protesters.

Further, the supreme leader ordered all his subordinates to name multiple successors for themselves.

Indeed, the long-standing structure of the regime is designed to endure exactly the kind of assault that the US and Israel are delivering, as London University expert Ali Hashem explains in a piece for the journal Foreign Policy.

The world does not doubt Israel’s effectiveness in intelligence and clandestine operations. Indeed, it’s a standout strength, reinforced by this latest success in Tehran. Yet while it can attack enemy leaders, it lacks the power to replace them with friends.

And the world does not doubt America’s ability to deliver mass destruction from the air. Indeed, it’s a US specialty. But the US has an absolutely dire record in shaping the aftermath. Its efforts at regime change invariably have failed.

So, if death to the supreme leader is to be followed by the death of the Islamic Republic, one or both of the following must happen.

First, the Iranian people’s bravery must be tested once again as they rise up en masse. Second, the security services must fracture. Or both.

There is no credible evidence that Iran posed any current or near-term threat of nuclear breakout. After all, it was only last June when Trump assured us that US bombs had “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear facilities.

So, unless the regime itself is removed, the death of the ayatollah will be a spectacular tactic in support of a failed strategy. In which case, Operation Epic Fury will look more like epic futility.

Peter Hartcher is international editor.