Iran Without Khamenei: What Comes Next?

You're just talking about the story. You're just talking about the story. You're just talking about the story. You're just talking about the story. You're just talking about the story.

You're just talking about the story. You're just talking about the story. You're just talking about the story. You're just talking about the story. You're just talking about the story.

You're just talking about the story. You're just talking about the story. You're just talking about the story. After decades in power,

“and after his regime murdered tens of thousands of its own citizens,”

Iran's supreme leader, Ali Kamini, was killed in the initial strikes of Operation Epic Fury. The idolist death has prompted both exuberance and concern about who or what might fill the power vacuum. In this episode, we speak with the senior director of the Iran program

at the foundation for defensive democracies about Kamini's dark legacy and how his death has already begun to change Iran. I'm deadly wire executive editor John Bickley with Georgia Hall. This is a weekend edition of One Wire.

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That's promo code wire at takeline.com today. Joining us now is Bin and Bin, Talibu, the senior director of the Iran program at the foundation for defense of democracies. Bin and good to see you again. Thanks for coming on.

Pleasure. Always good to be back with you guys.

Thank you. So Ayatola, a committee ruled for 36 years in Iran. He was a power player actually since the Islamic Revolution in 79. So he's been there from the beginning.

“What is the reaction on the ground there to his death?”

Well, largely the reaction is solicitation and jubilation. You know, Iran just went through its biggest nationwide and high regime uprising in the month of January with a 30 to 40,000 killed just in a matter of days. That was co-terminist with one of the nation's largest internet blackouts.

And among one of the many chance that we've heard was death to comedy. And the Iranian population is quite literally no longer filtering itself. When it comes to a few values and intentions here, they rightly hold the supreme leader supremely accountable for the state that their country has been in.

Now, for people who aren't familiar with Camini, how did he come into power 36 years ago? Well, it was quite a bit of musical chairs at the top. How many occupied the position of supreme leader or more happily put guardianship of the jurisprudent?

And that religious title is a manufactured title that, you know, Iranian officials that only seen your clergy only Ayatola's.

Basically they're equivalent of a religious PhD could have.

But religiously, Hamani has a religious version of an M.A. He's a hojette on Islam, so he was kind of promoted overnight and pushed forward in the elite infighting after the death of the founding father of these Islamic Republic Ayatola Holmani. I know that the case can be confusing.

I'm a first-generation Iranian-American myself. Speak flu and Persian, but at the same time, Hamani and Holmani can be sometimes confusing. I've made this live up before, but trust me, we know who they are.

was pushed forward by some of Iran's political elites, thinking that he would be applying to cleric. But in his three-and-a-half decades in power, Hamani has really consolidated his security services and brought in the military to politics, to society,

and to the economy, and relied on them for his three-and-a-half decades of terror. Yeah, I wanted to ask you specifically about that. His very strict rigid regime, and his method of rule, there was a fundamentalist Islamic aspect to it, of course.

“What are some of the defining characteristics of his ring?”

To be brutally honest, if Hamani had died on October 6, 2023, I think you really could have made the case that this individual would have been among one of the most successful anti-American and anti-israeli autocrats of the modern Muslim world. Ultimately, Hamani's legacy was about preserving,

protecting and defending the Islamic Republic and the Islamic Revolution. A broad he kept that government's disposition, focused on exporting the revolution, on exporting terrorism, of seeking to pursue destabilizing weapons, including missiles and weapons, the vast destruction,

and continuing a foreign policy of death to America and death to Israel, even at the peak of American military superiority and unipolarity, even when it came near its borders. At home, it was a reign of fear, right of terror. He basically institutionalized the Islamic Republic after it was founded.

He had strict dress codes that were always there from the get-go,

but also continued to be enforced.

“And Hamani's style basically deflected blame from him”

for the mass repression and the institutionalization of Islamism. But ultimately, the Iranian population rightly held him accountable. So Hamani's reign at home was a reign that did not budge, did not offer representative government, and really continued to push for the institutionalization

of their own perverse brand of 12 Earths use. One follow-up to that, particularly the treatment of women under his regime. There's been a lot of reports about the specific laws, of marriage laws as it applies to women, women in the workforce, etc.

What was it like for women under his reign? Well, unfortunately, in the 47 years of these Islamic Republic, one of the biggest social losers have been women,

which is why one of the first and earliest protests against these

Lomrake public, which was about the hijab issue, was led by women just months after this regime was established in 1979. So it's not a shocker than as things go on in these Lomrake public continues to really tout this brand of Islamism that not just women, but really all strands of society begin to push back.

But there's no doubt that one of the most biggest losers of 47 years in this Lomrake public across two similarly hard-line and fundamentalists who frame leaders who are been instituting that version of Islamism have been women. So there are certain academic fields that women are prohibited from.

There's certainly an underrepresentation in the job market, even though they can be overrepresented with it comes to advanced degrees. There's institutional discrimination at the judiciary and through the legal process of the Islamic Republic.

And unfortunately, by institutionalizing this Lomrake law, it has done horrible things when it comes to the age of marriage, for example, or a woman's right to divorce. Now, what do we know about Kamini as a person? I know there have been some almost flattering puff pieces

and habituaries in some of the Western media.

“But what do we know about what he was actually like?”

Well, fortunately, I never met him,

but based on not having to spend many years in my life having to read every speech, every comment, every essay that this individual has written, you can tell that this individual has a fairly consistent worldview and a worldview that actually hardens or crystallizes

they more they reach power. You know, the old saying about power, which is that with power comes corruption, with absolute power comes absolute corruption, you really did the end to see that in the first few years of the tenure of Kamini's supreme leadership.

As a person, and as they however, Kamini was a bit more timid, you could even say when it comes to crises, for example, every time there's a major protest he retreats. This is something that some of his closures advisors or family members who have been outspoken since the 2009 Green Revolution

have said and have put at the service of Persian diaspora media. But Kamini is many things, the many people. He's a hard line anti-American Theocrat. He is a failed poet. He is someone who carries the burdens and prejudices

of coming from a very, very poor family. That was discriminated against both for wealth, as well as for going into the institution of the clergy and begin with.

in a sincere way, because he always envisioned himself

as some kind of master literary figure.

“But in reality, the hard brutal truth was that he was not.”

He was, in essence, really just a mid-level theater grad put in charge of a major national security state. And when you have all these pretensions and presumptions about power, but you don't have the capability to follow that through, and the country will end up looking like

like Iran does look like today, which is a country of amazing potential. But that really has been driven into the ground. So despite what some people have reported in a bit of theories about his personal inclinations, that he likes to read Victor Hugo,

it's his track record that matters. People are actually very complex. Terrorists can have families too. I'm not interested in how common hatred is his cousins, or his brothers.

I'm interested in what he did with the place where my ancestral family comes from. Right. Now, who exactly will fill the power vacuum in the long-term, which remains to be seen, of course. But even just with the fact that Komeni is now out of the picture,

how might that change things in the country now? Well, even what we're looking at today, the Islamic Republic does not have a supreme leader. It does not have a commander in chief, but it's still continuing a multi-front missile and drone war

against America, against Israel, and against many of its Arab neighbors. Even just earlier, in attack Turkey, even, which is a NATO allied country. So, make no mistake. Despite not being at the helm, the legacy of Al-Ehamnene is felt very much across Iran's political institutions

and military institutions. You can say there is a vacuum, but the Islamic Republic is acting like it would be expected to act. I mean, this is a regime that within hours, after losing the commanding heights of the IRGC,

in the 12-day war last June, also did some things similar, and instituted massive missile barages against Israel. So, there is room at this point in time to have a more open debate as to how much

of Iran's born and security policy was in 86-year-old Theograt, who had not left the country since 1989, really being involved in on a day-to-day basis, especially as he was sheltered, and especially as electronic communications with him, we're cut.

Now, we have heard that not just the next level of leadership, but maybe a few levels down have been completely wiped out. That's what Trump is saying. Of course, there's a lot that's hard to confirm at this point,

“but who do we know right now in terms of who is calling the shots in Iran?”

Well, I would say the most important person, the most important government entity, and the most important institution in the country, are as follows. It's Ali Laryjani, who is the Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council.

He's by far in my view at the moment, the most important national security decision maker, who is still alive, who is still that link between command and control and political institutions and military institutions, and also setting the general tone, tender and tempo of where the state will go,

the institution that he leads, the Supreme National Security Council, is the most important national security decision-making body in the country,

and then third, the most important institution,

writ large, is the military, in particular, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. So for those who want to know where Iran will go, or where Iran is headed, as we have rumors that Hamid Aestan is supposed to succeed him as the Supreme Leader, as we have reports that there is this interim leadership council of the presidents of another cleric named Buffy,

and the head of the judiciary named Ajay, as those three are quote unquote, leading the country in a temporary leadership council, in reality, the power structure that matters is the Supreme National Security Council, is the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and Aliyah Rijani.

Now, even if those individuals were wiped out, presumably there are Iranians who are still loyal to the old regime,

“do we know what percentage of the population falls in that category?”

Well, unfortunately, given their cohesion, large swaths of the security services are loyal, as well as hard-line political, military and religious elite, as well as you could assume, some but not all of their family members and network of friends and veterans. Beyond that, in a country of about 91 and a half 92 million,

a back of the envelope assessments, all anecdotal, not really empirical, is at max 2015%. Which can still be a sizable number in a country that is that big, and the minority strategy of rule is the strategy that Aliyah Hamid Aestan had inherited and perfected.

Well, as we've seen that approach can last for decades, let's hope those days are done. Ben, thank you so much for coming on. We really appreciate your expertise.

Always a pleasure. Thank you.