When Iran's supreme leader leaves his hiding place, he will rule a very different nation

The war has significantly weakened the country has already left it diminished.

During the war, Israel quickly took control of much of the Iranian airspace and attacked its military infrastructure. High commanders of the Revolutionary Guard and the Army were quickly killed.

The magnitude of the damage suffered by the army is not yet clear and is subject to controversy, but the repeated bombings against the bases and facilities of the army and the revolutionary guard suggest a substantial degradation of Iranian military power. For a long time, militarization has consumed a large number of the country's resources.

The well -known nuclear facilities of Iran, which earned the country almost two decades of American and international sanctions, with an estimated cost of hundreds of billions of dollars, are now damaged by air attacks and efforts have been hindered, although it has been difficult to evaluate the real magnitude of this.

What was all this for? Many wonder.

A large number of Iranians will hold the Ayatolá Jamenei, who assumed power for the first time in 1989, to direct Iran towards a clash with Israel and the United States that, ultimately, brought a considerable ruin to its country and its population.

They will blame him for pursuing the ideological objective of the destruction of Israel, something that many Iranians do not support. They will blame him for what they perceive as madness: his belief that reaching nuclear power status would make his invincible regime.

The sanctions have paralyzed the Iranian economy, reducing an important oil exporter to a shadow of what it was.

“It is difficult to estimate how much more time the Iranian regime can survive under such a significant pressure, but this seems the beginning of the end,” said Professor Lina Khatib, visiting researcher at Harvard University.

“Ali Jamenei is likely to become the last 'supreme leader' of the Islamic Republic in the full sense of the word.”

Rumors of dissent within the dome have emerged. At the high point of the war, an Iranian semi -official news agency reported that some ancient important figures of the regime had urged the most discreet religious scholars in the country that live in the Holy City of Qom, and that they are independent of the ayatollah, to intervene and achieve a change of leadership.

“There will be an adjustment of accounts,” says Professor Ali Ansari, founding director of the Iranian Studies Institute of St. Andrews, located in Scotland.

“It is evident that there are great disagreements within leadership and also a great discontent among common people.”

During the last two weeks, the Iranians faced found feelings: the need to defend Iran against deep hatred against the regime. They mobilized by the country, not to defend the regime, but to take care of each other. It has been informed of great solidarity and closeness.

In villages and villages outside the urban areas, the inhabitants opened their doors to those who had fled from the bombings in their cities, the merchants offered basic products at lower prices of the corresponding ones and the neighbors called to their doors to ask if they needed something.

But many were also aware that Israel was probably looking for a regime change in Iran. A regime change is what many Iranians want. However, they could reject it if it is orchestrated and imposed by foreign powers.

In his almost 40 years of government, Ayatolá Jamenei, one of the autocrats who has spent the most time in power in the world, has decimated the opposition in the country.

The political leaders of the opposition are in prison or have fled from Iran. Abroad, they have failed to formulate a position that one to the dissidents of the regime. They have been ineffective when establishing any type of organization capable of taking control within the country if the opportunity occurs.

During the two weeks of war, when the regime's collapse could have been a possibility if there was no truce, many believed that the probable scenario for the next day was not the taking of power by the opposition, but the fall of the country in chaos and anarchy.

“It is unlikely that the Iranian regime will be overthrown by the internal opposition. The regime remains strong in the country and will increase internal oppression to crush dissent,” says Professor Khatib.

Iranians now fear greater repression by the regime. At least 6 people have been executed in the last two weeks since the beginning of the war with Israel, accused of spying for Israel. The authorities claim to have arrested about 700 people for this position.

An Iranian woman declared to the Persian service of the BBC that what fears more than the death and destruction of war is to an injured and humiliated regime that directs her anger against her own people.

“If the regime cannot provide basic goods and services, anger and frustration will grow,” says Professor Ansari. “I see it as a gradual process. I do not see it as something that, necessarily, in a popular sense, is rooted until long after the bombings end.”

Few in Iran believe that the stop the negotiated fire on Monday will last and assume that Israel has not yet ended up now that it has total air superiority over Iran.

Something that seems to have escaped to destruction are much of the Silos of Balistic missiles of Iran, which was difficult for Israel to locate, since they are located in tunnels under mountains throughout the country.

The Chief of the General Staff of the Defense Forces of Israel, Eyal Zamir, declared that Israel launched his first attack knowing that “Iran had about 2,500 Earth-Tierra missiles.”

The missiles that Iran shot caused considerable deaths and destruction in Israel.

Israel will be concerned about the possible remaining 1,500 that are still in the hands of Iran.

There is also a serious concern in Israel, the US and other western and regional countries that Iran hasten to build a nuclear bomb, something that has always denied trying.

According to some reports, Trump ordered Israel not to kill Iran's supreme leader.

Although it is almost certain that Iranian nuclear facilities were affected and possibly useless during the bombings of Israel and the United States, Iran said they had transferred their highly enriched uranium reserves to a secret and safe place.

These 60% uranium reserves are enough for about nine bombs if they are enriched at 90%, which is a relatively simple step, according to experts. Just before the start of the war, Iran announced the construction of another secret enrichment installation, which would soon come into operation.

The Iranian Parliament voted in favor of drastically reducing its cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (OIEA), dedicated to atomic control.

This decision still requires approval, but if it is endorsed, Iran would be one step away from leaving the nuclear non -proliferation treaty, while the hard line supporters of the supreme leader press so that Tehran can build a bomb.

Ayatolá Jamenei can now be sure that his regime has survived, by little. But at 86 years old and sick, he also knows that his days could be counted, and perhaps he wants to ensure the continuity of the regime through an orderly transition of power, either to another high -ranking cleric or even a leadership council.

Jamenei chose three high -ranking clergymen as candidates to succeed him in case of his death, he reported The New York Timesand selected replacements throughout its military command chain in case more lieutenants die.

In any case, the remaining high controls of the Revolutionary Guard, which have been loyal to the supreme leader, could try to exercise power after the racks.

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