Former Israeli diplomat Alon Pinkas has cautioned that removing Iran’s top leadership would not automatically bring down the country’s political system, arguing that the Islamic Republic is fundamentally different from other authoritarian regimes that collapsed after their rulers were eliminated.
Speaking in an interview on Sunday, March 1, 2026, with Al Jazeera English, Pinkas pushed back against assumptions that decapitating Iran’s leadership would trigger rapid regime change.
“There is a tendency to look at dictatorships in the same way, as if you eliminate the dictator, you eliminate the dictatorship,” he said.
Pinkas pointed to the example of Muammar Gaddafi, noting that after his removal in Libya, the state disintegrated into prolonged instability. However, he argued that Iran’s system is structurally and ideologically different.
“But in Iran, it’s not just a dictatorship. It’s also an Islamic revolution,” Pinkas said, emphasizing that the country’s political order is built on a deeply rooted ideological foundation with an established hierarchy and institutional framework.
According to him, the Islamic Republic operates through a coalition of political, clerical, and military factions that, while diverse, function within a shared revolutionary doctrine. This layered structure, he suggested, makes it far more resilient than regimes centered solely around a single strongman.
Pinkas stressed that military strikes or the elimination of key figures would not necessarily dismantle such a system. Unlike personalist dictatorships that collapse when the leader falls, Iran’s governance model, he argued, is sustained by institutions that can absorb leadership losses and continue operating.
His comments come amid ongoing regional tensions and speculation over whether targeting senior Iranian figures could pave the way for regime change. Pinkas’ assessment suggests that even significant blows to the leadership may weaken the system but are unlikely, on their own, to cause it to crumble.
The distinction, he implied, lies in ideology and structure: while Libya unraveled after Gaddafi’s removal, Iran’s revolutionary framework could enable it to endure beyond the loss of individual leaders.See_More…