Ali Ansari
About
Professor, founding director of the Institute for Iranian Studies at the University of St Andrews; leading authority on Iranian politics and history
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Claims by Ali Ansari (20 of 99)
Iran's Core Problem Is Its Political Economy
The real underlying problem in Iran is the weakness of its political economy, not the 12-day attack; a prosperous, free Iran would have shrugged off such a strike with the population rallying round, so the war was only serious because it exposed pre-existing weaknesses — and a nuclear weapon would not have changed this, only ensuring death by economic strangulation via snapback sanctions instead of military means.
Regime Failure Versus Regime Change Distinction
What Iran faces is most likely regime failure — the collapse and failure of a state unable to deliver — rather than externally imposed regime change; out of that failure a group will likely emerge promising good governance, which won't be labeled regime change but will inaugurate a longer-term process of genuine regime change.
IRGC More Divided And Less Popular Than Assumed
Although the Revolutionary Guard has a financial incentive for the regime to continue and holds hard power, it is more divided and less popular as an institution than people assume, its members have children who protested in 2022, and a growing rivalry exists between the Revolutionary Guard (defending the revolution) and the army (defending the nation), meaning the IRGC may eventually recognize that protecting its interests requires change.
Iran Is Not Libya
Predictions that bombing would trigger an immediate popular uprising and collapse misread Iran, which unlike Libya has a population of 90 million and a completely different geography and historical inheritance, making facile Libya-style collapse scenarios overly optimistic.
Self-Sufficiency Doctrine Crippled Iran's Air Defense
Iran's insistence on self-sufficiency, combined with unwillingness to pay, led it to refuse foreign air defense offers (including from China) and rely on domestically built systems that turned out not to work; even if it now buys foreign systems, integration and training take time, and Israel would strike again before they become operational.
Syria Decision Driven By IRGC Institutional Interest
The 2013 decision to actively intervene in Syria was driven primarily by the IRGC's institutional self-interest — a successful Syria would let the IRGC consolidate its position back in Iran and Iraq while a defeat would weaken it — taken collectively between Khamenei's office and senior IRGC leadership over objections from figures like Rafsanjani and the Foreign Ministry.
Loss Of Airspace Was The War's Greatest Catastrophe
The greatest catastrophe of the war was that Iran lost control of its airspace within 72 hours, which is devastating because military leaders had repeatedly boasted that Iran's defenses were so strong Israel would never dare attack, exposing them as embarrassingly hollow and producing a sense of national shame even among non-regime-supporters.
Khamenei Survival Length Determines Change Pathway
The pathway of change depends on how long Khamenei lives: if he dies soon there will be a strong push for an orderly clerical council, but if he lingers another three or four years amid worsening malaise he is unlikely to be replaceable at all and the probability of revolutionary upheaval rises as a critical threshold is passed.
Israel Is A Poor Nuclear Target
Israel is paradoxically not a good target for an Iranian nuclear weapon because it is so small and contains so many religious sites that any strike on Tel Aviv would also irradiate Jerusalem, making the religious and strategic logic of nuking Israel a fiasco.
Pre-War Crisis Of Gas Water Electricity
Even before the war, Iran faced a summer of turmoil because the regime cannot reliably provide gas, electricity, or water amid 40-degree heat, and the war has not solved these structural shortages but only redirected attention while leaving the underlying crisis worse.
Default Loyalists Are Now Questioning The Regime
The most significant post-war shift is not among the usual dissidents but among 'default loyalists' — those closer to the regime who previously saw it as the best available option — who are now saying things like 'this is not our war' or distinguishing willingness to fight for Iran from support for the Islamic Republic, neither of which reflects well on the regime.
Adrenaline Rush Followed By Steeper Decline
Wartime produces an initial adrenaline rush of national solidarity that gives the regime a short-term boost, but once that rush collapses people begin questioning what happened, leaving the regime in an even worse position than before — like rising suddenly only to fall more steeply.
Hezbollah Was The Most Expensive Pronouncement In History
Iran's proxy investment failed visibly during the 12-day war, as captured by an Iranian who noted Hezbollah offered only a couple of pronouncements in Iran's favor but fired not a single missile, making it 'the most expensive pronouncement in history.'
Iran's Regional Grand Strategy Has Failed
Outside a small hard core that still believes it won, there is growing realization within the Iranian elite that the regional strategy — Hezbollah, the Gaza catastrophe, and especially the loss of Syria — has been a fiasco, with the loss of Syria felt most acutely.
Regime Change Worked But Nation Building Failed
In Western interventions like Iraq and Afghanistan, the regime change itself actually worked well; it was the subsequent nation building that was a disaster, so these are better understood as regime change followed by failed nation building rather than regime change per se.
Russia Failed To Deliver On Alliance Promises
Russia, Iran's principal arms supplier, has failed dramatically to deliver on any form of alliance, never providing the promised S-400 missiles or new fighter jets, and while China may eventually replace Russia there is currently no real indication it will, with social media reports being largely fake news.
WhatsApp And Complacency Enabled Israeli Targeting
Senior IRGC leaders were killed on the first night partly because they used ordinary phones with apps like WhatsApp on the general network rather than vetted secure devices, revealing a huge amount of complacency in a system long assumed to be cunning and competent.
Younger IRGC Leadership Not Necessarily More Radical
With the senior IRGC leadership largely killed and younger figures rising, the common assumption that the newcomers are more radical is uncertain; veteran IRGC and military officers who served in the Iran-Iraq war were often more sanguine and sensible about war than the younger, war-inexperienced figures eager to prove themselves.
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