Iranians dance in the streets at the confirmation of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s death. In the space of less than two months, President Donald Trump has taken out two of the world’s worst dictators. After minimal investment in Venezuela, he appears tempted to repeat the model in Iran. While the Islamic Republic itself has created an interim leadership council, the U.S. and Israel have curiously left three senior Iranian leaders untouched. While the U.S. or Israel killed former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the supreme leader’s son and confidante Mojtaba, former Presidents Mohammad Khatami and Hassan Rouhani as well as Supreme National Security Council chief Ali Larijani remain alive, perhaps purposely so.
While the Islamic Republic itself has created an interim leadership council, the U.S. and Israel have curiously left three senior Iranian leaders untouched.
If Trump seeks to use one of these three to head a Venezuela-like interim authority, the U.S. and Israel will be disappointed. Khatami is more popular outside Iran than inside. Rouhani is a regime loyalist largely responsible for the Iranian nuclear program Trump seeks to end. Larijani was an advisor, if not right-hand man, to Khamenei. The Iranian people who started this revolution will not stop and trust, let alone subordinate themselves to the leaders of the former regime.
Nor is it clear that Reza Pahlavi, the former crown prince, can consolidate control, despite the apparent support he receives from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and perhaps even President Trump. The problem with Pahlavi is not the crown prince himself, but rather, his chief aides who insulate him from criticism and concerns instead of looking at them as issues he should consider and address. If Pahlavi returns to Iran, he will have a target on his back. If he insulates himself from the Iranian people, he will not succeed.
With uncertainty, if not chaos, looming, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan will seek to leverage his influence with Trump and U.S. Ambassador Tom Barrack, who tends to endorse Turkish talking points in their entirety.
This would be a mistake for several reasons. Every time Barrack sells a Turkish solution to Trump, it ends up in bloodshed, if not proxy war. Sometimes, privileged investment is simply not worth it. Defeating the world’s greatest sponsor of terror should be a cause for celebration, but two world leaders officially mourned Khamenei’s passing: Erdoğan and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Two world leaders officially mourned Khamenei’s passing: Erdoğan and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Turkey long has promoted ethnic separatism inside Iran, much like the late Iraqi President Saddam Hussein did. To support any secessionist movement would be to rally Iranians around the most hardline nationalists willing to fight that encroachment. This would quickly evolve into a choice: Washington backs either Tehran or Ankara, but it cannot ally with both. To avoid forcing such a choice would be in America’s clear interest.
Turkey also now debates creating a buffer zone inside Iran. Trump should also shoot this down. Turkey’s buffers quickly become land grabs. Turkey already occupies portions of Cyprus, Syria, and Iraq; given its imperial nature and its unwillingness to ever withdraw, any Turkish buffer—especially in Kurdish-populated areas—will radicalize Kurds, undermine the legitimacy of any new regime in Iran, and set the two neighbors down the path to eventual war.
There is no magic formula to Iran’s future. The country is multi-layered and complicated. But even if Trump seeks to outsource security to regional states, he should recognize that Erdoğan’s or Barrack’s whispered sweet-nothings can upend regional security, set the region down the path to war, and do more to harm his legacy than secure it.
