President Donald Trump views the Venezuela model of regime change as a success. After the January 3, 2026, operation to arrest Nicolás Maduro, Trump had Venezuela’s Vice President Delcy Rodriguez ready in the wings to install in Maduro’s place, after months of furtive and covert talks with her brother.
In Iran, Trump appears to believe that Parliamentary Speaker Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf could be Iran’s equivalent of Rodriguez, a regime insider who could take the reins of power in Tehran and reorient its foreign policy.
Suppose Trump is right. What become unclear, then, is how to keep Ghalibaf in power.
Suppose Trump is right. What become unclear, then, is how to keep Ghalibaf in power.
In Venezuela, the Rodriguez scenario panned out by design and luck. The White House benefited from the fact that Rodriguez, as vice president, was the first person in the line of succession and willing to cooperate with Washington. This meant the chief obstacle was removing Maduro from her way.
This is not the case in Iran, where there is no line of succession. Officially, the supreme leader is the head of state, and the president is the head of government. But, in reality, Ruhollah Khomeini and Ali Khamenei, the first two supreme leaders, acted as absolute monarchs. After their deaths, according to the Islamic Republic constitution, the Assembly of Experts elected a new supreme leader. The same is the case for the president, who is the head of government only de jure. After his death, the first vice president will become the acting president temporarily until a new election occurs.
After the war is over, the constitution, whose 1989 amendments give the supreme leader the “absolute” power to override it, will remain in place. The status of the new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, remains unknown. He might be injured or in a coma, or the regime might be hiding his death from the public. Once the war is over, there can be no more uncertainty about status of the supreme leader. To argue that the deputy of the Hidden Imam is himself in hiding will be a tough sell. He will either have to appear in public, or the regime will have to elect a replacement. Either way, Ghalibaf will not be the new strongman.
Trump’s challenge is, therefore, two-faceted. First, it needs to identify the right candidate. If that candidate is a cleric, the administration will have to also establish contacts with senior Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps officers who would, in turn, force the Assembly of Experts to elevate the U.S. government’s candidate. If the candidate is from within the force, the task will be even more difficult: He must be savvy enough a politician and powerful enough a commander to be able to stage a coup to overthrow the constitutional order.
The U.S. government has ignored the domestic politics of the Islamic Republic and fails to understand its internal politics.
The U.S. government spent a decade investing in its covert operations in Venezuela and establishing contacts with regime insiders. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who previously chaired the Senate Intelligence Committee and Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, is the foremost expert on Latin America.
In contrast, the U.S. government has ignored the domestic politics of the Islamic Republic and fails to understand its internal politics. Both on policy and intelligence levels, the U.S. government’s knowledge of Iran pales in comparison to its knowledge of Venezuela, a problem compounded by a much hastier process of regime alteration in Iran. The Islamic Republic’s peculiar succession process complicate things even more.
So, rumors remain rife that the ambitious Ghalibaf, a four-time failed presidential candidate, negotiates secretly with Trump. But even if Ghalibaf is willing to dance to Trump’s song, the problem looms: How will the Trump administration ensure that its new man in Tehran becomes the most powerful man in Iran?
