At the beginning of January this year, we bid farewell with a resounding “bye-bye” to the Venezuelan narco-communist dictator Nicolás Maduro, ousted by an American military operation and taken to a prison in New York. Shortly thereafter, a popular uprising erupted in Iran, driven by women and men exasperated, oppressed in their rights, and impoverished by the Shiite Islamic theocracy of the Ayatollahs. The fundamentalist beards in power responded with a bloody repression, killing more than 30,000 people, yet at the same time began to show signs of fragility for the first time since 1979—the year of the Shah’s overthrow and the ill-fated rise of Ruhollah Khomeini—despite the iron fist of the Revolutionary Guards against the protesters. In those days, after bidding farewell to Maduro, we hoped for another historic and deeply liberating downfall: that of the Iranian Ayatollahs, capable of transforming this 2026 into a truly remarkable year through the disappearance of criminal tyrannies that have done harm for far too long, first and foremost to their own peoples and then to the rest of the world.
With the beginning of March, we can say we are approaching the collapse of the grim religious dictatorship that has held Iran in its grip for nearly fifty years. The Islamic Republic is still standing, to be sure, but the death of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei—the direct successor of Khomeini who remained in power for nearly 37 years—represents a fundamental watershed that will in any case change the nature of the Tehran regime and its approach both domestically and internationally, even if a complete regime change does not occur. The likelihood of a definitive end to the theocratic system born after the Khomeinist revolution of 1979 is nonetheless very high, because the United States and Israel, following the initial airstrikes on Tehran that resulted in the death of Khamenei and more than forty political, military, and Revolutionary Guard leaders, intend to continue the military operation in Iran for several more days. At least from the Israeli side, the determination to proceed until the total collapse of the political and religious tyranny of the Ayatollahs has been made clear.
It appears that former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has also been killed—one of the most fanatical presidents the Islamic Republic has ever had. (The two fundamental power figures in Iran have thus far been the Supreme Leader, with a lifetime mandate, and the President of the Republic, elected every four years.) Ahmadinejad, anti-Western and anti-Israel to the core, was one of the most fervent proponents of the nuclear program and of ambitions to make Iran a hostile regional power, not only toward Washington and Jerusalem, but also toward the hated Sunni monarchies of the Persian Gulf. A thoroughly detestable figure intent on threatening global stability who, if truly dead, would not be mourned any more than Ali Khamenei. The Israeli-American operation, code-named Epic Fury, is still ongoing, and it is impossible to know at this point whether the total fall of the Iranian regime is imminent or whether a partial regime change along the lines of what occurred in Venezuela is more immediately feasible.
Iraq and Libya have taught us that demolishing in one stroke regimes that are undoubtedly terrible but complex and deeply rooted can be counterproductive. Perhaps, at least in certain contexts, it is less risky to dismantle dictatorships gradually rather than create dangerous vacuums. Venezuela without Maduro is already a better place for its inhabitants, in addition to the removal of threats to the West, and many political prisoners have been freed by interim President Delcy Rodríguez. Iran without Khamenei, without Ahmadinejad, forced to adopt a more moderate stance by American and Israeli airpower, with the Revolutionary Guards decapitated, would already be a less violent place internally and less dangerous to the world—even if, of course, the full achievement of freedom and democracy is the ideal outcome to aim for, if not immediately, at least in the medium term. In any case, Epic Fury was inevitable because, despite recent attempts to negotiate a peaceful resolution, a caste of religious fundamentalists like the Ayatollahs ultimately understands only the language of war, and their disappearance from the face of the Earth corresponds to the opening of a new chapter for everyone—for Iranians obviously, but also for the rest of the world, Russian and Chinese supporters aside—at risk before a theocracy that sought to build the atomic bomb and financed every possible terrorist organization (Hamas, Hezbollah, Houthis), in addition to killing its own people.
