In a report titled After Khamenei: Planning for Iran’s Leadership Transition by the Council on Foreign Relations, Suzanne Maloney, vice president and director of the Brookings Institution’s Foreign Policy Program, assesses the strategic implications of an eventual succession to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Maloney’s starting point is structural rather than speculative: Khamenei’s departure will be the second transfer of supreme authority since the 1979 revolution, following nearly forty years in office. However, in contrast to the transition following Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, this one will take place in the midst of repeated domestic uprisings, regional setbacks, nuclear escalation, and economic exhaustion.
Maloney therefore outlines three principal trajectories: managed continuity of the regime, a hard-right shift marked by a military takeover, or regime collapse. A continuity scenario would follow constitutional procedures through the Assembly of Experts, which would choose a successor from within the existing leadership. This would largely preserve the current system, essentially “Khamenei-ism without Khamenei.” Yet institutional continuity does not guarantee durability; an untested successor inheriting overlapping crises could accelerate systemic erosion. In a second scenario, power could shift more openly to the military, most plausibly led by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC). This would formalise a power shift decade in the making, producing a more overtly coercive state akin to Egypt or Pakistan, with less emphasis on clerical authority but continued hostility towards the United States and sustained regional policies. The third possibility is regime collapse. This could happen because of large-scale protests, harsher repression that backfires, elite infighting, or external military strikes. Such a collapse would be unpredictable and could create serious instability not only inside Iran but also across the Gulf region, Iraq, and neighbouring states.
Analytically, the report argues that succession is less about personalities than about institutional balances among clerical bodies, elected offices, and security organs. The IRGC’s embedded economic and political role ensures that even a clerical successor would govern in tandem with military power. Thus, leadership transition may recalibrate internal hierarchies rather than overturn them.
The significance of the analysis, however, lies in its warning against U.S. overreach. Historical miscalculations, from 1953 to Iraq in 2003, demonstrate the costs of attempting to engineer Iranian politics. Rather than attempting to shape succession outcomes directly, Maloney recommends the US prepare by deepening intelligence assessments, coordinating with European and Gulf partners, reinforcing deterrence, preserving diplomatic channels, and sustaining support for civil society without endorsing any particular claimants. The objective, as highlighted, is not to dictate outcomes but to mitigate escalation and preserve space for gradual evolution. Iran’s leadership transition will affect security across the region; whether it amplifies volatility or opens constrained diplomatic opportunity will depend as much on external restraint as on internal change.