A more dangerous, repressive junta is arising out of Iran’s ashes
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A more dangerous, repressive junta is arising out of Iran’s ashes
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by Erfan Fard, opinion contributor - 04/03/26 1:00 PM ET
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by Erfan Fard, opinion contributor - 04/03/26 1:00 PM ET
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Doug Mills, The New York Times via Associated Press Pool
President Trump speaks during an address to the nation from the Diplomatic Reception Room at the White House Dec. 17, 2025, in Washington.
The U.S. and Israeli campaign against Iran’s Islamic regime has already rewired power inside Iran. What is now emerging not collapse, but consolidation: a Shiite junta that could be described as the Third Islamic Republic.
On the one hand, this new Iran’s conventional and nuclear capabilities have been seriously degraded. On the other, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has seen its position strengthened. It will surely intensify repression and turn the closure of the Strait of Hormuz into a lever that can trap the region and the global order in crisis.
In public, the Shiite mullahs dominate Iran, but operational authority has over time concentrated within the security apparatus — the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the intelligence services and the security networks. War has only accelerated this shift.
Under external pressure, the regime has thus moved not toward reform or negotiation but toward militarization. The decapitation of senior commanders and the targeting of main hubs has weakened the system, but it has also created an opening for radical elites to move up.
Strikes on headquarters and logistical networks have degraded the regime’s ability to manage security coherently. But redundancy was built into this architecture long ago. Parallel chains of command span the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the intelligence agencies. This averts systemic collapse at the cost of slower coordination in decision-making.
As commanders have died off, the system has devolved into increasingly reactionary crisis management and heightened repression. Vacancies are filled on the basis of loyalty rather than competence. The result is a less sophisticated and often more brutal state, offsetting inexperience with harsher and more indiscriminate domestic coercion.
As this transformation unfolded in Tehran, President Trump spoke Wednesday, framing the campaign as a decisive effort to dismantle Iran’s ability to threaten the U.S. and its allies with its nuclear and missile capabilities. He added that the U.S. will continue striking Iran and, absent a deal, could “bring them back to the Stone Age” by targeting power plants and key infrastructure, including facilities on Kharg Island.
Trump’s blend of triumphal rhetoric and stark threats may energize supporters, but it has also intensified public anxiety about the risks of a wider and potentially uncontrollable escalation.
Meanwhile, Iran’s decision to choke off most traffic through the Strait of Hormuz has transformed a regional conflict into a global energy shock. If Washington ends the war without compelling Tehran to reopen the strait, Iran would get exactly what it wants: a ceasefire with a chokehold on energy markets that will help it remain a problem for future presidential administrations.
Trump vaguely suggests the strait will “open automatically” once U.S. forces depart, but he must know that isn’t so. That’s why he also used his platform to rebuke America’s NATO allies and demand that, now that “the hard part is done” in Iran, European nations “grab and cherish” the Strait of Hormuz themselves.
The ceasefire debate exposes a question inside Iran: Who controls war and peace? Trump said that a “new, less radical and more intelligent” Iranian president has asked Washington for a ceasefire, but he bluntly conditions any consideration of that request on a fully open and secure Strait of Hormuz. But Iran’s president — assuming that is who he is referring to — does not command Iran’s coercive institutions. Real authority lies with at the top of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, including figures such as Ahmad Vahidi. This reflects a system built on men, not laws — overlapping security networks and power, rather than constitutional offices.
Against this backdrop, the concept of a ceasefire in Tehran may differ fundamentally from how it is understood in the West. Tehran’s signals can be read as an attempt to manage pressure. Pauses are not steps toward peace but phases in a cycle of violence, driven by ideology and sustained by the security apparatus that is gaining ground through this war.
For Iranians who want “regime change” and not “change within the regime,” the consequences are grim: economic collapse and further repression. Yet these factors carry weight in the regime’s calculus. Survival, not governance, is the priority. The leadership knows it does not represe