Experts said that the United States is unlikely to replicate in Iran the strategy it recently used in Venezuela to remove a hostile government and install a more compliant leadership.
US President Donald Trump has suggested that Washington could play a role in selecting Iran’s next leader following the reported killing of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei during a joint US–Israeli military operation in Tehran.
“I have to be involved in the appointment, like with Delcy in Venezuela,” Trump told the news outlet Axios, referring to Venezuela’s Vice-President Delcy Rodríguez, who assumed power after President Nicolás Maduro was removed earlier this year.
Trump described the Venezuela operation as a “perfect scenario” and hinted that a similar model — removing a hostile leader and installing a cooperative successor — could be applied elsewhere.
But analysts say the political and historical realities in Iran make such an approach far more difficult.
“Turning Iran into a pliable puppet regime is much less practical than in Venezuela,” said Benjamin Gedan, director of the Latin America Program at the Stimson Center and a former White House national security council official.
He said the idea that Washington could replicate the same approach worldwide by installing pro-US leaders wherever it intervenes was unrealistic.
Iran specialists also note that deep-rooted anti-American sentiment in Iran would likely make any US attempt to influence leadership succession unacceptable to many inside the country.
Much of that hostility dates back to the 1979 Islamic Revolution, which overthrew the US-backed monarchy of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and brought the current Islamic system to power.
The revolution was partly fuelled by resentment toward perceived foreign interference by the United States, Britain and other powers.
Since then, anti-American rhetoric — including the slogan “Death to America” — has remained a central element of Iran’s political ideology.
Diplomatic relations between Washington and Tehran have also been severed for more than four decades after Iranian revolutionaries seized the US embassy in Tehran in 1979, holding 52 American diplomats hostage.
Analysts say these historical factors make Trump’s proposal to influence Iran’s leadership transition highly unlikely to succeed.
Alex Vatanka, director of the Iran Program at the Middle East Institute, described the idea as “beyond delusional”.
“Regime change would have been much easier than converting existing Shia militant Islamists to the Maga movement,” he said.
Other analysts warn that even if outside actors tried to shape the outcome, Iran’s powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) would likely play the decisive role in determining who leads the country.
Naysan Rafati, senior Iran analyst at the International Crisis Group, said some figures within Iran’s ruling system might seek continuity to preserve stability.
But he cautioned that maintaining the current political structure could alienate many Iranians who remain angered by past crackdowns on protests.
“The neatest outcome for Washington is securing change within continuity,” Rafati said.
“But that ambition faces two challenges — finding enough voices within the regime to accept change, and leaving many Iranians disaffected from continuity.”
Analysts also warn that it is too early to conclude whether Washington’s strategy has even succeeded in Venezuela, despite the apparent removal of Maduro.
Gedan said governments installed under foreign pressure often seek to regain autonomy over time.
“Their plan is not to be a puppet regime forever,” he said. “Their plan is to hope the US moves on.”
Source: The Guardian.
Bd-pratidin English/TR
