Iran’s surviving leaders now face a serious dilemma: continue the fight or resign themselves to a new reality, while avoiding destruction and preserving their grip on power, writes Valdai Club Programme Director Oleg Barabanov. Whether the Venezuelan precedent will shape Iran’s path forward remains to be seen.
Trump’s new special operation, on its very first day, resulted in the deaths of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, as well as the Minister of Defence and other senior Iranian generals. According to the American side, they had advance knowledge of the time and location of the meeting of the country’s top leaders—during which, presumably, the strike occurred. Such precise information cannot be obtained through satellite reconnaissance alone. In theory, it could be gathered via electronic and cyber intelligence, including penetration of Iranian systems. However, the role of human intelligence should not be underestimated. If that is the case, then American intelligence succeeded in recruiting agents within the highest echelons of Iran’s political and military establishment.
Nevertheless, even after the loss of its leadership, Iran managed to strike back. Unlike the previous “Twelve-Day War,” Iran’s retaliation targeted not only Israel—or even primarily Israel—but also key locations in the Gulf Arab states. In addition to American military bases in the region, Iranian drones struck international airports in Dubai and Kuwait, as well as five-star hotels in the UAE and Bahrain. Whether this was accidental—drones veering off course—or intentional remains a matter of speculation. If deliberate, whose decision was it? An uncoordinated move by a drone operator, or an order from higher up? Whatever the case, the clear outcome of Iran’s response is the shattering of the seemingly unshakeable external security and prosperity long enjoyed by wealthy residents and visitors in the Gulf monarchies. Even Iran’s strike on the American base in Qatar during the previous conflict left this sense of invulnerability largely intact. Now, the myth—or legend—of the “Dubai paradise,” if not entirely destroyed, has at least lost much of its allure. This logic—that the Gulf Arab states should be held directly accountable for the actions of the US and Israel—introduces a new and dangerous dimension to the region’s already complex web of contradictions. As a nuance worth noting, both Iran and the UAE are members of BRICS.
Iran now faces a critical test: how steadfast will the surviving members of its top leadership prove in their anti-American stance? Trump’s special operation in Venezuela demonstrated a stark dynamic: remove one key leader, and the rest may quickly bow to American pressure—or regroup, or change their tune. Everyone is free to choose their own epithet, but that is not the point. It is difficult to condemn the Venezuelan leaders, especially from the outside. Their decisions may have been driven not only by a desire to hold onto power at any cost, but also by socially significant motives: preventing the special operation from escalating into a full-scale armed conflict on their soil, preserving peace, avoiding destruction, and ending the naval blockade. For now, at least, they have achieved these goals.
So, let us be clear: this is not about passing judgment. The point is that a certain fact can be stated. The ideological and value-based foundations of a political system—no matter how unshakeable they may appear—can vanish in an instant. Remove one person from the system, and suddenly those same people begin saying and doing the opposite of what they stood for just yesterday. The country’s citizens, and indeed global public opinion, may well ask: “How can this be?” Which statements from their leaders are we supposed to believe—the ones made before, the ones made now, or those that may emerge in the future? And yet, for the reasons mentioned, let us refrain from accusations of hypocrisy. They know their circumstances best.
Russia, in its recent history—both in 1991-92 and, in some cases, later—has experienced a similar phenomenon: the same people suddenly reversing their positions overnight. But the Venezuelan case shows that the rapid dissolution of ideological bonds does not necessarily lead to the self-destruction of a political system. On the contrary, the system can survive and even thrive. And that, perhaps, is one of Trump’s main temptations: the belief that rapid restructuring will make everything fall into place. After all, ideology and ideological commitments may mean little to Trump himself.
But in any case, Iran’s surviving leaders now face a serious dilemma: continue the fight or resign themselves to a new reality, while avoiding destruction and preserving their grip on power. Whether the Venezuelan precedent will shape Iran’s path forward remains to be seen.
On the one hand, the events of the first days of Trump’s operation—and the fact that Iran’s top leadership was killed, most likely at the very outset—suggest that the struggle continues. Iran apparently managed to carry out a retaliatory strike even after the deaths of its top military leaders. This suggests that the military decision-making system, which the Iranians claimed after previous Israeli-American strikes was not dependent on specific individuals, is indeed functioning. From the perspective of a different staff culture, it is difficult to imagine that anyone other than the Minister of Defence or the commanders of the armed forces would dare issue an order not just operational but strategic in nature. It defies everything written in military manuals. And yet, the Iranians managed to do it—even if, presumably, they too have their share of dogmatic manuals.
This was only the first retaliatory strike, most likely planned in advance and carried out almost automatically. What matters more is whether the intensity of Iranian strikes will continue in the coming days. The longer they go on, the less automatic they become—and the greater the influence of the surviving senior leadership on decision-making. Will anyone halt this pre-conceived military plan in the absence of top leaders? If we recall the apocryphal stories surrounding the Soviet nuclear programme—the so-called “dead hand” system designed to launch automatic retaliation in the event of leadership decapitation—the question arises: will anyone now stop the Iranian “dead hand”?
Let us set aside the rhetorically ominous statements from Iranian officials about terrible responses and crossed red lines. Experience shows that words and deeds often diverge. Looking at the actual situation, on Sunday—the second day of the operation—Iran continued to launch retaliatory strikes, both against Israel and against targets in Arab countries. However, by midday on Sunday, it was announced that the Strait of Hormuz, closed by Iran the day before, was being reopened to oil tankers. Whether this marks a first step along the Venezuelan path, or simply a goodwill gesture from an Iranian leadership conscious of its responsibility for global economic stability, will become clearer in the days ahead.
But the most significant takeaway—the key lesson and the challenge following the events in Iran, especially if the exchange of strikes quickly subsides—is that nothing will prevent Trump from declaring the outcome a great victory. And to some extent, he will have reason to do so. We remember Trump’s euphoria in the days following his success in Venezuela. Then he turned his attention again to Greenland, which had seemingly slipped from his agenda. It took considerable effort on the part of European NATO allies to temporarily steer him away. Which country will Trump choose for a third time? With two examples of eliminating hostile leaders in one hand, and the temptation for elites to simply stop saying one thing and start saying another in the other, the question looms: will it be Cuba, which has faced increased pressure since Venezuela? Or will he set his sights elsewhere?
