Expert Analysis: Operation “Epic Fury”

Three days into the U.S.-Israeli military campaign against Iran, the strategic picture remains significantly more uncertain than the operational one. Washington has yet to define what success looks like, the Iranian population is sheltering rather than revolting, and the regime's own strategy may be more coherent than it appears. On March 2, Wikistrat hosted renowned Iran expert Alex Vatanka for a webinar in which he assessed the critical dynamics shaping this conflict and what comes after it

Webinar Recording:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLScZtyPW_k

Alex Vatanka is the founding Director of the Iran Program at the Middle East Institute in Washington, D.C., where he also serves as a Senior Fellow. He specializes in Iranian domestic and foreign affairs, political-military relations, and Iran's relationships with the U.S., Gulf states, and Israel. He is the author of The Battle of the Ayatollahs in Iran (2021) and a frequent commentator on Iran in international media.

Key Insights

1. President Trump entered this war without a clear endgame 

Three days in, the President's objectives remain opaque. His public messaging oscillates between maximum pressure to force concessions and outright regime change, and that ambiguity, while useful for domestic political cover, is actively undermining any chance of mobilizing Iranians inside the country.

2. Iranians aren't in the streets, they're hiding 

The exodus from Tehran mirrors the 12-day war, not the January protests. Asking a population to risk their lives in the middle of an active bombing campaign, without a roadmap or visible network to join, is not a strategy. The regime has already signaled it will be more ruthless than in January toward anyone who steps out.

3. The regime's survival calculus is built on outlasting Washington, not defeating it

Tehran is not trying to win this war militarily. It is trying to make the cost of continuing it, politically, regionally and economically, high enough that the U.S. eventually pulls back. Every missile fired at a Gulf state is a message to Riyadh and Abu Dhabi to pick up the phone and call President Trump. The strategy is attrition, not victory.

4. Khamenei's death is an opening, but not a guarantee 

His 37-year rule left no obvious successor and no functioning reform pathway. His death creates a genuine inflection point, but only if external actors and internal figures move deliberately. Otherwise, the most likely outcome is a reshuffling among hardliners, not a democratic transition.

5. An interim council is running Iran, formally and informally 

The formal structure is a transitional council led by President Pezeshkian alongside judiciary and clerical figures. The informal power, however, likely rests with Ali Larijani, Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council of Iran, whose political sway and access make him the regime's de facto coordinator, a role not written into any constitution.

6. Americanism as regime infrastructure

Under Ali Khamenei, anti Americanism became the Islamic Republic’s structural glue, legitimizing repression, militarization and blocking reformist openings like those under Mohammad Khatami. Without him, the regime must either preserve this anti American identity or soften it to survive, and both choices carry destabilizing risks.

7. Decapitation creates opportunity for rivals, including dangerous ones 

The killing of senior hardliners may clear the path for reform-adjacent figures like Hassan Khomeini (the grandson of Ruhollah Khomeini, the leader of the Iranian Revolution and the first supreme leader of the Islamic Republic) or former presidents Khatami and Rouhani. But it equally creates space for the Paydari faction, Iran’s most right-wing party, holding ideologues to the right of Khamenei himself, who have stayed quiet and untouched.

8. The "smart successor" is the real threat 

The worst-case scenario for the West is not chaos but a capable leader who pursues the same strategic goals more competently. Khamenei's failures were ideological rigidity and detachment from Iranian society. A successor who corrects those mistakes while maintaining a resistance posture would be significantly harder to confront.

9. Ground troops are a political impossibility in Washington 

Even if boots on the ground could psychologically galvanize the Iranian population, the domestic political cost in the U.S. makes it a non-starter. Vatanka goes further: Republicans, not just Democrats, would resist. The better path is empowering Iranians to act themselves, with clarity, organization, and credible off-ramps for regime defectors.

10. The Strait of Hormuz is a psychological weapon, not just a military one 

Iran is conducting what it calls a "smart blockade," targeted enough to panic shipping markets and drive up premiums without triggering a full U.S. response. The strategy doesn't require closing the strait; it requires making it feel closed. That leverage erodes only if U.S. strikes demonstrably neutralize Iran's coastal capabilities.

11. The nuclear program recedes if the politics change 

If the regime falls or fundamentally transforms, the nuclear file becomes manageable. If the regime survives in its current form, dismantlement is off the table. These are people, Vatanka argues, who would rather die than surrender the program through what would feel like a death by a thousand cuts.

12. The real under-the-radar story is what happens inside the regime right now 

With the internet cut and only pro-regime outlets operating, the critical question, which Iranian figures are quietly positioning themselves and around what national rather than Islamist identity, is nearly invisible to outside observers. That internal realignment, not the military campaign, will determine what Iran looks like when the shooting stops.

13. The scenario spectrum, from the eyes of the current regime, runs from survival to disintegration:

• Best case: The regime survives, installs a successor, and lives to fight another day, but is immediately forced to confront the identity question Khamenei spent 37 years avoiding between Iranian nationalism and pan-regional Islamism. 

• Worst case: Degraded central government cohesion tips Iran into anarchy and fragmentation, a scenario not seen since the 1920s. The fear is not limited to the regime; exiled opposition figures who despise the Islamic Republic are equally unwilling to entertain the prospect of a fragmented Iran.

• Black swan: A fully organized opposition network with real infrastructure suddenly activates inside the country. The regime hasn't planned for it because it hasn't happened yet, and if it did, it would be more destabilizing than any air campaign.