Khamenei's death or killing and what could follow

What he says

An English translation of the talk, which is in Persian. It was made with AI from YouTube's automatic captions and may contain errors; the Persian transcript is authoritative. Click a timestamp to jump to that part of the video.

0:01 Hello. It is Friday, 21 Shahrivar 1404, 12 September 2025. These days the discussion of the post-Khamenei era of the country is very heated in government circles. Among the people, who basically chant "Death to Khamenei" whenever they get the chance and pray to God that he be gone, it is even said, for example, "Why didn't Israel hit Khamenei?" or "It should finish the job," and so on. That discussion among the people is a separate matter. But inside the regime and among the forces on its periphery, this debate has become very heated these days in all sorts of circles that exist in the country's polity, in the so-called

1:03 political spaces of the country. These discussions have been raised as serious questions not only among, say, the Reformists, the Pezeshkian government and those around them, or in the factions on the periphery of the regime such as Mr. Rouhani or the Ahmadinejad camp and others, but also among the Principlists. And not only the moderate Principlists, such as the Larijani faction and others, but even the hardline Principlists have raised it. These discussions have spread from government circles to the circles of the IRGC, the security people and others as well.

2:02 The reason is that over 36 years of leadership, Khamenei has tied all the instruments of power to himself. Now, after the 12-day war, he is moving back and forth among 17 different bunkers, or as people put it, 17 different holes. On the one hand, his meetings and communications have practically been shut down or disrupted, and on the other hand, he has remained hesitant and wavering on major decisions and has shown no intention of making any change in the country's overall policies. So the question has seriously been raised: what if Khamenei

2:56 is killed, if Israel attacks this time, or if an 86-year-old man with several illnesses finally dies, or even if he stays on but, in the present situation, keeps dragging the country toward ruin? In any case, the combination of these factors has brought up the post-Khamenei discussion. Even the debate over a succession crisis, for example whether Mojtaba would come and take his place and so on, has faded considerably, because the very institution of the Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist has come into question among regime insiders. But given that this is a serious discussion, and as I said, not only among the regime's opponents and supporters,

3:54 its allies on the periphery, the military and security circles, even inside the Leader's office itself, and even among the sanctions profiteers, who know that the seat of the Supreme Jurist and Leader is an important seat of power, in fact the most important seat of power in the country, and that if they want to protect their interests they too must aim to take this seat, or to have someone there who can protect their interests. All of this, and these discussions, are intensely under way, and it is a serious matter. Generally, in countries where a dictator takes everything into his hands like this, when he reaches the stage where his end is in the air, these discussions become serious.

4:51 In my view, taking a broad perspective, the day Khamenei dies or is killed in any manner, and the post-Khamenei era arrives, there could be four possibilities. The first possibility is that if he dies tonight, by whatever means, the regime manages to hold itself together. For example, IRGC units immediately come into the streets and deploy at sensitive and strategic locations, and then, when they announce the news, regime elements, out of fear that they will fall apart from one another or that the people will remove them, all cling to each other, and they impose strict martial law

5:45 with curfews, bans on gatherings and so on, and follow the path the Constitution has foreseen: that is, the president, the head of the judiciary and one of the jurists of the Guardian Council temporarily form a Leadership Council, and then the Assembly of Experts appoints, say, a next leader, 40 days later, and then it continues along the same routine with a leader and so on. But it is possible that in that first blow, the first week or the first ten days, regime elements, and even the elements on its periphery, pull together out of fear of the people and try to keep the Islamic Republic

6:44 in place, but after a while, once that atmosphere dissipates, disputes break out, not only over choosing a successor but over every issue that comes up in the country. Because Khamenei has run the country in a way that he was like a mafia godfather up at the top, where everything ended with him, and most of his politics consisted of creating balance among the various factions, which sometimes have conflicting interests, and no one else can play this role. In this first scenario, when the regime reaches this point, and naturally the shadow of the dictator has also been lifted, suitable opportunities will arise

7:38 for the people to move, but with a delay, after a few weeks or a few months. The second option, the second possibility, is that immediately upon the announcement of his death, the people, excited and jubilant, pour into the streets in celebration and practically give the regime no opportunity to hold itself together, and they move, similar to what has happened elsewhere in the world, or what happened during the very coming to power of the Islamic Republic: they take the police stations, take the barracks, parts of the army join them, parts of the IRGC join them, and in effect, in a movement of a few days, they bring down the regime. In this case,

8:36 the activists on the ground who have managed to steer, lead and carry forward this operation are the ones most likely to take power, provided that they have a plan and know beforehand what they want to do. The third possibility, perhaps a continuation of the first, is that, for example, martial law is imposed, with curfews and so on, but the units that did this, which would mostly be in the IRGC, no longer hand power to that Leadership Council and the constitutional process, and in fact a semi-coup or a

9:29 full-fledged military coup takes place and power effectively falls into the hands of the military. This possibility exists, but given the army's neutrality in political conflicts, as well as the organizational disarray of the IRGC and the disputes that exist among its various branches and even within the branches, this possibility might push the country toward its course at first, but we would witness coup upon coup and various problems that could fuel a great deal of unrest. And the fourth possibility, which could emerge from any of these paths, or some of

10:22 the paths I have mentioned so far may lead one into another, ultimately the fourth possibility is that basically neither the people manage to take control nor the regime manages to hold itself together, and for a period we in effect enter a state of collapse. Which of these four possibilities is most likely is very hard to predict. But one point can be made: in any case, having a plan and getting prepared so that, with the death or killing of the dictator, the ideal the Iranian nation has been striving for for a hundred years, namely democracy, freedom, and

11:16 today, secularism and human rights, all within the framework of territorial integrity and a united Iran, can be achieved. This ideal, on the ground where the dictator has come to an end and must bid farewell, is a path that, with planning, can be steered toward the best outcome. Now, this was a discussion about the death or killing of the Leader, but beyond that, in future programs we can also address, on the broader level of the country, the options that can be imagined in which the main actor is the people. Now, in Nepal, the Nepalese army, which had come into the streets, lifted the curfew, although

12:14 it remains deployed at strategic and sensitive points. It has reached an agreement with the protesters, at the center of whom were students, young people and Gen Z. The army and Ms. Sushila Karki, who was previously Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and is a reputable 73-year-old judge known for her integrity, with no record of corruption and the like, have been agreed upon as interim prime minister to come and run the country. Meanwhile, the ILNA news agency reported yesterday, Thursday, quoting Ali Beitollahi, head of the risk department of the research center of the Ministry of Roads and Urban Development, that the phenomenon of land subsidence, which is a serious danger for many parts of the country, is in

13:15 Isfahan, Isfahan Province, a serious and urgent danger. According to this official, so far 40 schools have been evacuated, and in the north of the city of Isfahan, though he did not name it, he said a residential town has been evacuated. Two or three years ago the Air Force residential town was in fact evacuated; perhaps he means that town, which has been completely evacuated. In any case, Isfahan, like Kerman, Tehran and many other parts of the country, is in danger, and subsidence of 30 to 40 centimeters a year is even being reported. An atlas of the areas at risk of subsidence has been prepared, but it is classified and has not yet been made available to the general public.

14:12 Hoping for the victory of Iran and Iranians.