Diaspora enthusiasm cannot substitute for local apparatus
If regime change were as easy as changing a profile picture, Iran would have been “fixed” years ago. Instead, some stupid Western politicians keep spinning BS: clerics out, Reza Pahlavi in, “Persian civilisation” restored. The West compounds the confusion by reading Iran through Persian history, assuming the country will snap back to stability once the clerics are gone. They talk as if the 1979 referendum never happened, despite official figures claiming that 99% of Iranians voted to replace the monarchy with an Islamic Republic. Iraq should have ended this delusion. Ancient civilisation does not prevent chaos when a system collapses. The funniest part of the nonsense is the assumption that the whole country is behind him, as if a diverse nation comes with one political setting.
When Israeli officials receive Reza Pahlavi, they are effectively promoting a neat theory of change: remove the Islamic Republic, and a recognisable secular figure can help guide what follows. Given that Israel is dealing with a regime that funds hostile networks and treats confrontation with Israel as state policy, it is easy to see why Pahlavi, with his anti-clerical message and hints of normal relations, is read in Jerusalem as a plausible alternative.
Here is Pahlavi’s problem. He is well known abroad. It is far less clear that he commands broad support or a durable base inside Iran. The aftermath cannot be built on diaspora enthusiasm and foreign receptions alone. It requires local capacity that can survive repression, coordinate action, and bargain with rival power centres. If that infrastructure is thin, a leader may still matter as a symbol, but symbols do not run states.
A post-Islamic Republic Iran would be difficult for another reason: the Islamic Republic is not only a leadership circle in Tehran. It has spent decades building constituencies, indoctrinating, mobilising, and arming segments of society. The regime retains a support base that believes in its ideological and religious mission. Any post-regime plan that assumes these constituencies will simply step aside is not a plan.
The internal concern, often treated as secondary even though it is central. Iran is not only Persian-speaking Iran. A large share of the population is non-Persian: Kurds, Baluch, Arabs in Khuzestan, Azeris, Turkmen, and others. These are political communities with long histories of discrimination, strong local identities, and, in some cases, organised party structures and armed capacity.
That is why Iran’s plural realities matter now, not later. Transitions that postpone constitutional questions do not avoid conflict. They delay it, often into a moment when the state is weaker and the incentives to escalate are higher.
Then there is the external dimension. Iran has cultivated proxy forces beyond its borders, including militias in Iraq and elsewhere. In a destabilised handover, those forces could become tools for intimidation, sabotage, or factional bargaining. Armed groups do what armed groups tend to do when the rules change.
The the state level, which matters more: Russia, China, and North Korea would likely back the status quo and assist the regime because their interests align with keeping Tehran standing. In a vacuum, a weakened eastern frontier could attract Sunni jihadist infiltration from Pakistan. Furthermore, Turkey has its own armed proxies it can deploy, as it did in Syria, and could channel them through its border into Iran to project influence and block any Kurdish self-rule, or for any other excuse. If the centre in Iran fractures, it will be a contest, and the losers will be the civilians trapped inside it.
Turkey’s meddling, whether direct or through proxies, would not stay contained to ‘influence’. It could accelerate fragmentation and open corridors for Sunni jihadist actors to move, recruit, and embed. The nightmare scenario is a new bridge of militancy linking theatres from Iran through Turkey into Syria, tightening the space in which armed networks can circulate, train, and coordinate, close to Israel’s border.
Can Pahlavi credibly speak to people who suffered under both systems, monarchy and the Islamic Republic, without erasing either memory, including the dictatorship under his father that many Iranians remember?
The core question is constitutional. What does a post-Islamic Republic settlement owe to Kurds in Kurdistan, Baluch, Arabs in Khuzestan, Azeris, Turkmen, and others in practical terms? Enforceable language rights. Representation that is not merely symbolic. Local governance with real authority. Security arrangements that stop treating identity as a threat.
In such a complex situation, Israel does not get a calmer region. It gets another front, and another set of enemies, built out of the rubble. It is an extraordinary act of short-sightedness for Israel’s foreign policy not to recognise the long-term value of investing in Kurdish partnerships, among the few forces with real presence and leverage on the ground when the day after arrives. It would be naïve to assume outside actors will stay passive during the handover.
If Israel wants a stable Iran that is less hostile, it should be wary of treating a single figure as a shortcut. The decisive issue is whether the opposition can offer a credible framework for a plural Iran while managing the reality of armed constituencies inside the country and around its borders.
Ab Boskany is an Australian writer of Kurdish-Jewish background. He writes fiction, poetry and literary essays, and has contributes to “The Jewish Report” (Melbourne and Sydney editions, every issue) and “All Israel News”. His work intertwines memory, exile and faith, engaging both with Jewish history and the wider cultural worlds of the Middle East. He publishes in Kurdish and Arabic. He holds a BA in English Literature from the University of Western Sydney, an MA in Literature (Texts and Writing), and an MA in TESOL.