![\"Members](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/ap25010411520850.jpg\")
<\/p>\n\n US President Donald Trump said this week that Iran\u2019s new leadership is \u201cless radical and much more reasonable.\u201d Trump and the Pentagon have repeatedly claimed that regime change has happened.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cIf you look already because the one regime was decimated, destroyed. They\u2019re all dead. The next regime is mostly dead. And the third regime, we\u2019re dealing with different people than anybody\u2019s dealt with before. It\u2019s a whole different group of people,\u201d Trump said earlier this week. \u201cSo, I would consider that regime change.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n But what most political scientists and analysts would consider regime change involves an outside power transforming how a country is governed, not merely replacing the people at the top of that system.\n <\/p>\n
\n By definition, regime change is systemic change \u2013 something that has yet to be seen in the Islamic Republic, which remains under the same authoritarian theocracy that has been in place since the Iranian Revolution in 1979.\n <\/p>\n
\n If anything, the war has given more power to the hardline military factions inside the complex system of Iranian governance, as well as bolstered anti-American sentiments.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cThis regime is more hardline, less prone to compromise and, frankly, more nakedly tied to the IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps),\u201d said Mona Yacoubian, director of the Middle East program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. \u201cWe\u2019ve seen the decapitation of the reigning leader in Iran at the time, but that has not translated into dramatic change in terms of who holds the power, or their position vis-\u00e0-vis the United States.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n Yacoubian cautioned that no analyst has deep insight into the inner workings of Iran\u2019s government at this point. There are a lot of blind spots \u2013 which even some US officials have recognized. (It\u2019s an open question whether new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei<\/a> is in good health or is actually leading the nation, given that he has not been seen or pictured since the war began.)\n <\/p>\n \n But experts do know that Mojtaba himself has strong ties to the IRGC, who elevated him to this position, and he is therefore more beholden to the Revolutionary Guards than his father.\n <\/p>\n \n Other leadership, like Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, remains the same, contrary to Trump\u2019s assertions.\n <\/p>\n \n Analysts also say this hardened regime is expected to double down on the repression of its own citizens.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cWhen President Trump says he has changed the regime in Iran, he\u2019s right in one sense \u2013 he\u2019s changed it to a much more radicalized regime,\u201d said Ali Vaez, Iran Project Director at the International Crisis Group. \u201cAll of these individuals who are now in place \u2013 the new national security advisor, the new head of the IRGC, the speaker of the parliament, who himself was a former commander of Revolutionary Guards \u2013 they all have been involved in domestic repression extensively in their past lives.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Iran brutally crushed nationwide protests<\/a> in January by shooting thousands of protestors, and the government has carried out at least nine executions<\/a> in the last month, with some of those connected to the winter protests.\n <\/p>\n \n Iran\u2019s new authorities will be on guard against any form of popular uprising, which Trump called for in the early days of the war. They will also be alarmed by the recent series of intelligence failures and leaks.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cGiven the degree of regime paranoia, I do believe that the repression is going to be much harsher than was the case in the past,\u201d Vaez told CNN.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cThis is a wounded regime, and if it survives, it is not going to give an inch to its population, at least not anytime soon,\u201d Vaez said.\n <\/p>\n \n Ali Vaez, Iran Project Director at the International Crisis Group\n <\/p>\n \n While Iran\u2019s military capabilities and naval forces have been damaged by the US and Israeli strikes, the Revolutionary Guards still maintain control over both the \u201cguns and money\u201d needed to suppress internal dissent, according to Yacoubian.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cAnd they maintain the Basij, which are kind of the foot soldiers of this sort of repressive apparatus,\u201d she added, referring to the paramilitary forces that fall under the IRGC and have played a large role in squashing public dissent. \u201cThey have not seen any sort of disintegration or even erosion of regime control, certainly not in any urban areas.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n That\u2019s not to mention that they have not been damaged enough to deter them from prosecuting the war and asserting control over the Strait of Hormuz<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n \n Meanwhile, Iranian authorities\u2019 tight grip on internet access also remains intact. The nationwide internet blackout is entering its 36th day according to the internet monitor Netblocks<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n \n Severe censorship is being enforced on search engines within Iran, with keywords like \u201cwar\u201d yielding zero results, according to a new report<\/a> by the Miaan Group, a nonprofit that supports human rights in Iran. That comes as the government has made strides towards implementing technology that allows only people with security clearance to access the international web.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cIranian authorities are likely to continue relying on the same core methods they have used for years \u2013 censorship, surveillance, selective blocking, pressure on platforms, arrests and periodic shutdowns \u2013 but the broader trajectory points toward harsher, more centralized and more security-driven control rather than simply \u2018more of the same,\u2019\u201d said Amir Rashidi, director of digital rights and security at the Miaan Group.\n <\/p>\n \n Arrests of dissidents have also continued. On Wednesday night, Iranian human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh was arrested from her home by security forces, her daughter said in a statement Thursday.\n <\/p>\n
![\"President](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/ap26092038297907.jpg\")
<\/p>\n