Iran: structure and balance of power within the Islamic Republic

On 28 February 2026, joint Israeli-American strikes hit Tehran and several other Iranian cities, killing Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic for 37 years. The announcement of his death plunged Iran and the entire Middle East into uncertainty. Unprecedented scenes emerged: female students in Tehran chanting "Death to Velayat," shops closed in a general strike, residents shouting their relief from the windows of their apartments. Elsewhere in the world, diplomats feverishly speculated about the identity of Tehran's next leader and the stability of a regime that had weathered wars, sanctions, uprisings and betrayals for 47 years.

This collective astonishment reveals the extent to which the Islamic Republic of Iran remains a poorly understood political construct. It is often reduced to the tutelary figure of the Supreme Leader or the provocations of its nuclear diplomacy. Yet the regime founded by Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979 is a sophisticated, deliberately complex architecture, designed to outlast any one man. It is a system that combines theocracy with a democratic façade, elected institutions with dominant unelected structures, and a national army with an ideological praetorian guard. It is a regime that was built on a fundamental tension and has survived by skilfully exploiting this ambiguity.