How might the Iran war end?

The first blow that the US and Israeli military might inflicted on Iran on the morning that they began operations brought them perhaps the ultimate objective that they must have sought as their prime end; they decapitated Iran's spiritual leader and its most senior military, political and spiritual leadership. If regime change were the ultimate prize that both the US and Israel sought from this war, this was as close to enabling it as they could as a strategy.

Believing that the Ayatollah impeded a popular uprising in Iran, which had clamoured for social and political freedoms in the society, the act of eliminating his person would open the space for a change that the US and Israel believed Iranians yearned for. Except that it wasn't entirely right. Iran's collective psyche despised Israel and the US with equal venom, calling the two the great Satan. If anything, it will coalesce the Iranian society in the short term against this assault. How it might play out in the medium term is what both sides now rest their next ploy on.

The Ayatollahs were a product of excessive repression by the US-backed Reza Pahlavi regime in 1979. It was a popular revolution. Iranians, with their stream of Shiite Islam, are far more intense and beholden to the Imam of the times; this is true for all Shias across the globe. When Khamenei was announced dead, Iraqi Shiite mosques were draped in red in bitter sadness, announcing mourning till the killing was avenged. This is a universal sentiment.

Pakistan, which has a fifteen per cent Shia population, was as expressive in its grief and resorted to aggressive agitations in retaliation for what the US had wrought on their spiritual icon. The Ayatollah holds the same mantle as the Pope among Christian Catholics. Perhaps more. Such a sense of alienation and aggrievement stiffens their resolve to stand up against perceived persecution.

Mere decapitation of the Ayatollah, while a war goal, is not what will bring regime change. Iran as a civilisation is too old and too proud to quit so easily. Yes, they are prudent and deep, and well-versed in sustaining themselves as a civilisational entity, yet they are likely to stand up to aggression. Suffering to them is an expression of defiance. They will suffer their way through it all and still retain the core of their collective existence on the other side. The Iranian nation may adorn a theocratic garb but derives its civilisational resilience from its long history as the Persian Empire. They will hold to their boundaries and their traditions, even if weakened and emaciated after an unrelenting assault by the combined military might of the US and Israel. The world at large is in Iran's corner, for moral reasons in reaction to the impunity and arbitrariness of US and Israeli power.

If regime change of the kind that the US was able to bring in Venezuela is not possible through decapitation, likely the US will now wait for its next best option to effect the change. It will attempt to bomb Iran into submission and extend the pain to its citizens both in a physical way and through the denial of a normal life. If that forces people out in frustration against their rulers, that will be the US's fallback route to regime change. That is the US's current aim in war – razing them to the ground as in Gaza; but Iran is no Gaza merely for size and enormity of the task.

It also depends on the capacity of the Iranian people to bear the pain and suffer through the tribulations of war. Or they will reach the point of throwing in as the ultimate human instinct to survive and save their families from constant fear, hunger and deprivation. The time between now and the ultimate recourse the war takes is the moment when prudence can outdo what may seem the fate of the unfortunate people. Or the time between can be a godsend for the new Ayatollah to stamp his authority through a show of tenacity and hard-headedness. If so, Iran and the world, and specifically the US and Israel, would have lost their chance to negotiate a way out with shared gains.

The war will then fritter into an unrecognisable end. In the meantime, Israel will continue to weaken Iran militarily by attacking its military installations and arsenals to disable Iran from militarily challenging Israel, as Trump faces a backlash from within the US for rushing into a war – popularly, on Israeli goading – without clear aims. In an election year, it is his riskiest gambit. Economic adversity within the US, and in the world at large – around disrupted oil and gas supply chains – will only multiply the economic pain in the US and all around, with attendant political challenges. The space created through the application of the military instrument, justified or not, would be lost to strategic misconception and pedestrianism. The US and Trump will turn out to be the ultimate losers in this war. Iran will survive, while the threat of the war expanding beyond Iran's borders remains a real possibility. How it might be the domino that felled the world is anyone's guess.

Unless prudence takes over. The odds are stacked against Iran, but a reprieve is still possible. It is not about one man and one legacy; it is about the ninety million people who have reposed faith in one's leadership. That he will navigate the way for all with minimum loss of life while retaining the sanctity of what has kept the nation respected through history. Time will be when they will find that opportunity to regain their glory and eminence, but for it, there is time to bide through.

Let the storm blow over. Negotiate a way out of the options with minimal loss of face; Trump, too, may soon need an exit. Facilitate common sense to save Iran and the world around from destruction. The passing away of Khamenei is tragic, especially in the way he was eliminated, but we live in such times when might is right, and none of the so-called peer powers is willing to stand before such proclivity. The time is thus to mitigate the pain, cut the losses, save the core, and rebuild and renew another day.

Iran will not cease to be the nation it has always been, nor not aspire to be the nation it wants to be. It is time, though, for the interim leadership to reassess their options and find a way out. Miss the moment and the space that has been created by default, and miss the opportunity to realise your promise and potential in times ahead. But if the test is to reinforce the hard stand that the leadership has held over decades, the results, unfortunately, will remain as repetitive as they have been for the last four decades. A choice exists today; it may not tomorrow.