Without some change in direction, Iran’s regime risks breakdown in civil order

Hostility to the US is high even among reformists, which may set the surviving leadership on a destructive path

Two Irans are in view now. By night, there is the Iran that danced, celebrated and cried tears of joy at the death of the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, hoping it marks the end of clerical rule and isolation from the west. By day, there are the mourning crowds gathering in the squares in Tehran and Isfahan demanding retribution and bewailing the loss of their sacred leader.

There is no need to guess which force has the greater domestic military power and retains the upper hand, but discerning whether the regime realises that the continued, inflexible pursuit of its current path will probably end in the regime’s chaotic collapse is harder to know.