Mojtaba Khamenei (C), son of the Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, participates in the annual Quds Day rally in Tehran on May 31, 2019. Rouzbeh Fouladi /Middle East Images/ AFP via Getty Images
The Feb. 28 decapitation strike that killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and 47 Iranian Republican Guard Corps leaders is unlikely to lead to an overthrow of Iran’s fundamentalist Shia regime anytime soon, a panel of veteran Middle East diplomats and analysts concurred during a March 3 Brookings Institution forum.
“We are going to be dealing with some version of this regime in the aftermath of this conflict,” Brookings Institution Foreign Policy Studies Director Suzanne Maloney said, noting that since seizing control of the nation in 1979, the regime has had no shortage of hardline zealots ready to assume leadership.
