Dear DM

Thanks for dropping in on us. Th scenarios you put together are very cleverly done. My humble opinion and short answer is that any or multiple of the scenarios you described could happen. But one thing is for sure that, nothing will come out of the current scuffle but more death and destruction, as the events of ’88 proved. The current regime has enough grass roots support to withstand the upheaval. The country and the people will be the final losers and outside powers like Saudi international, BBC, VOA and their cheerleaders will be the winners in trying to weaken us. The achievements thus far, in the fields of defense, and foreign policy have been tremendous. A lot of work needs to be done on people’s rights and economy and they are achievable on time using peaceful means. If our past history is the lantern for the future, it tells us that Reza shah took the hejab off by killing around 2000 women, and that method caused more and more continued rejection and resentment amongst our religious society adding to the resistance that brought in Ayat Khomeini.

This is only an opinion and not an invitation to brawl.

With warmest Salams and acknowledgements to all Doustan Aziz from all sides for the great and respectful conversations and exchanges.

As I was pondering at everyone’s thoughts, all the current worldwide events, especially in Iran, historical journeys we all have gone through and experienced in the past 47 years, aside from all the biases, prejudices, and political point of views and merely based on realistic facts on the ground, how realistic do you all think below scenario can take place?  I should add that these postulations are nothing but that, and are meant to be as close to actual realities of today’s Iran as possible and away from all the daily sho’ars and wishful thoughts.

The Scenario – Next 2-4 years:

• Khamenei will once again become hospitalized leading to his decease.

• In the absence of a recognizable and trusting leader (in and out of Iran), in separate settings, there will be very intense and major internal debates within Majlis Khobregan (خبرگان), Sepha, and Artesh ranks regarding Valeyat Fagih (ولایت فقیه) and its role.

• Khobregan determines to abandon Valeyat Fagih altogether (due to lack of finding a majority leader and internal animosities amongst clerical ranks), decides and opts for a "شورای رهبری" or "Assembly of Leadership".  This was Rafsanjani's recommendation to Khomeini back in 1988 (1.5 years before he passed away), and then again to Majlis Khobregan in 2014 but was silenced by powerful rogue and hardline clerics resulting in his assassination by poisoning and drowning in his residential pool.

• Internally, Sepah and Artesh institutions furiously question the new role of Assembly of Leadership and its power. Both institutions lean toward furthering and empowering the office of Presidency and his/her authority over the Assembly of Leadership decrees and judgements.

• The role of Hay-at-Ha (هیئاتها) (hybrid form of basij) will greatly be diminished and most of the allocated budgets approved by the Majlis (Parliament) will be reduced or deleted. In lieu of this, an extreme rouge version of Hay-at-Ha/basij backed by a handful of hardline clerics will be formed. Similar to Proud Boys or QAnon here. This group may turn out to be Iran’s Taliban/etc. version and strategically cause controlled chaos every so often as political leverage to influence/hinder policies.

• Gashteh Ershad (i.e. Morality Police) will be decommissioned and few existing unrealistic and strict rules are removed to ease the pressure on general population.

• Heavy debates emerge to review and revise the constitution for the first time since ’79 to balance the role and involvement of Religious authority and governance (State & Church so to speak), but not separated from each other to placate both religious (~20-27 million) and moderately religious (~35-40 million) sectors of the population.

• Iran’s economy reaches her first milestone and apex due to China/Russia/India/Indonesia corridors from east and African corridor from southeast via Iraq/UAE/Qatar/Saudi Arabia/etc.

And finally,

• Iran moves to second round with 5-7 points and face either Netherlands or Senegal in the next round with a 38% chance of advancing to third (1/8) round of the games!!!! 

After the revolution, for a couple of years, Mujaheddin and Fedayee were, kind of, "in tune" with the leadership. However, Rajavi folks chose to go against, over some policies, and Fedayee got branched into Majority and Minority. Majority stayed with the "government” for a few years and Minority chose armed struggle again. Too much went on to mention here. A lot of folks are probably familiar with the rest.  

Faramarz jan, this thing was supposed to be "Democratic Republic of Iran". There was no commonality, in the choice of leadership, amongst the groups fighting the regime, from MKO, Fedayee, nationalists headed by Bazargan, Sahabi to some degree Ayat Taleghani , to garden variety of Muslim organizations headed by Dr. Samiدبیرکل جنبش انقلابی مردم مسلمان ایران (جاما) , Dr. Paymon (later heading جنبش مسلمانان مبارز).However, Khomeini was, to a degree in contact with the Muslim groups with huge grass roots supports in our religious society. There’s simply too much to write about in this “forum” with differing views and opinions.