A former top US diplomat says her country's efforts to topple Iran's leadership risks destabilising the region and strengthening the nation's Revolutionary Guard.
Jennifer Gavito was appointed ambassador to Libya by Joe Biden and was a senior state department official overseeing Iran until May 2023.
During her watch, US officials regularly considered the implications of taking out Iran's leaders.
"Every war game, every tabletop exercise that has been run by the United States, and I think our allies over the last decade or so, has led to the same conclusion," Ms Gavito told 7.30.
"And that is, if you try to impose regime change from the outside, the most likely outcome is that the IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps) would amass greater control, consolidate control, leaving a harder-line government in Iran than the one that you started out with."
Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps is the strongest and most ideological of the nation's security forces, with about 200,000 active duty members.
Dr Ali Mamouri a Middle East expert at Deakin University says the US attacks on Iran have strengthened the IRGC.
"It's actually a revival moment for the Islamic regime in Iran," Dr Mamouri said.
"The Islamic regime regime was suffering from great domestic pressure and lack of legitimacy. There had been continuing protests with a brutal crackdown, creating a huge solidarity among people against the regime … but this pressure actually will make the regime more solid and more extreme and it'll give priority to security over democratisation."
US President Donald Trump last week demanded "unconditional surrender" from Iran and declared he wants to be involved in the selection of the country's new leader.
On Monday Iran announced that the assassinated Ayatollah Ali Khamenei would be replaced by his 56-year-old son, Mojtaba.
Israel has already said it will try to kill Mojtaba Khamenei.
The nation's Deputy Foreign Minister Sharren Haskel told 7.30 last week it "will only be a matter of time".
"Anyone who will try the position of leading this fanatical regime, this destructive regime who creates only death and destruction all around them will be a target,"Ms Haskel said.
Dr Mamouri said that before the latest US attacks, some Iranian leaders had been opposed to him taking over from his father.
"They didn't want it to be like a monarchy system," he said.
"But the pressure now has changed the dynamic and now most of the leadership are calling for someone like him because he's very solid. He's very strong, he's affiliated with the top IRGC commanders.
"So this is some kind of message to the US and Israel that the system is continuing and holding strong and there is no any sign of tolerance or flexibility."
Trump 'feeling very emboldened'
Ms Gavito says the Trump administration hasn't articulated its objectives for this conflict.
"I think the president doesn't have a clear concept of what regime change actually means in this context," she said.
She says Mr Trump wants to install a leader who is friendlier to the US and Israel.
"There is a wide gulf between that, which is highly unlikely, and the type of sustained operation that would be required to actually affect a significant change in the leadership, the ideology and the objectives of the Iranian government.
"I'm not sure that the president fully appreciates or understands that of yet."
Ms Gavito said the success of the January 3 operation to capture Venezuela's president Nicolas Maduro may have encouraged the administration to attack Iran.
"I think he's just feeling very emboldened after Venezuela and other actions that he's taken in the foreign policy sphere that have led to fairly easy and quick results," she said.
"Unfortunately, never before has regime change been affected from the air alone.
"If that is really the aspiration of the United States and Israel, then that would require a much more long-term sustained operation and probably in order to be successful, boots on the ground."
Regional instability
Ms Gavito said that by continuing to float regime change as a possibility, America risks making things worse.
"The challenge … in having declared regime change as your objective and taking at least some nascent moves towards it … you run the potential of setting off regional instability as an outcome of that, but also significant US and Israeli resources are going into an operation, again, that has yet to be fully defined."
That regional instability is most evident in Lebanon, with Israeli attacks on Beirut and across the southern border.
Hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced by the incursion and air strikes.
Israel says it was responding to rocket attacks by the Iran-backed militia, Hezbollah.
"The challenge here is Lebanon actually has at the moment a fairly unique opportunity with new president and government in place that seem committed to the disarmament of Hezbollah," Ms Gavito said.
"I know that that process is going slower than the Israelis would like, but I am concerned that these renewed operations and suggestions that they may seek to occupy southern Lebanon may actually undermine the Lebanese government in ways that over time further destabilises Lebanon and causes them to miss out on this relatively historic opportunity to exert control over all of their territory."
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