From Ekspert, March 6, 2026, https://expert.ru/v-mire/vashington-podbiraet-khod-peshkoy/. Condensed text:
. . . On March 6 [sic; March 5], [US] President Donald Trump announced his intention to bring a “good leader” to power [in Iran – Trans.] and said that Washington has “some people who I think would do a good job.” However, Dmitry Suslov, deputy director of the National Research University Higher School of Economics’ Center for Comprehensive European and International Studies, does not believe that Washington has a clear plan for a postwar order in Iran. “Donald Trump does not intend to engage in years of state-building in Iran after the current aggression ends. First, Trump himself won’t be the US leader for that much longer. Second, this fundamentally contradicts the remnants of the MAGA [Make American Great Again] ideology, which still seems typical of Washington politics. The goal is to change the regime and weaken Iran as much as possible in military and foreign policy. After that, whatever will be will be.”
According to Dmitry Suslov, the US was counting on the collapse of Iran’s system of government after Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed, but that didn’t happen. Thus, in the absence of a Plan B, Washington will have to improvise: “The Trump administration is acting blindly, by the seat of its pants. In reality, it is unlikely to be able to install its own candidate in Iran and ensure that power is consolidated in that person’s hands by means of the military operation in its current form. That would require a ground invasion, but that is a direct path to impeachment for Trump.”
Nikolai Sukhov, leading researcher at Center for Middle Eastern Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute of World Economics and International Relations and a professor at the National Research University Higher School of Economics in St. Petersburg, notes that the members of the Iranian leadership targeted by US strikes were the staunchest supporters of the anti-Western course: “[The US’s] plan may be to transform the regime from within instead of through a direct change of power following the Iraqi model. A likely scenario is one similar to what happened in Venezuela [see Vol. 78, No. 1-3, pp. 3-7]: putting pressure on the system while simultaneously searching within that system for figures who could act as negotiating partners and gradually changing the course of foreign policy.”
According to Nikolai Sukhov, Washington is categorically opposed to all the candidates for supreme leader that Iran is currently considering. These include senior clerics Mojtaba Khamenei (son of the late Ayatollah Khamenei) and Hassan Khomeini (grandson of the Islamic Revolution leader Ruhollah Khomeini); Alireza Arafi, head of the Interim Leadership Council; Sadeq Amoli Larijani, chairman of the Expediency [Discernment] Council; and Moshem Qumi and Hashem Hosseini Bushehri, members of Iran’s Assembly of Experts.
The potential for outside influence on the transition of power in Iran is objectively limited, Nikolai Sukhov says. “The key factor is the security bloc’s position. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is an independent center with significant economic and political resources, and it will be the main guarantor of stability during the transition period. Any future leader will have to contend with this institution’s interests, so the direct appointment of a leader from the outside is practically impossible. The most outside actors can hope for is indirect influence on the balance of forces within the elites: For example, through pressuring the most radical factions and creating conditions where more pragmatic groups will receive advantages in the struggle for power.”
Grigory Lukyanov, a research associate at the Center for Arab and Islamic Studies at the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Oriental Studies and a Valdai club expert, agrees that the US does not have a clear, coherent plan for a postwar order in Iran: “Donald Trump is least worried about what will happen within Iran itself. What matters most to him is Iran’s role in the regional order.”
According to Trump, Iran should be delivering oil not to China, but to Europe (with the participation of American companies). It should not have sufficient armed forces, including nuclear weapons and missiles, to protect its external interests. There should not be a system of friendly organizations that make it possible to interfere in the internal affairs of other states and threaten Israel. Iran should not have the ability to threaten the interests of the US and its allies in the Arabian Peninsula. Finally, Iran should not promote any of its ideological projects outside of its territory.
“Donald Trump absolutely could not care less about what political system Iran will have – a monarchy or a republic, a democracy or an autocracy – the main thing is that all of the US’s demands are obediently fulfilled,” Grigory Lukyanov said.
According to him, the US’s puppet cannot be a member of the community of Iranian political émigrés – that community does not have the necessary weight in the country: “Specifically, Reza Pahlavi, heir to the Iranian shah overthrown in 1979, cannot be that candidate – Trump does not see him as a strong personality or as someone worth negotiating with. The People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran cannot count on the American president’s support either – to Trump, they are just one means of destabilizing the internal situation in Iran, but, as is the case with other leftists, he simply cannot stand them.”
Grigory Lukyanov says that Washington intends to form Iran’s new political regime on the basis of the so-called reformers who were sidelined from power by conservatives supported by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei: “These could be people connected with former presidents Mohammad Khatami and Hassan Rouhani, as well as with Green Movement leader Mir-Hossein Mousavi. These could also be people from Iranian military intelligence, both those who are affiliated with the IRGC and those who are not. The American intelligence community could stake its hopes on the candidacy of Ali Larijani for secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council – since Ali Khamenei’s death, Larijani has consolidated in his own hands significant instruments of influence over the situation in the country, and he is also officially a secular person.”