Killing Iran’s commanders did not kill the system that produced them - opinion
Decapitating a military leadership can create disruption. But Iran’s latest appointments suggest the regime’s institutions - and the strategic thinking behind them - remain firmly in place.
The recent killing of Iran's military commanders has not resulted in a transformation of the regime's security system, according to an opinion piece in the Jerusalem Post. While leadership decapitation is often seen as a measure of success in conflicts involving centralized authoritarian systems, the strategic impact ultimately depends on whether the removal of individuals changes the institutions and strategic logic that produced them.
The article cites the appointment of Ali Abdollahi as chief of the General Staff and Kiomars Heydari as deputy chief of the General Staff as evidence of Tehran's continued reliance on a revolutionary-security elite. These appointments suggest that Iran is rebuilding its military and security hierarchy around an older generation of leaders who possess a blend of conventional command, intelligence operations, asymmetric warfare, ideological enforcement, and domestic coercion.
The article argues that political orders are reproduced through organizations, doctrines, networks, incentives, and institutional memory, and that if these mechanisms remain functional, leadership losses can produce disruption without leading to transformation.
Brief written by urgent.news from Jerusalem Post's own syndicated text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
