Kurds, monarchists, and 'wolves': Inside Iran's fragmented opposition and why the regime in Tehran faces collapse, not revolution

On the night of June 24, U.S. President Donald Trump announced a ceasefire between Iran and Israel. Israel claimed it had achieved its military objectives by destroying key Iranian nuclear and missile infrastructure. Despite the ceasefire, regime change in Iran is likely to remain on the international agenda. But any such transformation is nearly impossible without the involvement of the domestic opposition. Antonio Giustozzi, a senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), argues that Iran’s opposition is too ideologically divided — from monarchists to radical leftists — to unite around a common cause, and concludes that the fall of the ayatollahs would not lead to a new regime, but to a full-scale collapse of the Iranian state.