SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
U.S. and Israeli bombings in Iran have killed an estimated 50 Iranian leaders, according to U.S. and Iranian officials.
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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: We have really regime change. You know, this is a change in the regime because the leaders are all very different than the ones that we started off with that created all those problems.
SIMON: President Trump on Tuesday. Who's actually in charge in Iran right now? Sina Toossi is a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy. He joins us now. Thanks so much for being with us.
SINA TOOSSI: Thanks for having me.
SIMON: Is the president correct in saying the leaders are all very different than the ones who were in charge before?
TOOSSI: Well, in that respect, he's partially correct. I mean, the shift that we have seen happen in Iran with the assassination of the supreme leader, Khamenei, or, for example, the assassination of the National Security Council secretary, Ali Larijani. Their successors are widely viewed in Iranian politics as more radical and more hard-line. Namely, for Khamenei, his son, Mojtaba, who's a mysterious figure but associated with the most hard-line currents in Iran, and the new secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, who's a former Revolutionary Guards commander who's also a part of the most right-wing, hard-line wing of the Revolutionary Guards.
SIMON: So if anything, the leadership might be more hard-line than what it was before.
TOOSSI: Yes, indeed. I think these changes in Iran are aimed at conveying their resolve and their will to continue to fight on. These are not figures that have advocated for diplomacy and engagement with the U.S. in the past. And so it seems like they want to continue fighting this war until they get the kind of more favorable diplomatic settlements for themselves.
SIMON: Help us understand the power system of Iran, if you could, because I think a lot of Americans might have thought, with a title like supreme leader, his death on February 28 would have accomplished the job. How severe a blow is it to Iranian leadership? And - well, what are we talking about there?
TOOSSI: Well, this Iranian system that came into power after the 1979 Revolution - its official title's Islamic Republic. It's a mixture of these kind of heterodox Shia political philosophies - Shia Islam, that is - that originated from Ayatollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic. But it's also a mixture of republican ideas. So it has these kind of elected or semi-elected institutions, and then but it has theocratic bodies that vet those elected bodies as well. And the supreme leader sat at the top of this structure. But it is a deeply entrenched, multi-layered system of governance that, again, has these kind of parallel institutions, and those institutions are intact. The leadership of much of those institutions is intact, and they've had this dispersion strategy, and they have multiple successors. So for now, this regime has been cohesive and very much still there.
SIMON: So when the U.S. and Israel emphasize the killing of Iranian officials, how important are those individual officials in the power structure?
TOOSSI: Well, in terms - I mean, it's proven to be that in terms of paralyzing or depleting Iran's capacity to fight in this war, that has not been effective. Their command and control has not fallen apart. They've had this mosaic defense doctrine where all the various military units in the countries are operating according to, like, predetermined plans. So Iran is continuing the ballistic missile fire, continuing the missile fire. The government - like, the head of the judiciary, the head of the president and this parliamentary chief is now being potentially floated as a negotiator with the U.S. They're all still there, and a lot of the governing structures are still working. So, you know, being in touch with people on the ground in Iran, for example, a lot of services are still operating, banks, the kind of various supply chains. So they've - they're trying to demonstrate their resilience.
SIMON: So do we understand that the Revolutionary Guard, which obviously played a major role in crackdowns on protests there, may now even have more power?
TOOSSI: Yes. So sadly, it seems that's one repercussion of this war, which Trump launched with a regime-change ambition, calling on people to take to the streets. He had said in January, after the brutal crackdown in Iran, that help is on the way. But now we're seeing a scenario where the regime is still there. It's more entrenched. It's more hard-line. Meanwhile, the Iranian people are also suffering greatly as a result of this intense bombing, a lot of which has targeted civilian infrastructure and had a high civilian toll as well.
SIMON: Could there be Iranian officials who, for the sake of their own survival, are conducting back-channel negotiations now?
TOOSSI: I mean, the Iranians view themselves - because of the Strait of Hormuz closure and the leverage that that has given them, that they view themselves as in a stronger position, actually, as before this war. So they're playing hard to get. They're denying these reports of negotiations. There was this report of a U.S. proposal given this week. And the Iranian counterproposal had several maximalist demands, that their authority over the Strait of Hormuz should be recognized. So, you know, they're playing that negotiation game. And they're - this war will have to end in some kind of negotiated settlement unless it escalates to the point of being an even more catastrophic war for all sides. But the Iranians, for now, are playing hard to get.
SIMON: Sina Toossi of the Center for International Policy. Thank you so much for speaking with us today.
TOOSSI: Thank you for having me.
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