[mandevil]

Governments do fall to internal revolt/collapse regularly. I mean, Iran has done so within the memory of most of its senior leadership! They understand this much better than I do- Khamenei himself played a major role in toppling the Shah. Just generally that doesn't happen while being attacked by other countries air-power, which as a general rule makes populations support their governments rather than start marching in the streets against them.

Thanks to historians, we can understand things like the collapse of the USSR better (my favorite English language book- I am sadly monolingual- would be Plokhy's _The Last Empire_) and see the personal and impersonal forces that ended up tearing the country apart, and doubtless some of those are present in Iran right now. But I personally would not bet on these strikes helping to topple the existing government.

[alephnerd]

I tend to disagree. Iran was already on the verge of a succession crisis, as Khamenei only rose to power by viciously putting down Khomeini's allies after his passing, and the inter-service rivalry between the Army (leaning towards reformers like Khomeini's grandson), IRGC (autonomous), and the Basij (lead by Khamenei's son). This is the forcing function.

Iran had a very violent succession crisis in the late 80s-early 90s, but the titans of the revolution and rallying behind the flag due to the Iran-Iraq war helped ensure some base amount of unity.

There is a vacuum in Iran's elite, as most of the upper and mid-level echelons are those who solidified their fiefdoms in the 1990s.