Aditi Bhaduri 

It is day eight of the joint US-Israeli strike on Iran, and there is still no sign of the Iranian people toppling their government, even though Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei has been killed, along with over 40 other high-ranking Iranian officials, including the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. More recently, an Iranian frigate was torpedoed by the US in the international waters of the Indian Ocean, killing at least 80 soldiers.

Iran has retaliated by launching missiles and drones not only at Israel but also at US military bases across the region. The situation is extremely fluid. While Iran has reported more than 1000 killed, its top leadership decimated, casualties have also been reported by Israel (11 at the time of writing), the US (4) and others in the GCC countries. The US also torpedoed an Iranian frigate returning from India in international waters near Sri Lanka. At least 80 sailors are reported dead, while Sri Lanka managed to retrieve 32 sailors.

So where do things go from here? Will we see a regime change in Iran? Unfortunately, human behaviour and societies are the most predictable and defy being straitjacketed into neat frameworks.

Nevertheless, on the sixth day of the allied Israeli-US assault on Iran, we have not seen any mass movement for overthrowing the regime in Tehran. Israel is also reported to have hacked into a popular prayer app in Tehran, urging people to overthrow the regime. While there have been pockets of jubilation inside Iran at the death of Khamenei, there has also been a massive outpouring of grief, including outside Iran, and particularly in India. 

Secondly, it has been empirically proven that air power alone is not enough to bring about regime change. While there is a huge intelligence penetration inside Iran, neither the US nor Israel have deployed or will be deploying ground troops.

On the left: 📍Kargil, India - Shia Muslims, protest against Israeli aggression in Iran, with Indian state guaranteeing their right to protest.

On the right: 📍Karachi, Pakistan - Shia Muslims tear gassed, beaten, bloodied by Pakistani state.

THANK YOU JINNAH ✌🏾 pic.twitter.com/Nkwt4Ia0xT

— Omar Abbas Hyat | ഒമർ അബ്ബാസ് (@OmarAbbasHyat) March 1, 2026

If at all, President Donald Trump wants to deploy ground troops, he will have to seek congressional authorisation. This may be difficult to achieve given the widespread opposition to these attacks inside the US. Not just Democrats but even any Republicans are against US involvement in this war, which is increasingly being viewed as "Israel's war".

One of Trump's 'Make America Great Again' (MAGA) promises is not to embroil the US in any more foreign wars. The Pentagon has told Congress that there were no signs that Iran was going to attack first. American intelligence had warned that Iran's nuclear programme did not constitute a threat to the US. For Israel,  however,  Iran constitutes an existential threat. 

Even if, for argument's sake, we assume the US may deploy ground troops, there is no guarantee that things will go smoothly as is hoped. 23 years ago, around this same time, George Bush, together with the UK, launched its assault on Iraq to topple the government of Saddam Hussein, on the false premise that Hussein was stockpiling weapons of mass destruction. 

There is an eerie similarity this time around, too. 

The regime change in Iraq, though, was accomplished within a reasonable time frame, and had consequences no one foresaw - the rise of the Islamic State. Iraq has not yet fully stabilised- 23 years later.

Iran is twice the size of Iraq, with a population of 100 million.  Despite regime brutality and people's disenchantment with it, this may not translate into regime change from within. Attacks of this kind are seen as violations of a nation's sovereignty. Images of schools and hospitals being bombed, killing little girls, patients, and the elderly, usually always manage to unite the people against the external enemy.

Moreover, Iran, like India, is a civilisational state with a sense of self. The majority of its people follow Shiism, where the concept of martyrdom, "shuhadat", has a strong hold over people's imagination, following on from the martyrdom of the Prophet's grandson Hussein centuries ago in Karbala. Victimisation and resistance are hardwired in them, and these events, together with the assassination of the top leadership, have the potential to harden attitudes.

History shows us that no regime change engineered by external forces, especially Western forces, has succeeded. We saw this in Libya, in Yemen; we are seeing it in Syria right now.

The most epic case must be Afghanistan, where the US waged a war for 20 years, with ample boots on the ground through a multinational force, spent billions of dollars to topple the Taliban, only to withdraw, allowing the Taliban to come to ascendancy in Kabul.

🚨 JUST IN:
🇺🇸🇮🇱 Reports say U.S. and Israeli forces struck Tehran’s Mehrabad Airport in Iran, causing explosions and fires as part of the expanding conflict. 🇮🇷✈️ pic.twitter.com/msFbcbDRS2

— IranDefenceForce (@IranDefenceForc) March 7, 2026

Now just compare Iran with Afghanistan and the Taliban with Iran's theocratic governing clique - and the answer stares us in the face. The angry rhetoric coming out of Tehran, therefore, may not all be fluff. Iranian officials say they have been preparing for such a scenario for many years now. Iran has survived, and the regime has survived the most crippling of sanctions imposed on it for years. They are a battle-hardened lot, used to facing daily adversities.

Now this is something that the Gulf potentials are not. While each of them hosts an American military base, they are not battle-hardened. The consequences of Saudi and Emirati intervention in Yemen have been disastrous; the ragtag Houthis remain undefeated and have promised to close the Bab-El-Mandeb, the chokepoint on the Red Sea through which much of the world's cargo passes.

While soon after Epic Fury was launched, the Washington Post reported that together with Israel, the Saudis had also urged the US to attack Iran. Now the same Saudi Arabia wants de-escalation as it finds it oil facilities targeted by Iran. 

In fact, it is doubtful whether any of the Gulf countries would join forces militarily against Iran, though they have been threatening to, as Iran targets US bases on their territories, and civilian infrastructure has also been hit.

Foreign Minister @araghchi has held separate talks with his Indian and Sri Lankan counterparts, Subrahmanyam Jaishankarin and Vijitha Herath, to discuss regional developments following the military aggression by the US and Israeli regime against Iran.https://t.co/PShENUB62F pic.twitter.com/mPhaF80049

— IRNA News Agency ☫ (@IrnaEnglish) March 7, 2026

President Trump's maximalist objective - regime change - in Iran may, therefore, be easier said than done. He will want to end the war as soon as possible- American casualties have already been reported. While reports earlier said the Trump administration had wanted negotiations with Iran, it is now doubling down on its military deployment.  

That regime change is becoming more elusive. It's evident that instead of demanding the regime resign, Iranians are mourning their dead, including their late leader. The regime, meanwhile, continues to fight back with ferocity even as the war enters its sixth day. Instead, the greatest acknowledged lies in the fact that the US has now announced that it would arm Iranian Kurdish groups inside Iran to combat the regime on the ground.

Tehran has issued a stark ultimatum: if the US, and Israel were to attempt “regime change,” Iran would target the Dimona nuclear reactor in Israel and critical regional energy infrastructure. 

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The conflict may have escalated to its most alarming level. The coming days will reveal what happens. Meanwhile, innocent lives continue to be lost.