A classified assessment produced by the National Intelligence Council has concluded that even a large-scale U.S. military assault on Iran would be unlikely to topple the Islamic Republic’s deeply entrenched clerical and military establishment, according to three people familiar with the document’s contents.
The sobering intelligence analysis, completed roughly one week before the United States and Israel launched their joint military operation on Feb. 28, directly undercuts the Trump administration’s increasingly vocal ambitions to “clean out” Iran’s leadership and install a new ruler acceptable to Washington.
The report examined succession scenarios under both a narrowly targeted campaign against senior Iranian figures and a broader offensive against leadership compounds and government institutions. In both cases, U.S. spy agencies determined that Iran’s clerical and military apparatus would swiftly follow long-established protocols to ensure continuity of power — even after the killing of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on the war’s opening day.
The prospect of Iran’s fragmented opposition groups seizing control of the country was judged “unlikely,” the people said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the highly sensitive findings. The National Intelligence Council, whose analysts represent the collective judgment of all 18 U.S. intelligence agencies, produced the document as a forward-looking assessment of potential outcomes.
The CIA referred questions about the report to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which declined to comment. The White House would not confirm whether President Donald Trump was briefed on the assessment before green-lighting the operation, which has rapidly expanded to include submarine warfare in the Indian Ocean and counter-missile operations near NATO member Turkey.
White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly pushed back sharply, saying in a statement: “President Trump and the administration have clearly outlined their goals with regard to Operation Epic Fury: destroy Iran’s ballistic missiles and production capacity, demolish their navy, end their ability to arm proxies, and prevent them from ever obtaining a nuclear weapon. The Iranian regime is being absolutely crushed.”
Doubts about the Iranian opposition’s ability to take power have surfaced in recent reporting by The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, but the NIC’s specific analysis of both limited and expansive military scenarios — and its conclusion that the regime’s institutions would endure — has not been previously disclosed.
Suzanne Maloney, a veteran Iran scholar and vice president at the Brookings Institution, said the assessment reflects deep institutional knowledge of how power works inside the Islamic Republic. “It sounds like a deeply informed assessment of the Iranian system and the institutions and processes that have been established for many years,” Maloney told The Washington Post.
The report does not appear to have modeled more extreme scenarios, such as the insertion of U.S. ground troops or the arming of Iranian Kurdish groups to spark a wider rebellion. It also remains unclear whether the “large-scale” campaign analyzed in the document precisely matches the scope of current U.S.-Israeli operations.
Inside Iran, the succession process anticipated by the NIC is already unfolding under intense pressure from the ongoing bombing campaign. The replacement of the supreme leader is formally the responsibility of the Assembly of Experts, a powerful clerical body, though senior commanders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and other security figures wield significant influence.
Intense speculation has centered on whether the assembly will choose Khamenei’s son, Mojtaba Khamenei. The IRGC has been actively promoting his candidacy, but it has encountered resistance from other power centers, including Ali Larijani, secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, according to a Western security official.
As the conflict enters its second week, Trump has continued to escalate his rhetoric. In a Truth Social post he demanded Iran’s “UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER” and has repeatedly suggested he should play a direct role in selecting Tehran’s next leader. Speaking to journalists, Trump dismissed Mojtaba Khamenei as “incompetent” and a “lightweight,” adding that Washington wants leaders who will not simply rebuild Iran’s nuclear and missile programs. “We want them to have a good leader,” he told NBC News. “We have some people who I think would do a good job.”
Iran’s Parliament speaker, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, rejected any foreign role in the process. In a post on X, he declared: “The fate of dear Iran, which is more precious than life, will be determined solely by the proud Iranian nation, not by [Jeffrey] Epstein’s gang” — a pointed reference to the late sex offender who was once a social acquaintance of Trump.
Current and former U.S. officials say there are few visible signs of a mass popular uprising or significant cracks within Iran’s government or security forces. Iranian security services killed thousands of demonstrators during nationwide protests in January driven by economic collapse. Trump has publicly advised the Iranian people to “shelter in place” until the U.S.-Israeli campaign concludes.
Experts say the NIC’s conclusions severely limit Trump’s leverage to dictate political outcomes. “Bending the knee to Trump would go against everything they stand for,” said Holly Dagres, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “The upper echelons of the clerical establishment are ideological, and so their modus operandi is to resist American imperialism.”
Maloney of Brookings echoed that view: “There’s no other force within Iran that can confront the remaining power that the regime has. Even if they’re not able to project that power very effectively against their neighbors, they can certainly dominate inside the country.”
The intelligence community’s assessment arrives at a moment when the Trump administration has raised the possibility of a prolonged campaign. Senior officials have privately described the operation as one that has “only just begun,” even as public messaging continues to emphasize rapid, decisive gains. The classified report’s warning — that neither short nor extended military action is likely to produce the kind of clean regime change the president has repeatedly telegraphed — adds a layer of internal skepticism to an already volatile conflict.
