As U.S. and Israel trade blows with Iran, what’s next?

The U.S. and Israel continue to bombard Iran following the death of its supreme leader. At the same time, Iran is firing its own missiles at surrounding Gulf States and parts of the Middle East in retaliation.

With both sides vowing to continue, people are questioning whether a wider regional conflict is possible and what could be next for Iran since Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in Saturday’s attacks.

“If you don’t put boots on the ground, who does (U.S. President) Donald Trump think the Iranian Revolutionary Guard is going to hand its weapons to,” wondered Jon Allen, a senior fellow at the Bill Graham Centre for Contemporary International History at the University of Toronto. “Regime change? Up in the air.”

On Sunday, Trump called on Iran’s Revolutionary Guard and military police to lay down their arms or face death.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said in a prerecorded message that a new leadership council had already begun its work. The country’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, said a new supreme leader would be chosen in “one or two days.”

With its leader gone, experts say, the regime will aim to portray a sense of “stability and continuity,” but behind the scenes there is likely instability.

“(The regime is) going to do its best to retaliate to the degree it can, in order to do two things,” said Ross Harrison, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute in Washington, D.C. “One is to show that the regime can inflict damage on its adversaries, and number two, to show that the region is still in control.

“It’s really a fight for survival of the regime and for inflicting as much damage as the regime can in order to change the calculus of its adversaries.”

Get daily National news

Get the day's top news, political, economic, and current affairs headlines, delivered to your inbox once a day.

Sign up for daily National newsletter Sign Up

By providing your email address, you have read and agree to Global News' Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy.

He told Global News there will be “more of the same” in the coming days, and that Iran will likely accelerate its attacks on Israel, hoping to cause the most damage from missiles that make it through that country’s “Iron Dome” defences. He added that the majority of the attacks will likely be against U.S. bases and assets in the region, as well as Israel.

Protesters in the country, however, remain defiant with many having celebrated Khamenei’s death on Saturday.

2:22 Iranian-Canadians in GTA react to U.S.-Israel strikes on Iran

An end to the regime is difficult to determine, but Burcu Ozcelik with the Royal United Services Institute said there is at least one possible goal.

“The goal of trying to create the conditions on the ground inside Iran whereby an alternative form of government might emerge at least for the transition period until Iran achieves some level of stabilization.”

The U.S. and Israel have indicted there will be no slow down in their efforts, with Israel on Sunday saying there would be a “non-stop air train” of strikes against Iranian military and leadership targets.

Trump has also said heavy bombing will continue “uninterrupted throughout the week or, as long as necessary.”

Israel’s ambassador to Canada, Iddo Moed, told Global News the goal of the operation was to remove “existential threats” from Iran. But he added help could be provided to Iranians to assist in a regime change.

“I think that we can talk about lines that support the Iranians with means, perhaps, to create a regime change,” he said. “It’s for the Iranian people, and this is also the message that was very clearly said by Prime Minister (Benjamin) Netanyahu the other day, that we want to see a peaceful Iran living side-by-side with the rest of the region.”

The U.S.-Israel operation is something to watch, said Nejar Mojtahedi, an Iranian-Canadian journalist. She said she expects the operation to unfold in stages.

“Number one, decapitate the leadership of the regime,” she told Global News. “Number two is to degrade the military defence capability of the regime so they can’t retaliate as strong as they would like to.”

Mojtahedi said stage three would see an effort to degrade Iran’s economy, and the fourth would be to allow the Iranian people to take over the country.

In his initial announcement about the campaign by the U.S. and Israel, Trump called for Iranians to rise up and “take over” their government.

He reiterated that call on Sunday on Truth Social.

“I call upon all the radiant patriots who yearn for freedom to seize this moment to be brave, be bold, be heroic, and take back your country,” Trump said. “America is with you. I made a promise to you, and I fulfilled that promise. The rest will be up to you, but we’ll be there to help.”

Trump did not elaborate on how the U.S. would help.

—with files from Global News’ Jeff Semple, Jen Palma and Jazan Grewal-Pabla