Awaiting Lincoln... Lessons from Ali Khamenei on the Soviet Experience

Has Donald Trump really decided to bomb Iran and target it militarily with a serious operation? He has not literally stated that, but he has publicly promised protesters support! Does he really intend to overthrow the Islamic Republic's regime in Iran? Is he truly capable of that? Or does he prefer a new leadership within the existing regime without overthrowing it?

 

Trump intentionally keeps the answers to these questions open, does not commit to any option, and follows a strategy of clarity with threats and direct warnings, while being ambiguous about his choices.

People and world leaders are confused about what he might do, especially with the arrival of the American aircraft carrier "USS Abraham Lincoln" to the Middle East from the South China Sea within a week or so. Estimates suggest that the delay in attacking Iran is due to the United States needing to bolster its troop presence in the region, particularly air defenses, in anticipation of an Iranian retaliatory attack on nearby U.S. bases.

The region and the world are essentially moving according to the timing of the Lincoln, and Trump might surprise us at any moment with a limited strike that Iran can contain, or more or less; forcing the Iranian regime to make adjustments in its leadership and offer concessions specifically in its missile program and the stalled nuclear project after the Israeli-American aggression in June 2025.

While many try to speculate on what Trump might lean towards regarding Iran, the analysis of what Ali Khamenei might lean towards is often underestimated; the media depicts him as an elderly man living in the era of the great sedition at the dawn of Islam, detached from reality and time, and extremely radical and fanatical... However, examining his biography and previous choices reveals his realistic vision for the confrontation with the United States and his targeting.

Since the beginning of the recent American escalation against Tehran, the question of the possibility of overthrowing the Iranian regime refers to the experience of the fall of the Soviet Union, through depleting it from within, its economic bankruptcy, and the prevalence of poverty. The fall of the Soviet Union did not occur through a popular revolution or an external military operation, but rather as a result of internal pressures that drained it, related to domestic policies, the nature of leadership, and other external factors.

Khamenei himself drew a comparison between the collapse of the Soviet Union and U.S. plans to overthrow the Iranian regime, as the magazine "Foreign Affairs" reported statements from Khamenei from the year 2000 during a meeting with Iranian officials on this topic.

According to the magazine, Khamenei stated that a "comprehensive American plan was devised to overthrow the Islamic Republic regime, and all its aspects were studied. This plan was reformulated based on the collapse of the Soviet Union. They have, in their own perceptions, revived the plan to overthrow the Soviets in accordance with the circumstances in Iran."

He addressed internal factors that led to the collapse of the Soviet Union, such as: poverty, oppression, corruption, ethnic and national tensions, and that the United States invested in and exploited these factors to push the Soviet Union toward collapse, through manipulating the media, cultural invasion, or applying political and economic pressures.

Differences from the Soviet Union

In Khamenei's view, the experience of the Islamic Republic in Iran is different from that of the Soviet Union, as Islam, in his opinion, is distinct from communism; it is not a recently adopted ideology imposed by a ruling party after its victory in a civil war, and Iran enjoys a long history of national unity. He considered, in his demographic comparison between the Islamic Republic and the Soviet Union, that Iran's population components were not formed through imperial expansion and invasion wars over the past centuries, as was the case with the Russian Empire that the Soviet regime inherited, and that the Islamic Republic is a product of a popular revolution, enjoying significant religious legitimacy.

Lessons from Khamenei

To avoid the fate of the Soviet Union, Khamenei draws several lessons for the regime to heed and adhere to:

Suppressing potential local political rebels or undermining them, or what he considers the "Iranian local copies of Boris Yeltsin"; clearly announcing reforms so they are not misunderstood or distorted, ensuring that "these reforms are led by a strong and controlling central authority; so they do not spiral out of control"; preventing the media from undermining the government; and finally, curbing the intervention of external powers, such as the United States and Israel.

Rejection of "Dual Sovereignty"

Iran witnesses municipal, parliamentary, and Assembly of Experts elections, as well as periodic presidential elections, which are primarily limited to competition between candidates representing the conservative and reformist streams.

Khamenei believes that the United States and Israel exploit these elections to create what he calls "dual sovereignty," by creating a divide between the supreme leader and the elected officials as "the local allies" of the West, according to what "Foreign Affairs" reported from him. He firmly believes that Iran's enemies want to reduce the absolute power of the "Guardianship of the Jurist" to a mere empty structure, and in his mind, there are two experiences;

The first is the experience of the American coup against Mohammad Mossadegh's government in the early 1950s after he attempted to nationalize Iranian oil, and the subsequent control of American agencies over the governance after the return of Shah Mohammad Reza, who became a puppet of U.S. intelligence.

During Mossadegh's government, Iran appeared to be governed by a "dual sovereignty", the Shah and the parliament – the government, where the parliament imposed decisions on the king, including those up to the nationalization of oil (and fishing). The coup against Mossadegh is referred to as the "counter-coup", as it was a coup against the parliament's coup against the Shah, by stripping powers of decision-making.

The second is the experience of reformist Mohammad Khatami, who won the presidential elections held in May 1997. "Foreign Affairs" refers to the use of what it described as "the chief strategist of reformists in Iran", Saeed Hajarian, of the dual sovereignty concept as an analytical tool to describe the shift in power dynamics in Iran following Khatami's victory. Khamenei attacked this "sovereignty", considering it destructive, and there was an attempted assassination of Hajarian himself.

This time, the challenge posed to the Guardianship of the Jurist regime is not more sanctions and economic embargoes, but calls for "renewal of leadership," meaning changing the face of the regime and its direction; thus, the concept of "dual sovereignty" that he fears and attacks is not at stake, and it is not required for Iranians to abandon the Shia doctrine, but rather the regime is expected to relinquish its religious ideology as a regional project and comply with American demands.

However, any rational official in the Iranian regime may wonder what the regime will gain in return for any concession to Trump, whether it's a concession regarding the leadership of the regime, or the missile project and reducing its range, or abandoning enriched uranium, or moving it to another country, or Iran's regional alliances?

Khamenei has excelled in analyzing the reasons for the collapse of the Soviet Union, but has he succeeded in diagnosing the differences with the current Iranian regime? His current challenges are tougher than those faced by the Soviets, and he is pressured by an external party with the threat of arms to change his skin. What is being offered to him is submission without any clear compensation.

Moreover, the Soviet Union did not face internal economic challenges - even rebellion - imposed by the middle class that the Iranian regime has nurtured in the major cities, nor extended economic sanctions, nor was it an internationally isolated regime as Iran is; while Iran faces real internal ethnic and racial challenges, contrary to what Khamenei has drawn in differentiating Iran from the Soviet Union. These challenges are a vulnerability for external powers.

Roosevelt's Legacy

The American intelligence officer Kermit Roosevelt led the "Ajax" operation to overthrow Mohammad Mossadegh's government. On September 4, 1953, he presented a report on the operation to the White House, concluding that: as quoted by Mohamed Hassanein Heikal in his book "The Gun of the Ayatollah" (1981):

"The success of the operation (the coup) is attributed to the fact that the analyses of the Central Intelligence Agency were accurate. The agency concluded that the Iranian people and army, when faced with a choice, and Mossadegh being the one imposing this choice between their king and a revolutionary figure supported by the Soviet Union, could only choose one whom they desire without doubt.

And therefore, if the Central Intelligence Agency intends to carry out such an operation again, it must be equally certain that the army of the concerned country and its people want the same things, just as the Central Intelligence Agency does. If the situation is different, then it should entrust the matter to the Marines."

It is unlikely that we will see American Marines in the streets of Tehran, but was Khamenei right in the distinction he drew between the Islamic Republic and the Soviet Union, and specifically regarding the reasons for its internal collapse, while the Islamic Republic faces both internal and external pressures?