Ayatollah Khamenei is dead. Here’s what that means for Iran’s leadership.

In his time as ayatollah, Khamenei presided over a growing web of regional proxies that have perpetrated violence on U.S. troops and America’s allies across the Middle East. At home, Khamenei’s regime kept a tight grip on the Iranian people, severely curbing individual freedoms, especially for women and some minority groups.

Khamenei’s repression sparked backlash from Iranian citizens over the years. As each flare of discontent grew stronger, so did the brutality of the government’s response. In December, government forces killed thousands of protesters and arrested tens of thousands more.

There are those who are readying to step in if the regime falls. Reza Pahlavi, the son of Iran’s last shah, was quick to release a statement of his own shortly after strikes began. The regime is “collapsing,” Pahlavi said in comments posted to social media, lauding Trump for what he described as a “humanitarian intervention.”

“However, despite the arrival of this assistance, the final victory will still be achieved by us,” Pahlavi said. “It is we, the people of Iran, who will finish this task in this final battle. The time to return to the streets is approaching.”

Pahlavi, who lives in the U.S., has sought to position himself as the primary opposition leader to the Islamist regime, though the degree of support among Iranians for the exiled crown prince remains unclear.

Absent a clear transition of power, Iran’s elite military force, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, could take the mantle of leadership.

If a Saturday Truth Social post from Trump declaring Khamenei had been killed is any indication of the president’s thinking, the administration may be hoping for a Venezuela-style leadership transition in Iran, looking for a figure akin to interim President Delcy Rodriguez to emerge from the IRGC’s ranks.

“Hopefully, the IRGC and Police will peacefully merge with the Iranian Patriots, and work together as a unit to bring back the Country to the Greatness it deserves,” Trump wrote in his post.

Complete power under hardline IRGC generals would likely mean a persistence of repression in Iran under a military structure — and of a starkly anti-American government that could still wreak havoc in the region.

During a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing in January, Secretary of State Marco Rubio acknowledged that in the event of Khamenei’s death, “no one knows who would take over” the reins of power in the country.

“That’s an open question,” Rubio told senators at the time.