The US and Israel have conducted a strike on Iran. Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali  Khamenei was killed in the airstrikes. There were questions which arose about who would be the successor of Ayatollah Khamenei, what the endgame of the US would be, and what the US wanted. To decode this Chakra News, sat down with Lieutenant General P R Shankar (Retd) for the answers to these questions. 

Lieutenant General P. R. Shankar says about the successor of Ayatollah Khamenei, “There will be trouble because even if there's a successor, the successor has to consolidate his hold on the regime. After all, there were a lot of competing people who were trying to get into his shoes earlier or other Khameneis' shoes earlier. This is not a smooth transition of a takeover. It's through war. And this is the third phase. Iran itself is a divided country. Whoever succeeds Khamenei, how the elected person consolidates this whole story is going to be interesting. And as this political story is unwinding, the war is still going on. The war is still going on. It's only been 24 hours since this whole story happened. We don't know where this is going to end or how this is going to go.”

Regarding the endgame of the US,  Lieutenant General Shankar said,” When the US and Israel struck Iran, what was the endgame in their mind? They've spoken about regime change, but no one seems to be willing to field boots on the ground, so to speak. Both scenarios are quite chaotic. One scenario is this regime hobbles along, right, with the regime change and all that. And they continue to resist the USA.”

Regarding the US's wants, General Shankar mentions” a regime change so that the nukes can be destroyed, the missiles can be destroyed, right, the missile stockpile of Iran can be destroyed, and third, all the oil can be controlled by the USA. These three things have to be achieved politically. The strikes by the USA are a means to effect regime change. They have assassinated Khamenei, and Trump has given a call for the street to come and take over. So whether that will happen or not, it is to be seen.”

But if that doesn't happen, General Shankar mentions, “then Mojtaba Khamenei will continue to resist the USA. It might stop now, restart, so this will go in one direction. The other direction is that a new regime comes in and is installed by the USA. Even that regime will have difficulty surviving. Iran is a divided nation. But in the process, what Trump will do is use a Venezuelan model. He will leave whoever is in charge to handle the internal situation. Trump will get hold of the oil and control the oil, so that the USA controls the petrodollar and the oil market.”

He highlights that China will be the loser if the complete oil production in this area goes under the US control, and China will have to buy oil at market prices. If it has to buy at market prices, it loses economically. It's being forced to buy oil from Venezuela at market prices, from Iran at market prices. That means if it wants to continue with its own story, it has to continue buying discounted prices from Russia, and Russia might not do that tomorrow. 

On being asked about Russia, Lieutenant General Shankar highlights, “Russia will not lose because it has taken a balanced position of not helping Iran. It can't help Iran because there are a lot of Jews who are Russian in Israel. So, they're not taking sides against Israel. Putin wants to jump onto the dollar bandwagon. The great equation with China, an alternative to the dollar, and all have vanished, and they want to get onto the dollar. And there are problems Putin is facing internally, and there are problems between China and Russia.”

Watch the full podcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clTtHznYSmY

Chakra Desk

Chakra News is a specialised digital media platform committed to in-depth coverage of India’s defence, national security, geopolitics, and critical technologies.