David E. Sanger

So we're going to have to look for indicators.

There's lots of reason for enthusiasm right now.

There are people on the streets in Tehran and elsewhere celebrating the reports that Khamenei is dead.

But we also saw people celebrating in the streets in Iraq right after the liberation of Iraq by U.S.

forces.

And you know what happened there.

So it's important not to overread

what you're going to be seeing in the next 24 or 48 hours as the country comes to terms with the fact that there is a transition of some kind in the offing.

Rachel, I think there's every possibility that it could.

The rumors we were hearing at that time was that the Ayatollah had planned down four levels, depending on who was killed, right?

So we're about to discover how brittle this regime is and whether it's got the resilience to bounce back from what was clearly a huge blow and one they probably should have prepared for better.

You know, President Trump, in talking about this, is not discussing a very protracted operation.

He said on Saturday, when some reporters put the question to him, that he thinks he might just pause after a couple of days, particularly now that Khamenei is dead.

But, you know, the key to this for President Trump is that the U.S.

is not sending in ground troops and therefore he tells his MAGA base this isn't going to be a forever war or at least not one in which the U.S.

is taking casualties.

But, of course, without boots on the ground, you don't have very much control over what happens.

You know, in modern history, I can't think of an example in which we've brought about regime change and certainly one in which we've managed to control it with simply air power.

You know, at the core of your question, Rachel, is one of the great unknowns, which is can Iran learn anything from Venezuela?

And is the Venezuela example one that would even apply in a country of 92 million people?