Elliott Abrams

His father and his father's predecessor, the Ayatollah Khomeini,

were able to give orders, including to the Revolutionary Guard, and those orders were followed.

This guy is, I think, not going to be able to do that.

I think power moves more towards the Revolutionary Guard, and it is much more, I think, of a military dictatorship than a theocracy.

In that sense, I think the religious legitimacy of the regime is diminished.

But it's still in power, fully in power.

And it ends the war, I think, with complete control of the country.

That's not to say that the population, people of Iran, support it, want it.

I think there's a lot of riddance they don't.

But for the moment, if you will, the bad guys are in charge.

I think very strong.

I would state one caveat, which is, I don't think we have any idea how to judge when a regime is about to fall.

If you think back, the fall of the Soviet Union, the fall of Ceausescu in Romania, the fall of Ben Ali in Tunisia, the fall of Mubarak in Egypt, Assad in Syria, how many of those were actually predicted?

Zero.

So, I would say the same thing about Iran.

But if you look at the country now, I think you'd have to say that the hold of the Revolutionary Guard Corps on the government, on the army, on the ministries, and on the population is very strong.

I guess there are two questions there.

One is, why is the hold of the regime, the government, so strong?

And why is the hold of the Revolutionary Guard so strong within it?

As to the first, it's a sort of classic, very strong dictatorship.