U.S. President Donald Trump has shifted his stance regarding Iran, moving from calls for the Iranian people to overthrow their government to dismissing regime change as unnecessary, and even claiming that Iran’s new leaders are “less radical and much more reasonable” than their predecessors.

“This has been, in addition to everything else, Regime Change!” Trump declared in a social media post on Monday.

Despite the changes in leadership within the Iranian regime following the February 28 strikes that resulted in the deaths of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and other senior figures, igniting a conflict, analysts see no genuine indications that the current leaders are any less severe or rigid than those they succeeded.

According to various Iran experts, the nation’s new leadership is predominantly composed of militaristic hardliners who show little inclination to offer concessions to the U.S., pursue peace with Israel, or grant greater freedoms to the Iranian populace.

A Far More Hardline Regime

Andreas Krieg, an associate professor in the Defence Studies Department of King’s College London, asserts that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) now holds unprecedented sway in Iran, wielding more power than ever before.

“The IRGC is now robustly and solidly in power,” Krieg informed CBC News.

“We’re witnessing a regime that is considerably more hardline, less forgiving, and less pragmatic,” he added.

Krieg describes the IRGC’s transformation from a parallel military supporting Iran’s clerical leadership after the 1979 Islamic revolution into an all-encompassing force that controls governance, state power, and a significant portion of the nation’s economy.

He further noted that the conflict with the U.S. and Israel has only hastened this transition “away from a theocratic, religious, ideological regime to one that is more run like a military dictatorship.”

New Leadership Unreceptive to Dissent

Annika Ganzeveld, a Middle East specialist with the Critical Threats Project of the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think-tank in Washington, D.C., observes that the IRGC’s role in Tehran’s decision-making has become even more prominent since before the war.

“There is no indication, unfortunately, that the new leadership is any more open to political opposition or dissent from the Iranian population,” Ganzeveld told CBC News.

Analysts contend that the U.S.-Israel strategy of eliminating Iran’s top officials and targeting numerous military sites has not succeeded in dismantling the political framework supporting the regime.

Simply put, the destruction of military assets did not equate to the collapse of the system maintaining the regime’s authority.

Evidence for this is apparent not only in the regime’s conduct of the war and its approach to ceasefire negotiations but also in its domestic actions.

Indications suggest that the Islamic regime’s enduring suppression of political dissent within Iran has intensified since the U.S. and Israel initiated the conflict. A report by the New York City-based Center for Human Rights in Iran documented at least 1,500 arbitrary arrests by security forces in March alone.

Iran Now a ‘Military Dictatorship,’ Academic States

Reports from various news outlets with internal Iranian sources indicate that the regime has orchestrated large-scale pro-government demonstrations, deployed pro-regime militias to patrol streets as a display of force, and continued the execution of dissidents.

Abbas Milani, director of Iranian Studies at Stanford University, suggests that while the IRGC controls the country, its crackdown is driven by fear of its own populace.

“I think Iran is now, in every sense of the word, a military dictatorship,” Milani stated last week on the Hoover Institution’s GoodFellows podcast.

In a commentary, Daniel Byman, a director of the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, wrote that “The war has tilted the balance of power toward more hardline elements within the Iranian political system.”

Analysts also highlight Tehran’s wartime targeting of energy production sites in Gulf states, marking an escalation from its prior focus on Israel.

Vali Nasr, a professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies and a veteran adviser on Iran to U.S. administrations, notes that the new regime has demonstrated less restraint in its recent military operations compared to the past.

Real Power Rests with Security Forces

“The people who are on top in Iran are much more extreme, both given their history of how they’ve handled the people inside Iran, and also the way in which they believe that Iran should wage war,” Nasr explained to NPR.

While much attention has been directed towards Mojtaba Khamenei and his presumed succession of his late father as supreme leader, analysts assert that actual power in Iran is held by pivotal figures within the security forces.

The two most influential figures identified are Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr, the new head of Iran’s National Security Council, and Ahmad Vahidi, the new commander-in-chief of the IRGC.

Zolghadr is known as a founder of the notorious Quds Force, the IRGC branch responsible for training and funding Iran’s foreign proxy militias.

Vahidi, a former commander of the Quds Force, was implicated by Argentinian prosecutors in a 1994 bomb attack on a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires that claimed 85 lives.

The backgrounds of both individuals suggest that Iran is unlikely to pursue liberal reforms or a rapprochement with its adversaries.

Implications for Peace Talks

The IRGC’s hold on power is further solidified by the belief that Khamenei is incapacitated following the strike that killed his father, as he has not made any televised appearances since the war commenced.

These developments carry significant implications for the fragile peace talks between Iran and the U.S.

“Vahidi and those around him are certainly just as anti-United States, anti-Israel as their predecessors,” Ganzeveld asserted.

Friction has reportedly emerged between these two hardliners and their appointed negotiators for talks with the U.S. in Islamabad—Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and the speaker of Iran’s parliament, Mohammad Ghalibaf.

Following initial indications of willingness during peace talks in Islamabad to consider U.S. terms regarding its nuclear enrichment program and free passage through the Strait of Hormuz, Iran’s negotiators seem to have been instructed to adopt a more rigid stance.

“Araghchi and Ghalibaf, at the end of the day, don’t seem to have the authority to independently determine Iran’s negotiating positions and to determine whether Tehran would adhere to or honour any kind of agreement they reach with the U.S.,” Ganzeveld concluded.

Trump, in a social media post on Tuesday, interpreted this situation as a sign of a “seriously fractured” Iranian government, announcing an extension of the ceasefire until the regime presents a new proposal.

Krieg, however, states that the reality is Iran’s new leaders possess non-negotiable red lines, including the right to enrich uranium for civilian applications like nuclear power generation or medical isotope production.

“The Americans have to understand that the maximalist positions that they brought to the negotiation table will unlikely bring about a deal,” he cautioned.