Even a large-scale military assault against the Islamic Republic of Iran would be unlikely to oust the regime and its armed forces, The Washington Post reported on Saturday, citing a classified National Intelligence Council report.
The Post noted, however, that the National Intelligence Council report was completed a week before the war broke out last Saturday.
The publication of the report comes days after US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on Wednesday that the US had “only just begun” to dismantle the Iranian regime’s capabilities.
US President Donald Trump told NBC News the following day that the US wanted to ensure a new future of governance for Iran by going in to “clean out everything.”
According to The Post, the report outlined succession scenarios for Iran’s leadership, either amid limited strikes on senior officials or as part of a larger campaign. People familiar with the report told The Washington Post that, in either case, Iran’s military and political echelon would respond to the killing of now former supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei by enacting pre-arranged protocols in order to retain power, and that the odds that Iranian opposition could seize control of the country were “unlikely.”
An Iranian flag is planted in the rubble of a police station, damaged in airstrikes yesterday, on March 3, 2026 in Tehran, Iran. (credit: Majid Saeedi/Getty Images)
The National Intelligence Council is comprised of senior analysts and national security policy experts who, according to the body, serve as a “bridge between the intelligence and policy communities.”
The Post, however, noted that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, under which the National Intelligence Council serves, declined to comment and that the council’s report did not seem to consider alternative scenarios, including the deployment of US troops into Iran or the launch of a rebellion within the country by the Kurds in Iran.
Unclear if operation considered in report is identical to current US military action
Additionally, The Post noted that it is unclear whether the large-scale operation examined by the report was the same as the operations that began last Saturday.
Further, while according to The Post, the report outlines succession scenarios, in the week since the killing of Khamenei, the Islamic Republic, under continuous US and Israeli bombardment, has yet to select a new supreme leader.
Khamenei’s succession is set to be determined by Iran’s 88-member Assembly of Experts, a clerical body that has been suspected of favoring the late supreme leader’s son, Mojtaba Khamenei, to fill the role.
However, the selection process has been complicated, and on Tuesday, the IDF targeted the building where the Assembly of Experts was meeting to choose the next leader. Iranian news agencies reported that the building was “flattened” in the strikes.
On Friday, Trump issued a demand for Iran’s “unconditional surrender,” a demand he later clarified in an interview with Axios would be fulfilled by the total destruction of its military capabilities, rather than a formal surrender.
On Saturday, the president asserted that Iran would “be hit very hard” that day.
Still, no internal uprising in Iran has so far challenged the regime. Earlier this year, in response to nationwide protests, the Iranian government cracked down on demonstrations, killing an estimated tens of thousands of people.
“There’s no other force within Iran that can confront the remaining power that the regime has,” Suzanne Maloney, an Iran scholar and vice president of the Brookings Institution, told The Post. “Even if they’re not able to project that power very effectively against their neighbors, they can certainly dominate inside the country.”
