When the Islamic Republic begins to crack, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps will not simply watch the rubble fall. It will move – methodically, opportunistically, and with plans already rehearsed – to ensure that the regime does not truly end, but merely changes costume.

This is not a conjecture born of cynicism. It is the institutional logic of a revolutionary guard that was built to outlast individuals, to protect the architecture of power rather than the face on the posters, and to treat every political rupture as an opening for reinvention.

The IRGC was not created as a conventional military formation. It was designed as the regime’s guarantor: an armed ideology with its own intelligence organs, its own patronage and procurement networks, and its own commercial empire. It has spent decades perfecting a survival doctrine that can be stated plainly: if the center wobbles, tighten the perimeter; if legitimacy collapses, manufacture necessity; if the public turns, make the alternative appear worse. The Guard’s greatest fear is not losing an election. It is losing indispensability.

This is why the most dangerous phase of Iran’s struggle may not be the uprising itself, but the moment when the IRGC begins to enact its contingency plans. As “Rome” burns – when the streets swell, the clerical class panics, and the bureaucracy hesitates – many commanders will seek to approach the opposition and feign a late conversion to patriotism. They will arrive with trembling voices and carefully chosen phrases: fear for the country, concern for stability, horror at violence they previously administered. They will offer cooperation. They will plead for “order.” They........

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