How Is the Iranian Regime Still Standing? Because They've Had 47 Years to Plot Their 'Roach Infestation'

• Aziz Nasir‑Zadeh — Minister of Defence
  • One of the highest‑ranking cabinet officials eliminated on Day 1.
• Ali Shamkhani — Senior Security Adviser & Secretary of the Defence Council
  • A major strategic figure and longtime power broker.
• Abd al‑Rahim Mousavi — Chief of the General Staff of the Iranian Army
  • Iran’s top uniformed military officer.
• Mohammad Fakhpour — Commander, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)
  • One of the most consequential military losses for Iran.
• Jalali Pour Hossein — Head of Espionage Directorate, Intelligence Ministry
• Bahram Hosseni Motlaq — Chief of Operations & Planning, Iranian Armed Forces
• Mohsen Darreh‑Baghi — Head of Supply, Logistics & Industrial Research Directorate
• Hassan Ali Tajib — Head of Supply Department, Iranian Armed Forces
• Seyed Yahya Hamdi — Deputy Minister of Intelligence for Israeli Affairs
• Mohammad Shirazi — Head of the Supreme Leader’s Military Bureau
• Akhr Ebrahim Zadeh — Acting Head of Khamenei’s Military Bureau
• Saieh Asadi — Chief of Intelligence Directorate, Khatam al‑Anbiya Emergency Command
• Ali Larijani — Head of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council

It’s actually stunning to see a visual representation:

🚨
Khamenei – gone
Larijani – gone
Shamkhani – gone
Mousavi (Gen Staff) – gone
Pakpour (IRGC) – gone
Soleimani (Basij) – gone
Aziz Nasirzadeh (Defense) – gone
Asadi (Intel) – gone
Hossein Salami (IRGC) – gone
Hajizadeh – gone
Shekian (Air Defense) – gone
Bagheri (Gen Staff) –… pic.twitter.com/UwEo0ik5uH

— FalconUpdatesHQ (@FalconUpdatesHQ) March 17, 2026

The tally of military targets taken out is equally lengthy.

So how is the Iranian regime still functioning — and who is at the controls?

Turns out, Iran is a multi-headed snake, and there is not one person acting as “commander in chief” at the moment. They’ve had 47 years to plan for eventualities such as they’re seeing now. In the civilized world, we prepare for our deaths by creating wills and trusts, making sure our offspring benefit from the hard work we did when we were alive.

If you’re a mullah, though, you plan your demise by ensuring that your descendants and your sycophants can continue to carry out your terroristic, repressive vision. The key to their survival: decentralization.

When Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Tehran had spent two decades studying US wars to build a system that could keep fighting even if the capital was bombed, he was describing more than resilience; he was outlining the logic of Iran’s defence doctrine.

At the centre of that doctrine is what Iranian military thinkers call “decentralised mosaic defence” – a concept built on one core assumption: that in any war with the United States or Israel, Iran may lose senior commanders, key facilities, communications networks and even centralised control, but must still be able to keep fighting.

To wit, many Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commanders don’t need to wait for approval from some far-off leader; if the country is hit, they have a set of pre-approved targets which they can strike under their own authority if leadership has been taken out.

They don’t need to wait for the next ayatollah to be announced (and subsequently killed by Israeli airstrikes); they can act on their own accord.

We've had two decades to study defeats of the U.S. military to our immediate east and west. We've incorporated lessons accordingly.

Bombings in our capital have no impact on our ability to conduct war. Decentralized Mosaic Defense enables us to decide when—and how—war will end. pic.twitter.com/E4jrdnDapb

— Seyed Abbas Araghchi (@araghchi) March 1, 2026

Meanwhile, the regime has many proxies who are more than willing to take up the cause:

Iran has long relied on proxy militias and armed groups across the Middle East to extend its influence. Through a network of non-state actors, Tehran is indirectly capable of harassing enemies, shaping regional conflicts, and deterring attacks on Iran itself.

This proxy system—dubbed the “Axis of Resistance” by Iranian leaders—includes groups in Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen, and elsewhere. In response to Operation Epic Fury, Iran’s proxy network has gone active along multiple fronts, but so far with uneven intensity. 

They will fight on, even when Iranian leadership is foundering:

Iran’s proxy strategy emerged after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, as a method to export its revolutionary ideology while simultaneously countering regional rivals and Western influence. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), particularly the elite Quds Force, became the primary organization responsible for building and maintaining these proxy relationships. Indeed, the IRGC was envisioned from its inception as a private military force devoted to spreading Iran’s theocratic ideology, rather than a defense force for Iran itself. The absence of the word “Iran” within the IRGC’s name is no accident.

Meanwhile, you might think to yourself, why doesn’t the Iranian populace simply take to the streets and overthrow these savages? Unfortunately, that’s easier said than done. We may have lopped the head off their military, but we haven’t yet unalived the countries’ vicious internal patrollers: the FARAJA (Police Command of the Islamic Republic of Iran), the Basij (Paramilitary Force under IRGC), or the IRGC themselves, who many feel are now in control of the country.

Together, these and other repressive outfits have shown no compunction about killing their own citizens, and up to 30,000 may have been slaughtered in the January protests. Before Khamenei met his maker courtesy of Operation Epic Fury, he had issued a shoot-to-kill order against demonstrators of the regime, a policy that is still in place.

It’s hard to protest when you’re dead.

The heartbroken cries of the mother of Amirhossein and Ahmadreza Feizi two brothers (aged 19 and 15) who were gunned down by IRGC on the evening of March 1 just for honking their car horn to celebrate the news of Ali Khamenei's death.#DigitalBlackOutIran‌ pic.twitter.com/r7HqlhNiMb

— 🇮🇷 مایه خال (@Mayekhal) March 16, 2026

Crowds reportedly gather in parts of Tehran as tensions rise.

Protests have been ongoing in Iran, though recent reporting shows heavy crackdowns and limited confirmed large-scale anti-government rallies right now. pic.twitter.com/lQukQb4NJy

— Brandon Straka #WalkAway (@BrandonStraka) March 18, 2026

None of this is meant to say that we can’t defeat this enemy, or remove the scourge of Iranian extremism from the face of the earth. It’s merely to point out that it’s not as easy as simply eliminating top leadership. Just because someone is evil doesn’t mean they’re dumb. The regime and the IRGC are like roaches; you stamp out one, and all of a sudden there’s another.

You smoke out one nest; you soon discover the next. (Forgive the simile; I’ve lived in New York City and I know of such things.)

But a roach infestation can be destroyed. It takes time, patience, ingenuity, and skill — all qualities we have here in abundance in the United States.

The job won’t be easy, because important jobs never are. But as much of what I described above shows, these are subhumans people who should never, ever get their hands on a nuclear weapon.

Trump is the only president since 1979 who stopped talking and started doing (unless you count Jimmy Carter’s failed attempt to rescue the hostages), and although the road will be rocky, it’s a path that we had to take. 

If it wasn’t now, it was “someday,” and that “someday” may have been far too late.