Is the Islamic Republic on the edge of the abyss?
Author: Muhammad Qadir Misbah, regional affairs expert (Afghanistan, Germany)
Political realism suggests a simple truth: when a leader understands that leaving power means prison, extradition, or being handed over to enemies, the space for compromise or retreat effectively disappears. In such conditions, the option of stepping aside no longer exists.
Venezuela offers a telling example. The prospect of Nicolás Maduro’s arrest and his removal from power placed pressure not only on him personally but on the entire ruling elite. Other officials found themselves transformed into actors with nothing left to lose. From that point on, the survival of individual leaders became inseparably tied to the survival of the regime itself. It was precisely at this moment that a policy of external pressure unintentionally turned into a policy of forcing leaders to cling to power at all costs.
Applying this experience to Iran carries even deeper implications. Unlike Venezuela, Iran’s power structure is multi-layered but highly securitized. A significant portion of the ruling elite does not envision its future in political retirement, but in legal immunity. Any explicit threat of prosecution, arrest, or international legal pursuit sends a clear message: losing power means losing freedom.
From the perspective of regime survival theory, such a message produces the opposite of its intended effect. Rather than creating internal fractures, it fosters cohesion; instead of encouraging flexibility, it generates rigidity. Just as Venezuela’s military and security institutions concluded that Maduro’s fall would trigger a chain of arrests, a similar threat in Iran could lead mid-level elites and security actors to conclude that no future exists for them outside the system.
The human security consequences of this approach are equally severe. When leaders perceive themselves to be under judicial siege, governance logic shifts from crisis management to emergency survival. Society is no longer viewed primarily as a body of citizens, but as a security variable. Social protest is redefined as an existential threat, and repression is framed not as a choice but as a necessity. This logic has already resulted in tens of thousands of victims. Venezuela’s experience demonstrated that targeting leadership figures personally did not reduce popular suffering; instead, it entrenched and prolonged the humanitarian crisis.
When Donald Trump today invokes the Maduro precedent, the underlying message is precisely this: turning a political crisis into an arrest-centered strategy does not create a viable political exit and may, in fact, be dangerous. In international relations, effective policy preserves an exit option. Leaders who see a way out may negotiate; leaders who see prison ahead will resist until the very end. This pattern has repeated itself time and again — from Panama to Libya, from Venezuela to numerous other cases.
Applied to Iran, this means that any strategy openly focused on prosecution, arrest, or the total removal of its leadership reduces the chances of a low-cost transition and increases the likelihood of radicalization within the ruling structure. As even Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has recently implied, this argument is not a defense of the regime. It is a cold, yet fundamentally human, description of a reality in international politics: when those in power believe their future holds nothing but downfall and imprisonment, they are prepared to drag society with them to the edge of the abyss.
Put more plainly, the Maduro case teaches that justice without politics can lead to the paralysis of politics itself. If the objective is to reduce human suffering and open a horizon for change, threatening the arrest of leaders — whether in Venezuela or Iran — more often closes pathways than opens them. This is the lesson Trump, consciously or unconsciously, points to when he recalls the Venezuelan experience.
What remains to be seen is which option will ultimately be chosen following the latest deliberations among U.S. working groups and national security advisers.
