@EvanWritesOnX:

"Anyone not paying attention, 

the IRGC has been systematically decapitated. 

Soleimani (2020). 

Salami (June 2025). 

Now Pakpour, the defence minister, and multiple intelligence chiefs, all in a single morning. 

This is the sequential elimination of every IRGC leader capable of consolidating independent military power. 

What remains of the IRGC after today is an institution with enormous assets but no unified command chain.

The pragmatist faction was pre-positioned. 

Pezeshkian survived the June 2025 strikes. Araghchi was in Geneva 48 hours ago with “sufficient support and authority” to negotiate a comprehensive deal. 

Shamkhani himself, Khamenei’s senior adviser, publicly stated that the terms align with Khamenei’s own fatwa against nuclear weapons. 

The civilian-diplomatic apparatus was already authorised to make the concessions. 

The only question was whether the hardliner security apparatus would permit it.

That apparatus just got destroyed.

I think now, 

Iran’s succession will produce a collective leadership dominated by the pragmatist faction, likely with Ali Larijani or a figure of similar profile as the transitional authority. Larijani is an Iranian nationalist, not an Islamist ideologue. 

He has bureaucratic competence, global fluency, and the institutional relationships to hold the system together. 

The IRGC will be represented but not dominant. 

The new leadership’s first act will be to accept the ceasefire and signal willingness to resume talks,
not because they’ve surrendered, but because the structural obstacles to the deal (hardliner veto power) have been physically removed.

The narrative Iran will tell its own people: 

“The Supreme Leader was martyred. Our commanders were martyred. We struck back at every American base in the region. We closed Hormuz. We proved our strength. And now, from a position of defiance and sacrifice, we choose peace, not because we are weak, but because we honour the blood of our martyrs by securing Iran’s future.”

This narrative works. 

It is the only narrative that can hold Iran together domestically while executing the pivot that Geneva already outlined.

The war was not about Iran alone. 

Remember this. 

It was about reconfiguring the entire Middle Eastern security and economic architecture.

We are going to see formal bilateral security pact within 12 months, a framework for mutual non-aggression, trade normalisation, and coordination on energy pricing within OPEC. 

Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 requires regional stability. Iran’s economic survival requires GCC investment. 

The incentives are perfectly aligned.

Israel’s political system will reset.

Netanyahu claimed his “existential threat” victory. Whether he survives politically or not is secondary, his coalition is already finished. 

What matters structurally is that Israel’s freedom of unilateral military action becomes constrained within the new regional architecture. 

The GCC states that absorbed Iranian missiles today are not going to tolerate another round. 

The price of US-Israeli military cooperation going forward will be integration into a framework that includes Arab security guarantees, and limitations on Israeli operations that destabilise the neighbourhood.

The post-Netanyahu government, whatever its composition, will negotiate its entry into a broader regional normalisation framework, building on the Abraham Accords but now including Saudi Arabia and potentially a post-Khamenei Iran.

I’ve said this before. The day is coming where Iran and Israel normalize. 

The GCC will become the centre of gravity. 

This is the most important structural outcome. 

Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, and Oman emerge from this crisis as the indispensable diplomatic, economic, and energy brokers of the region. 

They absorbed the strikes. They preserved the mediating channels. They pre-positioned the oil supply. They will host the reconstruction.

…

The GCC’s sovereign wealth funds PIF, ADIA, QIA, KIA; will be the primary vehicles for post-war economic integration. 

Expect Iranian infrastructure contracts awarded to GCC-linked consortiums. 

Expect joint energy ventures. 

Expect Iranian BRICS participation to be channelled through GCC financial architecture. 

The Gulf states don’t just broker the peace, they own the peace.

China’s role expands quietly. 

Beijing brokered the original Saudi-Iran deal. 

It is the largest buyer of Iranian oil. 

It has no interest in a destroyed Iran or an unstable Gulf. 

Expect China to co-guarantee the nuclear deal, provide investment capital for Iranian reconstruction, and use the settlement to deepen its Belt and Road integration through the Persian Gulf corridor. 

The US gets the military victory narrative. 

China gets the economic position.

The TPS gets the joint venture deals."