What will Iran look like in one year? Eight guesses from foreign policy experts.

One week into the U.S.-Israeli war in Iran, some version of the current regime looks likely to survive. By every measure, the post-war Islamic Republic will be weaker and less capable of projecting power beyond its borders, but it’s also likely to become an even more volatile and repressive regime. Once again estranged from many of its neighbors, Iran’s post-war leaders will be even more dependent on lopsided relationships with Moscow and Beijing.

The war’s economic fallout will intensify the hardships faced by most Iranians, even as it benefits the regime’s elite. Iranian society will be traumatized by violence and loss from this conflict and the brutal repression that preceded it. The country may also become more polarized, between the sizable minority who remain the regime’s reliable base and the disenfranchised majority who aspire to a better future for their families and their country. Tragically, the war is likely to leave that pathway longer and steeper.

Suzanne Maloney is the vice president and director of the Foreign Policy Program at the Brookings Institution, where her research focuses on Iran and Persian Gulf energy.

“It’s tough to make predictions,” Yogi Berra famously declared. “Especially about the future.” With that admonition in mind, here’s one take on what Iran might look like a year from now:

The Iranian government has been transformed from a clerical regime to one led by security officials from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Raw power and control have replaced religious fervor. A brief civil conflict with Kurds and other ethnic minorities — which occurred after the U.S.-Israeli bombing stopped in May 2026 — ended with the slaughter of many and with the IRGC firmly in control. Repression rules in the name of national security — internal and external. The country remains deeply impoverished. The best and the brightest, including many young people, have left to find opportunities elsewhere.

But because Iran is exhausted and depleted, it has also sought accommodation with its neighbors, many of whom distanced themselves from the U.S. after its support for internal civil revolt. Having shed its religious fanaticism, Iran has become far less objectionable to its Arab neighbors. China is playing a major role in helping to rebuild the country — its ports, airfields and energy infrastructure — and gained access for its military in Iran’s Arabian Sea ports.

The regime itself is focused on one thing only: survival. It’s slowly but secretly rearming and rapidly seeking to become a nuclear power in order never again to have to face the kind of bombing campaign the U.S. and Israel were able to unleash a year earlier.

Ivo Daalder is a former U.S. ambassador to NATO and a senior fellow at Harvard’s Belfer Center.

It is virtually impossible to predict with any certainty what Iran will look like one year from now. Possible scenarios range from a balkanized country in the throes of civil conflict and chaos to a restored regime under the authority of a new supreme leader. Sadly, a democratic Iran under secular civil leadership will not emerge in a year. Instead, the most likely scenario is a rump regime ruling in Tehran. It will emerge from the remnants of Iran’s brutal military and security apparatus — angrier, more hardline and radical than its predecessor. This rump regime will be more nakedly military and authoritarian in nature. While a new supreme leader will be nominally in charge, an as yet undetermined — likely second or third tier — commander in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps will wield true power, much of the pretense of theocracy having fallen away. In short, Iran one year hence could be more dangerous and unyielding than the Iran of today.

Mona Yacoubian is director of the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

The death of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and the degradation of the Iranian security services have created an opening for change in Iran, but whether true change will occur is unclear. The Trump administration has been inconsistent in its statement of goals, veering from extreme support for Iranian protesters toward an apparent willingness to work with remaining regime elements. As the administration is likely to find with its dealmaking in Venezuela, such a deal with the devil will only provide the short-term illusion of stability.

An ideal scenario for Iran would involve free and fair elections, the release of all political prisoners, the end of imprisonment and torture for expressing political opinions and religious beliefs, and women as well as ethnic and religious minorities enjoying full and equal rights. These are not goals that can be achieved through external military force, but they are possible if U.S. and allied diplomatic and economic pressure is applied strategically to support the aspirations of the Iranian people.

At this moment, the Iranian people have a glimpse of a different future, one where fundamental rights and liberties are upheld for all. What the situation in Iran looks like a year from now is ultimately up to them.

Jamie Fly is the CEO of Freedom House.

I think the highest likelihood is that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps will be entrenched in power and brutally repressive of the Iranian people. First, because they’re the people with the guns and had no compunction about killing possibly upward of 30,000 of their fellow Iranians during the recent protests. And second, because President Donald Trump has said Venezuela is the model, and that means not assisting a representative government into power, but instead leaving the repressive regime in place. While the Trump administration has been inchoate in explaining its war aims, destruction without building something better appears to be its approach, which would be a terrible outcome for the people of Iran, whom Trump has encouraged to rebel.

Kori Schake is a senior fellow and the director of foreign and defense policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute.

No one can predict what Iran looks like one year from now, but shape-shifting U.S. objectives and Iran’s retaliatory response portend greater chaos and escalating civilian harm. There is little clarity about what outcome this unlawful military campaign is meant to produce, with U.S. goals oscillating from regime change to total surrender to hand-picking Iran’s next theocratic leader.

One week in, the Iranian people have had zero say in that outcome, and a majority of Americans oppose the war. Meanwhile, the conflict is widening, with Iran launching missiles and drones across and beyond the Gulf targeting U.S. allies, raising the risk of a broader regional war.

History shows that you can’t bomb your way to democracy and improved human rights or overcome entrenched repression via rhetorical calls for popular uprising. Without coherent policies that respect Iranians’ rights and international law and protect Iranian refugees, a freer future for Iran remains elusive.

Uzra Zeya is president and CEO at Human Rights First and former under secretary for civilian security, democracy and human rights at the State Department.

Carl von Clausewitz told us, “Everything in war is very simple, but the simplest thing is difficult. The difficulties accumulate and end by producing a kind of friction that is inconceivable unless one has experienced war.” Friction is apparent one week into this war as military action is not translating directly into political control. Instead, forecasting Iran’s trajectory requires separating territorial survival from state capacity. The most probable outcome, as the U.S. intelligence community predicted, is a return to the status quo ante, but with an even more degraded state apparatus. The government will likely retain control while losing further administrative capacity to resolve socioeconomic crises. Meanwhile, credible late-2025 polling in Iran indicates that while popular discontent regarding economic stagnation and political corruption runs high, territorial nationalism remains robust. A parallel issue centers on elite transformation. Analysts often assume external pressure inevitably alters factional dynamics toward the side of their protagonists. Instead, external threats provide conservative factions a mechanism to consolidate power. By leveraging defensive nationalism, conservative factions in Iran can again reframe transformation as treason, foreclosing avenues for internal change.

Kevan Harris is an associate professor of sociology at UCLA and the author of “A Social Revolution: Politics and the Welfare State in Iran.”

One year from now, the legacy of the U.S. and Israeli intervention in Iran will most certainly be lingering economic damage from physical destruction and lives lost in the widespread, sustained bombardment. Given the dramatic fall-off in humanitarian and development aid globally, the costs of recovery will likely be borne by the country itself. Moreover, the multiple and overlapping conflicts in the region will have wrought even wider destruction that will take years if not decades to repair, sowing mistrust and complicating efforts to build a stable and secure Middle East. As great power conflict continues to be the dominant global dynamic, the burden will fall on regional leaders to construct a new order through diplomacy and investment in people.

Linda Robinson is a senior fellow for women and foreign policy at the Council on Foreign Relations. She was previously a senior international researcher and director of the Center for Middle East Public Policy at the RAND Corporation.