Islamic Republic close to collapse in Iran, civil war possible: report

The winds of change could soon blow on Iran, according to a new report.The Islamic Republic is facing collapse, indicates the report, issued by UK-based Henry Jackson Society this week, as the UN accuses Tehran of executing nearly 900 people already this year “as a tool of intimidation.”If the Islamic Republic falls, “there is a danger that regime collapse could lead to a vacuum of governance that is accompanied by civil war,” according to the findings.“This is an outcome that must be avoided at all costs for the Iranian people, and every step must therefore be made to ensure that any transition is quick and painless,” it added.The current Iranian regime “remains wedded to the Iranian revolution,” according to the report.It added that the Ayatollah’s regime is committed to “reconstituting its nuclear program and exporting terrorism both regionally and internationally makes it an ongoing danger to the West.”Targeted attacks launched by Israel with the US in June on Iranian nuclear sites “set back the regime,” the report said, but “it has not eliminated the strategic and security threats posed by the regime.”It appears to support the Iranian opposition instead, as it is “culturally liberal and yearns for freedom,” but concedes the Islamic Republic’s “ability to coopt and quell the opposition creates for itself greater risk as cultural opposition and economic discontent inform one another.”“This offers a greater prospect of galvanizing the Iranian opposition if there is a plan for the day after as opposed to a vacuum of governance,” the report added.“And in so doing, it contains the best prescription for both resolving the threat the Iranian regime poses to the international community, and to its own people.”...