India, March 5 -- Following the killing of Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in the opening salvos of a devastating military campaign by the US and Israel, his son Mojtaba has reportedly been anointed as successor. It raises a fundamental question whether the Islamic Republic, which is at its weakest point since its formation, can carry on amid mounting internal unrest and relentless external attacks?

It is worth recalling that Iran's system of rule of clerics under Khamenei's mentor and Shia religious authority, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, was the outcome of a mass revolution in 1979 that overthrew a US- and Israel-backed absolute monarchy. Today, the boot is on the other foot, and the revolutionary regime is tottering und...