Yep, and that would be good for us. Unless we intervened and gave South Azerbaijan full autonomy/independence (won't happen with our current government, don't keep your hopes up), the second best scenario is to keep the regime.I think the U.S. assumed that the regime would collapse once Khamenei died. It’s now clear that things will be very different from Venezuela. Most likely, after a few weeks of bombardment, a ceasefire will be declared, and Iran will carry on from where it left off