The US and Israel continue to bomb Iran after the death of its supreme leader. At the same time, Iran has been firing its own missiles into neighboring Gulf states and parts of the Middle East in retaliation.
With both sides vowing to move on, people are questioning whether a broader regional conflict is possible and what’s next for Iran after Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in Saturday’s attack.
“If you don’t put boots on the ground, (US President) Donald Trump thinks the Iranian Revolutionary Guard is going to hand over its weapons,” wonders John Allen, a senior fellow at the University of Toronto’s Bill Graham Center for Contemporary International History. “Regime change? In the air.”
On Sunday, Trump called on Iran’s Revolutionary Guard and military police to lay down their arms or face death.
The new leadership council has already begun its work, Iranian President Massoud Pezheshkian said in a pre-recorded message. The country’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, said a new supreme leader would be chosen “in a day or two”.
With its leader gone, experts say, the administration aims to portray a sense of “stability and continuity” but instability is likely behind the scenes.
“(The regime) will do its best to retaliate as much as it can in order to do two things,” said Ross Harrison, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute in Washington, DC.
“This is really a fight for the regime’s survival and the regime will do as much damage as it can in order to change the calculus of its adversaries.”
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He told Global News that there will be “more of this” in the coming days, and that Iran will accelerate its attacks on Israel, hoping to inflict more damage with missiles that make it through that country’s “Iron Dome” defenses. He said more attacks would be against US bases and assets in the region, as well as Israel.
However, protesters across the country continued to protest on Saturday, celebrating Khamenei’s death.
Determining the end of the regime is difficult, but Berku Ojcelik with the Royal United Services Institute said there is at least one possible target.
“The goal is to try to create the conditions on the ground inside Iran so that an alternative government can emerge for a period of transition until Iran achieves some level of stabilization.”
The US and Israel accused the US and Israel of showing no let-up in their efforts, with Israel saying on Sunday that there would be a “non-stop air train” of strikes against Iranian military and leadership targets.
Trump said heavy bombing would continue “uninterrupted throughout the week or as long as needed.”
Iddo Moed, Israel’s ambassador to Canada, told Global News that the goal of the operation was to eliminate “existential threats” from Iran. But he said aid could be provided to the Iranians to help with regime change.
“I think we can talk about ways to support the Iranians, perhaps, to create regime change,” he said. “This is for the people of Iran, and this is the message that Prime Minister (Benjamin) Netanyahu made clear the other day, that we want to see a peaceful Iran living side by side with the rest of the region.”
Iranian-Canadian journalist Nezer Mojtahedi said the US-Israel operation was something to behold. The operation is expected to unfold in phases, he said.
“Number one, behead the leadership of the administration,” he told Global News. “The second is to weaken the regime’s military defense capability, so it cannot retaliate as forcefully as it would like.”
Mojtahedi said phase three would see an attempt to destroy Iran’s economy and the fourth would allow the Iranian people to take over the country.
In his opening announcement about the campaign by the US and Israel, Trump called on Iranians to stand up and “take down” their government.
He reiterated that call on Satya Social on Sunday.
“I call on all bright patriots yearning for freedom to seize this moment to be brave, courageous, heroic, and take back your country,” Trump said. “America is with you. I made a promise to you and I’ve kept that promise. The rest is up to you, but we’re here to help.”
Trump did not explain how the US would help.
–With files from Global News’ Jeff Semple, Jen Palma and Jazan Grewal-Pabla
© 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
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