Dr. Hamza Alakaleek

While the world was glued to radar screens during the 12-day war in the summer of 2025, a team of scientists and former Unit 8200 officers were busy building a digital oracle. This system didn’t read palms; it read the collective cognitive patterns of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) generals. The leaked results were more than mere statistics—they functioned as a death certificate for traditional theocracy in Iran.

Simulations conducted by the firm AskIt revealed a startling shift: 70% of Iran’s shadow leaders have implicitly withdrawn their confidence from the turban in favor of the military suit. The moment missiles fell over Isfahan, the Iranian general no longer viewed the Wilayat al-Faqih (Guardianship of the Jurist) as a protective umbrella, but as an ideological burden. This is not mere prophecy; it is sociophysics—a science that studies human behavior with the same fluid dynamics used to track rivers. When external pressure intensifies, the river of power flows toward the most solid point. In Iran, that point is the military establishment.

Perhaps most shocking was the marginalization of Mojtaba Khamenei, the ambitious son often portrayed as the natural successor. The AI viewed him as a symbol of stagnant continuity, whereas real and virtual generals now demand crisis competency.

Can we trust a digital oracle? Technology does not determine the future with absolute certainty, but it opens a window into the subconscious of closed systems. In 2026, the question is no longer Who will succeed Khamenei? but How will the generals manage without religious cover?

The shift from human intuition to algorithmic analysis—driven by Big Data—redefines political truth. Advanced models like Verstand AI process billions of transactions and speeches in milliseconds to extract patterns invisible to the human eye. This probabilistic decision-making has shown a 55.8% improvement in predicting market reactions to political shocks compared to traditional economic models (like GARCH). AI can link a subtle shift in an official’s tone to a logistical move in the port of Bushehr to predict imminent military escalation.

In autocratic systems like Iran, leaders live under immense pressure to display absolute loyalty publicly while harboring radically different private convictions. AI bypasses the official propaganda by not asking a leader what they think, but by simulating their behavior based on professional history, behavioral architecture, and the specific pressures they face.

Practical examples support this reliability. Prior to the invasion of Ukraine, commercial AI tracked unusual Russian financial and logistical data, predicting the attack weeks before political assessments that dismissed the military option. Similarly, the AskIt experiment showed that the thinking patterns of virtual leaders matched the IRGC's real-world behavior during the 2025 conflict, where the military seized decision-making nodes the moment the Supreme Leader was absent from the scene.

On paper, the Iranian Constitution dictates that the Assembly of Experts chooses the next leader. However, in the reality of 2026, this assembly—currently headed by the 92-year-old Mohammadi-Kermani—has become a mere facade for decisions made in the IRGC's closed rooms.

Simulations suggest that a Military Leadership Council is the most likely outcome for the initial transition. This council may install a weak religious figurehead (a second-tier Ayatollah) to maintain a veneer of legitimacy, while actual power remains with figures like Mohammad Pakpour and Ali Shamkhani.

The question for 2026 is no longer if AI will influence political decisions, but how we manage this digital consultant to ensure its accuracy. Iran, with its closed system and deep structural shifts, remains the ultimate laboratory for these technologies. The data is clear: the future in Tehran belongs to the generals.