What Has Kim Jong-un Seen in Iran? The No-Exit Dilemma of Absolute Power — A Warning from Iran, Venezuela, and Cuba to North Korea

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This article distinguishes between verified facts and analytical inference. Sections based on inference are clearly indicated as such.

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Introduction

On April 22, 2026, North Korean state media made a show of Kim Jong-un observing a test launch of a tactical ballistic missile fitted with cluster munition warheads. One could read it as a military signal. But I read something else in that footage.

Fear. And the bravado deployed to conceal it.

In Iran, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is crumbling under pressure from the United States and Israel. Venezuela is walking the road of capitulation. Cuba is slowly exhausting itself, having lost its patron. Kim Jong-un is watching all three of these scenes simultaneously.

What is he thinking?

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1. The IRGC's No-Exit Dilemma

The situation facing Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps is structurally inescapable.

Accepting U.S. demands would lift sanctions and allow economic recovery — but that very recovery would ignite the political demands of the Iranian people, who have been waiting to pass judgment on decades of violence and repression. Holding out, on the other hand, means economic strangulation and the complete alienation of the public. Provocation and escalation lead to military catastrophe.

No direction offers long-term survival. This is the inevitable consequence of a system that concentrated religious, political, military, and economic power in a single place.

The verified facts speak for themselves.

On February 28, 2026, a joint U.S.-Israeli airstrike killed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. His son Mojtaba assumed the position of Supreme Leader, but according to insiders, he does not issue orders — he ratifies decisions already made by IRGC generals.

A Pakistani mediator put it plainly: "Iran has no decision-making chain of command. Responses take two to three days." Trump's observation that "there is no one to negotiate with in Iran" has proven precisely accurate.

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2. How Did Khamenei Lose Power?

An important question follows: how did Khamenei — once an absolute ruler — come to cede power to the IRGC?

This is not a story unique to Iran.

In the beginning, Khamenei used the IRGC as a tool, controlling it through religious authority. Over time, the IRGC seized large portions of the Iranian economy, and extended its reach into politics and the military. Khamenei acquiesced. As he aged, real power transferred quietly but decisively.

When an absolute ruler grows old, he tends to be worshipped — and manipulated — without ever realizing it. The person he trusts most murmurs to himself, "He is in the palm of my hand." This is a universal pattern of power.

A structurally similar dynamic played out in North Korea. From the 1970s onward, Kim Jong-il built a shadow organization — the Three Revolutions Teams — to capture the Korean Workers' Party. By around 1979, he was filtering the information that reached Kim Il-sung. The moment an absolute ruler loses control of information, he loses real power along with it.

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3. The Consequences of Losing a Center of Gravity

After Soleimani was eliminated by the U.S. in 2020, the IRGC lost its single center of gravity. Commander Salami was killed in an Israeli airstrike in June 2025. His successor Pakfour died in the joint U.S.-Israeli strike on February 28, 2026.

With leadership eliminated in rapid succession, the IRGC fragmented into a collective leadership — in practice, a warlord structure. Decision-making slowed, coherence disappeared, and the capacity for negotiation collapsed.

This is the core point. When an organization becomes so large that no one can control it, it loses the ability to reform, to negotiate, or to adapt. It simply burns through itself.

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4. The Historical Pattern of Collapsing Absolute Power

History repeats this pattern.

After Franco's death, Spain chose the "Pact of Forgetting" — stability before reckoning. In Latin America, military dictatorships fell, and Truth and Reconciliation Commissions followed a decade or two later. In South Korea, the trials of Chun Doo-hwan and Roh Tae-woo came long after the end of military rule.

The magnitude of crimes committed does not produce immediate judgment. In the immediate aftermath of collapse, people want stability and survival first. Accountability comes later.

Iraq offers the cautionary counterexample. After Saddam Hussein's removal, the absence of any alternative governing structure produced chaos — over 300 political parties, no governance, and eventually a vacuum filled by ISIS. Toppling a dictatorship from the outside is not enough. What comes after must be prepared.

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5. What Is Kim Jong-un Feeling Now? (Analytical Inference)

Now to the central question. What does Kim Jong-un feel as he watches all of this?

The following is inference based on observable behavior, not verified fact.

Fear. Iran and Cuba may be early warnings — and the arrow may be turning toward him next. He knows this.

Bravado. The public display of cluster munition test launches is not simply a military exercise. It is a declaration: "I am not the IRGC. I am strong. I am dangerous." But the louder the declaration, the more it betrays the anxiety beneath it.

A search for exits. Kim's recent string of visits to military units and state power organs is about confirming loyalty and reinforcing the foundations of his survival. There is no exit visible — but the behavior reflects a desperate wish to create one.

Self-conviction laced with doubt. "I have nuclear weapons. I have China." And then: "But what about China? And Russia?" Iran had its own cards to play. He is watching those cards fail.

The decisive common denominator between the IRGC and Kim Jong-un is this: the crimes are too grave to be forgiven. Reform collapses the system from within; resistance slowly exhausts it. This is what structurally forecloses every exit.

The differences matter too. Kim is a singular ruler, not a collective. He possesses nuclear weapons. He has China as a patron. His capacity to hold on is considerably stronger than the IRGC's. But none of this creates a genuine exit. Can he actually use nuclear weapons? Will China protect him to the end? On both questions, Kim himself likely has no confident answer.

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6. How Will Kim Jong-un Behave After Iran? (Analytical Inference)

As Iran's collapse becomes a reality, Kim Jong-un's behavior will likely move in the following directions.

Nuclear and missile demonstrations will intensify. Iran's failure reinforces his conviction that nuclear capability is the only path to survival — even as it remains an extraordinarily precarious one.

Internal control and information suppression will tighten further. He will work to prevent any knowledge of the Iranian situation from reaching North Korean citizens, and move to extinguish any seeds of internal resistance before they can take root.

Closer alignment with China and Russia will deepen. His dependence on his sole patrons will increase, while he attempts to leverage that relationship as a bargaining chip in any future negotiations.

Diplomatic gestures may emerge. But they will likely be tactical maneuvers to buy time, not genuine concessions. He has watched Iran drag out negotiations and be overtaken by events regardless.

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7. What Must We Prepare For?

The most important lesson from the Iranian situation is this:

External pressure alone cannot guarantee stability after collapse.

The same applies to North Korea. Pressure is necessary. But planning for what comes after collapse must proceed in parallel. Without a prepared alternative governance structure, a post-Kim Korean Peninsula could repeat the Iraqi experience — chaos where a vacuum was left unfilled.

Building channels of communication with the North Korean people is equally critical. Distinguishing between the Kim Jong-un regime and the North Korean people as such; expanding the flow of information into the country; enabling North Koreans to share information among themselves. These are, over time, the most powerful forms of pressure.

And one warning must be added.

After the collapse of the Kim Jong-un system, the ruling class of North Korea may choose to upgrade — toward a pro-China regime that preserves their privileges under a different patron. That path leads to the permanent division of the Korean Peninsula. A pro-China North Korea would inevitably exert significant influence on South Korea as well — the direction and extent of which remains an open question, but one that serious analysts cannot afford to ignore.

Whether this risk is a remote contingency or a genuine danger — that judgment belongs to the reader.

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Conclusion

Absolute power endures only so long as the system and structure that sustains it remain unchanged. Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps could not generate that change from within, and is failing to absorb the change forced upon it from outside.

Kim Jong-un is watching. He is thrashing between fear and self-conviction.

What demands our attention is not his thrashing — it is what comes after. Preparation for a peaceful transformation of the Korean Peninsula must begin now. The lifespan of the Kim Jong-un system may be shorter than anyone predicts.

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This column reflects the analysis and informed inference of a North Korea specialist. The author has distinguished throughout between verified facts and analytical judgment, and welcomes critical scrutiny from readers.

About the Author

Seungcheol Kim (NKMAN) is a former President of North Korea Reform Radio (2008–2025) and a former researcher at the Institute of North Korea Studies (1997–2007).

For inquiries or collaboration: nkmans@naver.com