Are We Witnessing Another Iranian Revolution?

Protests calling for regime change persist, but would-be revolutionaries face a long and perilous road ahead: A Dispatch Explainer.

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Iranian protesters set their scarves on fire (Photo by Getty Images)

Wednesday will mark the end of the 40-day mourning period for Mahsa Amini, but Iran’s nationwide protests spurred by her death in custody on September 16 show no signs of slowing. 

Iranian security forces have killed at least 215 people since the demonstrations’ start, the Norway-based Iran Human Rights reported last week. Yet unrest persists.

Who is demonstrating and what do they want? 

The mass protests’ chosen slogan—“women, life, freedom”—strikes at the heart of the Iranian regime’s theocratic rule. Women were among the first to protest the Islamic Republic after its revolutionary founder, Ruhollah Khomeini, implemented mandatory veiling shortly after taking power in 1979. Today, protesters see the survival of Iran’s clerical leadership as antithetical to women’s rights. Chants of “death to the dictator” have echoed across Iran from day one of the current demonstrations.

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  1. Avatar photo
    Julie from Texas

    Excellent coverage. This article answered several questions I had about what's happening in Iran. I have to admit, though, that I'm less sanguine about possible outcomes now; I just don't see how these revolts lead to something both different and stable in the future. I wish there was more we could do, without being big-time buttinskies.

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    Connie

    “This generation is also fearless, which is a major distinguishing factor.”

    They are fearless, because they feel they have nothing to lose.

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    MatthewRobin

    Hopefully we have something like this going on for Iran.
    https://warontherocks.com/2019/05/horns-of-a-dilemma-a-little-known-cia-operation-in-poland/

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      Connie

      The CIA has meddled in Iran in the past, which is one big reason the Islamic Republic came to power.

      I don’t know about the youth today, but the thirty-somethings and older view the CIA with distrust. Even those who desire a western culture.

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        PaulH

        Well, when the CIA meddled in Iran in the 1950's, the clerics were actually supportive of their actions. It is true that as the Shah modernized Iran (and become increasingly repressive), they changed their ideas. They became anti-American (because it was modern) and anti-CIA (because it was good rhetorically) but a lot happened between in the decades in between. To claim that the CIA was a "big reason" for the revolution is a bit far-fetched.

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  4. Nemmerle924

    It seems to me we've been here before.

    These protests need some things to be successful. International support, especially from the US, would be one of those things. Some external pressure on the regime would also help - oil is still in the support-the-tinpots price range, so maybe some capital control pressure would be required. But they'll just be ruthlessly crushed if something isnt different in the environment.

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    1. BenP

      I don't think we'd be doing the protesters and revolutionaries any favors by offering our support. We are not well liked over there. The government will take full advantage of any opportunity to link the protesters to us... we're probably best not to place it in their lap.

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      Connie

      Soft support would be most helpful.

      Provide them internet, e-devices, anything that would aid them in communicating amongst themselves and the outside world.

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    Andy.Emmerich

    I'm very interested in the reports of captured security officials. Are the Iranian protesters starting to take the fight directly to the forces responsible for repressing them, and if so, how might such an effort play out?

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      Connie

      What concerns me is the reports of torturing. Kill the enemy. But when you torture them, you are behaving exactly like your oppressors. I understand the torturing is coming from an emotional place, but still, it could set a really bad precedent if they actually overthrow the regime.

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        Andy.Emmerich

        It makes me think back to when I was reading The Gulag Archipelago. It made me a firm believer in the idea that once your society gets to the point where children are informing on parents and secret police are taking people away in the middle of the night never to be seen again, the only way out is for the society at large to make it too dangerous to be an informer or a secret policeman.

        As much as I am in favor of the rule against cruel and unusual punishment, that is a rule for a society where the rulers don't torture and murder their subjects for any perceived or imagined infringement.

        I personally wouldn't torture a secret policeman responsible for torture and murder, but then again, my loved ones have never been tortured and murdered by the secret police...

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    Mark B

    Very interesting explainer.
    I’m off to re-listen to the appendix episodes of Mike Duncan’s Revolutions Podcast (season 11 episodes 2-8)

    https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/revolutions/id703889772

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    1. Rob Martin

      I keep thinking about his discussions of the womens marches being triggers in the 1789 French and 1917 Russian revolutions.

      There is the question of whether the current regime in Iran fits the "Great Idiots of History" categorization.

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        PaulH

        Women led movements are particularly awkward for an Islamic regime. The whole pretense of the regime's limitations on women's freedom is that they are protecting women -- which makes it very difficult for them to use large scale violence against them.

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      2. InadvertantObfuscation

        Didn't Argentina's junta fall after the mothers' revolt? They held up pictures of the missing, as I remember.

        Iran is a different situation, certainly.

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        Mark B

        I was wondering about that as well well. I don’t really know enough about the various players to go beyond gross speculation. As someone who would be happy to watch the regime fail the most hopeful example might be Porfirio Díaz. That is formerly agile and able manipulators who find late in the game that they have painted themselves into a corner.

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  7. DTruitt

    The mullahs will never give up power. The only way they will be toppled is if a determined despot in control of the military decided to overthrow the mullahs to put himself in full control. The result then of course would not be freedom for Iranians but continued despotic rule with but a change in who is doing the ruling.

    The one bright spot in a military dictatorship is that it sustains itself only until the tyrant gets old or sick or runs out of money to buy off his inner circle of supporters. Meaning such a regime is likely to be shorter lived than the current mullah-ocracy in Iran which has survived for nearly half a century.

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  8. Israel.D.Gale

    Nice piece, Charlotte! I like it that you focus on the question everyone is asking ("Is this really a revolution?"), but don't pretend to have a crystal ball that tells the answer.

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      Wilhelm

      Charlotte, this is a wonderful overview piece. More, please!

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    2. DTruitt

      An excellent source to read for understanding of how dictatorships eventually come to an end is the book "The Dictator's Handbook" by Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and Alastair Smith (copyrighted originally in 2011, and updated in 2022).

      Their basic theory that seems extremely well established is that dictators survive only by buying off a small circle of essential supporters who provide the direct control of the government ... such as financiers, military, security services, etc. Whenever the dictator is no longer perceived as able to keep buying off his supporters, they tend to switch sides.

      In the Iranian revolution of 1979, the Shah was terminally ill and all his supporters in the military and security services knew it. His son and heir was perceived to be weak and unable to sustain the payments. Hence, the Shah's essential supporters simply stood by, allowed the Mullahs to reenter the country from exile, and allowed the demonstrators to continue their protests. Contrary to media perceptions at the time, the largest group of protesters were not protesting for freedom, but were communists supported by the Soviets, who wanted to peel off Iran from the orbit of NATO and the west. The mullahs were the most successful at murdering their opposition including both those seeking freedom and the communists, and established their government, the mullah-ocracy sustained by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps who actually control the rest of the Iranian military.

      It seems very unlikely that the IRGC would abandon the mullahs unless some single leader within their group steps to the fore and consolidates his cadre of supporters to launch a coup against the mullahs. The Iranians are making good money now, from oil sales and military sales, so there is no question of the ability to keep paying off the IRGC leadership, unless again a new leader arises who makes them a better offer (more money).

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