{"id":4145,"date":"2025-10-18T08:14:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-18T07:14:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/codir.net\/?p=4145"},"modified":"2025-10-18T08:14:54","modified_gmt":"2025-10-18T07:14:54","slug":"the-autumn-of-the-ayatollahs-what-kind-of-change-is-coming-to-iran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/codir.net\/?p=4145","title":{"rendered":"The Autumn of the Ayatollahs What Kind of Change Is Coming to Iran?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Karim Sadjadpour<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

November\/December 2025 Published on October 14, 2025<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

or the first time in nearly four decades, Iran is on the cusp of a change of leadership\u2014and maybe even of regime. <\/strong>As Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei\u2019s reign nears its end, a 12-day war in June laid bare the fragility of the system he built. Israel battered Iranian cities and military installations, paving the way for the United States to drop 14 bunker-busting bombs on Iranian nuclear sites. The war exposed the enormous gulf between Tehran\u2019s ideological bluster and the limited capabilities of a regime that has lost much of its regional power, no longer controls its skies, and exercises diminished control over its streets. At the war\u2019s conclusion, the 86-year-old Khamenei emerged from hiding to declare victory in a raspy voice\u2014a spectacle meant to project strength that instead underscored the regime\u2019s frailty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the autumn of the ayatollah, the central question is whether the theocratic regime he has been ruling since 1989 will endure, transform, or implode\u2014and what kind of political order might emerge in its wake. The 1979 revolution transformed Iran from a Western-aligned monarchy into an Islamist theocracy, flipping it virtually overnight from an American ally to a sworn enemy. Because Iran today remains a pivotal state\u2014an energy superpower whose internal politics shape the Middle East\u2019s security and political order and ripple across the global system\u2014the matter of who (or what) succeeds Khamenei is of enormous consequence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the past two years\u2014since Hamas\u2019s October 7, 2023, attack on Israel, which Khamenei alone among major world leaders openly endorsed\u2014his life\u2019s work has been reduced to ashes by Israel and the United States. His closest military and political proteges have been killed or assassinated. His regional proxies have been hobbled. His vast nuclear enterprise, built at staggering cost to Iran\u2019s economy, has been buried under rubble.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Islamic Republic has sought to turn its military humbling into an opportunity to rally the country around the flag, but the indignities of daily life are inescapable. Iran\u2019s 92 million people make up the largest population in the world to have been isolated from the global financial and political system for decades. Iran\u2019s economy is among the world\u2019s most sanctioned. Its currency is among the world\u2019s most devalued. Its passport is among the world\u2019s most denied. Its Internet is among the world\u2019s most censored. Its air is among the world\u2019s most polluted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The regime\u2019s enduring slogans\u2014\u201cDeath to America\u201d and \u201cDeath to Israel\u201d but never \u201cLong Live Iran\u201d\u2014make clear that its priority is defiance, not development. Power outages and water rationing have become fixtures of daily life. One of the revolution\u2019s central symbols, the mandatory hijab, which Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the Islamic Republic\u2019s first supreme leader, once called the \u201cflag of the revolution,\u201d is now in tatters, as growing numbers of women openly defy the requirement to cover their hair. Iran\u2019s putative patriarchs can control the country\u2019s women no better than they can control its airspace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To understand how Iran arrived at this juncture, it is necessary to examine the guiding principles of Khamenei\u2019s 36-year rule. His tenure has rested on two pillars: unwavering commitment to revolutionary principles at home and abroad and outright rejection of political reform. Khamenei has long believed that diluting the Islamic Republic\u2019s ideals and strictures would do to the Islamic Republic what Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev\u2019s glasnost did to his country, hastening its death rather than prolonging its life. Nor has Khamenei wavered in opposing the normalization of ties with the United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Khamenei\u2019s age, inflexibility, and looming departure have left Iran suspended between prolonged decay and sudden upheaval. Once Khamenei is gone, several possible futures are foreseeable. The Islamic Republic\u2019s totalizing ideology could collapse into the strongman cynicism that has been the hallmark of post-Soviet Russia. Like China after the death of Mao Zedong, Iran might recalibrate by replacing rigid ideology with pragmatic national interest. It could double down on repression and isolation, as North Korea has done for decades. Clerical rule might yield to military dominance, as it has in Pakistan. And although increasingly unlikely, Iran could still tilt toward representative government\u2014a struggle that dates back to the Constitutional Revolution of 1906. Iran\u2019s path will be unique, and its course will shape not only the lives of Iranians but also the stability of the Middle East and the wider world order.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

THE PARANOID STYLE<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Iranians often see themselves as heirs to a great empire, yet their modern history has been punctuated by repeated invasions, humiliations, and betrayals. In the nineteenth century, Iran lost nearly half its territory to predatory neighbors, surrendering the Caucasus (encompassing present-day Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Dagestan) to Russia and relinquishing Herat to Afghanistan under British pressure. By the early twentieth century, Russia and the United Kingdom had carved the country into spheres of influence. In 1946, Soviet troops occupied and attempted to annex Iranian Azerbaijan, and in 1953, the United Kingdom and the United States orchestrated a coup that helped depose Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddeq.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This legacy has bred generations of Iranian rulers who see plots everywhere, suspecting even their closest aides of being foreign agents. Reza Shah, the founder of the Pahlavi dynasty and a leader that many Iranians still revere today, was forced to abdicate by the Allied powers during World War II, given his suspected affinity for Nazi Germany. He was suspicious of \u201ceverybody and everything,\u201d in the words of his adviser Abdolhossein Teymourtash. \u201cThere was really nobody in the whole country whom His Majesty trusted.\u201d His son Mohammed Reza Shah felt similarly. False American promises \u201ccost me my throne,\u201d he concluded, after being deposed by the 1979 revolution. Once in power, Khomeini executed thousands of opponents on charges of serving as foreign agents; his successor, Khamenei, laces nearly every speech with references to American and Zionist plots.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This deep mistrust is not confined to elites; it runs in the lifeblood of the body politic. Iraj Pezeshkzad\u2019s My Uncle Napoleon<\/em>\u2014a beloved Iranian novel, later adapted into an iconic 1976 TV series\u2014satirizes a paranoid family patriarch who sees foreign plots everywhere, especially British ones. The novel remains a cultural touchstone, evoking the conspiratorial mindset that still shapes Iran\u2019s politics and society. A 2020 World Values Survey found that fewer than 15 percent of Iranians believe \u201cmost people can be trusted\u201d\u2014among the lowest rates in the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Iran is on the cusp of a change of leadership\u2014and maybe even of regime.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

In Iran\u2019s paranoid style, outsiders are cast as predators, insiders as traitors, and institutions bend to personal rule. Over the past century, just four men have ruled the country, with cults of personality substituting for durable institutions and politics cycling between brief bursts of euphoria and long years of disillusionment. The Islamic Republic has sharpened this pattern by formally dividing its citizens into \u201cinsiders\u201d and \u201coutsiders.\u201d In such an atmosphere of mistrust, negative selection prevails: mediocrity is rewarded, obscurity promoted, and loyalty prized over competence. Khamenei\u2019s rise in 1989 was a textbook case of this dynamic, and the same criteria are likely to inform his preferred succession plan. This entrenched culture of mistrust\u2014shaped by history, reinforced by rulers, and internalized by society\u2014not only perpetuates authoritarian rule but also inhibits the collective organization required for representative government. It will continue to cast a long shadow over Iran\u2019s future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Authoritarian transitions rarely follow a script, and Iran\u2019s will be no exception. The death or incapacitation of Khamenei would be the most obvious trigger for change. External shocks\u2014a collapse in oil prices, intensified sanctions, renewed military strikes by Israel or the United States\u2014could further destabilize the regime. But history shows that unexpected internal sparks\u2014a natural disaster, a fruit vendor\u2019s self-immolation, a young woman killed for showing too much hair\u2014can prove just as consequential.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For nearly five decades, Iran <\/a>has been governed by ideology; its future, however, will hinge on logistics\u2014above all, who can most effectively manage a country nearly five times as large as Germany, endowed with vast resources yet beset by daunting challenges. Out of this volatility, Iran\u2019s post-Khamenei order could take several forms: nationalist strongman rule, clerical continuity, military dominance, populist revival, or a unique hybrid of these. Such possibilities reflect the country\u2019s factionalism. The clerics are intent on preserving the Islamic Republic\u2019s ideology. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) seeks to entrench its power. Disenfranchised citizens, including ethnic minorities, demand dignity and opportunity. The opposition is too fractured to unite but too persistent to simply vanish. None of these factions are monolithic, but it is their aspirations and actions that will define the struggle over the kind of country that Iran will become.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

IRAN AS RUSSIA<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The Islamic Republic today resembles the Soviet Union in its late stages: it sustains its exhausted ideology through coercion, its sclerotic leadership fears reform, and its society has largely turned away from the state. Both Iran and Russia are resource-rich countries with proud histories, famous literary cultures, and centuries of accumulated grievances. Each was transformed by an ideological revolution\u2014Russia in 1917, Iran in 1979\u2014that sought to rupture history and construct a radically new order. Both tried to avenge the past and impose a new vision at home and abroad, inflicting devastation not only on their own people but also on neighboring states. Despite their dueling ideologies\u2014one militantly atheistic, the other theocratic\u2014the parallels are striking. As with the Soviet Union, the Islamic Republic cannot reach an ideological accommodation with the United States, its paranoia is self-fulfilling, and the regime carries within it the seeds of its own decay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Soviet collapse was accelerated by Gorbachev\u2019s reforms, which loosened central control and unleashed forces the system could not contain. In the 1990s, lawlessness, oligarchic looting, and staggering inequality fueled resentment and disillusionment. Out of that turmoil rose Vladimir Putin<\/a>, a former officer with the KGB, the Soviet security agency, who promised stability and pride, replacing communist ideology with resentment-driven nationalism. As president, he has cast himself as the restorer of Russia\u2019s dignity and rightful place in the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A similar trajectory is possible in Iran. The regime is ideologically and financially bankrupt, impervious to genuine reform, and vulnerable to collapse under the weight of external pressure and internal discontent. That collapse could create a vacuum that security elites and oligarchs will rush to fill. An Iranian strongman\u2014an alumnus of the IRGC or the intelligence services\u2014could emerge, discarding Shiite ideology in favor of grievance-driven Iranian nationalism as the organizing creed of a new authoritarian order. Some prominent officials may harbor such ambitions, including Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the current speaker of the Iranian parliament and a former senior official in the IRGC. Yet their long association with the current system makes such familiar figures unlikely standard-bearers of a new dispensation. The future more likely belongs to someone less visible today, someone junior enough to escape public blame for the present catastrophe yet seasoned enough to rise from the wreckage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
An Iranian missile system on display in Tehran, September 2025Majid Asgaripour \/ West Asia News Agency \/ Reuters<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

To be sure, the parallels are imperfect. By the time the Soviet Union collapsed, it had already entered its third generation of leaders, while Iran is only now entering its second. And Iran has had no Gorbachev: Khamenei has blocked reform precisely because he believes it would precipitate the republic\u2019s demise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet the larger truth remains: when a totalizing ideology collapses, it often leaves behind not civic renewal but cynicism and nihilism. Post-Soviet Russia was marked less by democratic flourishing than by the pursuit of wealth at any cost. A post-theocratic Iran could display similar patterns: consumerism and conspicuous consumption as substitutes for lost faith and collective purpose.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An Iranian Putin could borrow some of the tactics of the Islamic Republic, seeking stability by sowing instability among Iran\u2019s neighbors, threatening global energy flows, cloaking aggression in a new ideology, and growing rich with other elites while promising to restore Iran\u2019s dignity. For the United States and Iran\u2019s neighbors, the lesson of Russia looms large: the death of ideology does not guarantee democracy. It can just as easily deliver a new strongman equally unbound by scruples, armed with renewed grievances, and driven by fresh ambitions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

IRAN AS CHINA<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Whereas the Soviet Union failed to adapt until it was too late, China <\/a>survived by pragmatically shifting in the decades after the death of Mao, in 1976, prioritizing economic growth over revolutionary purity. The \u201cChina model\u201d has long appealed to Islamic Republic insiders who want to preserve the system but recognize that a failing economy and widespread public discontent demand some attempt at reform. In this scenario, the regime would remain repressive and autocratic, but it would soften its revolutionary principles and social conservatism in favor of rapprochement with the United States, broader integration with the world, and a gradual transition from theocracy to technocracy. The Revolutionary Guards would retain their power and profits but, like China\u2019s People\u2019s Liberation Army, turn from revolutionary militancy to nationalist corporatism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Iran faces two obstacles to pursuing this model: establishing it and sustaining it. In China, normalization with the United States<\/a> was initiated in the 1970s by Mao, the founder of the communist revolution and the new regime\u2019s first leader. But it was his eventual successor, Deng Xiaoping, who used that opening to reorient the country from ideological orthodoxy to pragmatism and launch transformational reforms. Iran has produced would-be Dengs\u2014including former President Hassan Rouhani and Hassan Khomeini, the grandson of the revolution\u2019s founder\u2014but none could overcome Khamenei and like-minded hard-liners, who long believed that any compromise on revolutionary ideology, especially rapprochement with the United States, would destabilize the system rather than strengthen it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In China, rapprochement with Washington was made easier by a shared adversary in the Soviet Union. By contrast, although Iran and the United States have occasionally confronted common foes\u2014including the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and militant groups such as al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and the Islamic State\u2014for Khamenei, hostility toward the United States and Israel has always been paramount. Attempting the China model would require either a dying Khamenei to abandon his lifelong opposition to Washington, which is highly unlikely, or a succession engineered to favor a less strident leader.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even then, Iran might struggle to follow the Chinese path. China\u2019s enormous labor force allowed it to lift hundreds of millions out of poverty, earning the state renewed legitimacy and the confidence of the public. Iran, by contrast, has a rentier economy more akin to that of Russia. If the regime abandons ideology without delivering material improvements, it risks losing its existing base without winning over new supporters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A less ideological Iran that normalizes relations with the United States and drops its opposition to Israel\u2019s existence would mark a significant improvement over the status quo. Yet as China\u2019s experience shows, economic growth and international integration can also fuel greater regional and global ambitions\u2014replacing today\u2019s challenges with new ones. And it is far from clear that Iran could maintain internal stability through such a turbulent transition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

IRAN AS NORTH KOREA<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

If the Islamic Republic continues to put ideology before national interests, its future could resemble North Korea\u2019s present: a regime that endures not through popular legitimacy but through brutality and isolation. Khamenei\u2019s preference has long been to perpetuate rule by a supreme leader, an austere cleric committed to the revolutionary principles of resistance against the United States and Israel and upholding Islamist orthodoxy at home. Yet nearly five decades after 1979, few Iranians want to live under a system that deprives them of economic dignity and political and social freedoms. Sustaining such a regime would require totalitarian control\u2014and likely a nuclear weapon to deter foreign pressure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Power in this scenario would remain in the hands of a narrow clique or even a single family. Although Khamenei may try to engineer succession in favor of someone who will remain loyal to revolutionary principles, the pool of viable candidates is small, as few if any hard-line clerics have a base of popular support or legitimacy. Ebrahim Raisi, once considered the leading contender, died in a helicopter crash in May 2024 while serving as Iran\u2019s president. That leaves Khamenei\u2019s 56-year-old son, Mojtaba, as the most prominent contender. Yet hereditary succession would directly betray one of the founding principles of the revolution: Khomeini\u2019s insistence that monarchy was \u201cun-Islamic.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mojtaba has never held elected office, has virtually no public profile, and is known chiefly for his behind-the-scenes ties to the Revolutionary Guards. His image evokes continuity with his father\u2019s generation, not the dynamism of a new era. Risible attempts by his supporters to liken him to the dynamic Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman\u2014including campaigns on social media with the hashtag #MojtabaBinSalman in Persian\u2014are an indication that even Khamenei\u2019s revolutionary base recognizes that a forward-\u00adlooking vision is more appealing than a backward-looking one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Deep mistrust runs in the lifeblood of the body politic.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Other hard-line contenders inspire little more confidence. The country\u2019s dour, 69-year-old chief justice, Gholam-Hossein Mohseni Ejei, is little more than a hanging judge, involved in dozens of executions; perhaps his most memorable public act was biting a journalist who had criticized censorship. Any succession that involved a figure of this sort would rest not on popular consent but on the loyalty of the IRGC. But it is unclear whether the guards will continue to defer to the aging clerics of the Assembly of Experts, the body tasked with appointing the next supreme leader, or whether, when the moment arrives, they will simply choose the republic\u2019s next commander in chief themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The North Korea<\/a> model would also collide with a society that aspires to the openness and prosperity of South Korea. Few Iranians will tolerate a system that prizes ideology over economic well-being and personal security even more stridently than the current one. Totalitarian rule would require mass imprisonment at home, the mass exodus of professionals abroad, and perhaps a nuclear shield to deter foreign pressure. Yet unlike North Korea, Iran cannot hermetically seal itself off: Israel dominates its skies and has repeatedly demonstrated its ability to strike nuclear sites, missile bases, and senior commanders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If the next supreme leader is another hard-liner, he will likely be a transitional figure\u2014sustaining the system for a time but not forging a stable new order. Ahmad Kasravi, a secular Iranian intellectual assassinated by Islamists in 1946, once wrote that Iran \u201cowed\u201d the clergy one chance to rule so their failings could be exposed. After nearly five decades of theocratic mismanagement, that debt has been settled. If Iran\u2019s next age belongs to another strongman, he is unlikely to wear a turban.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

IRAN AS PAKISTAN<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

If Iran\u2019s future lies with the IRGC, Pakistan may offer the closest precedent. Since the revolution, the Islamic Republic has gradually transformed from a clerical state into a security state dominated by the guards. Born in 1979 as \u201cguardians of the revolution\u201d\u2014to protect against foreign coups, internal dissent, and potential disloyalty in the shah\u2019s army\u2014the IRGC expanded dramatically during the Iran-Iraq War. Afterward, it moved into business, ports, construction, smuggling, and media, evolving into a chimera: part military force, part business conglomerate, and part political machine. Today, the IRGC oversees Iran\u2019s nuclear program, commands proxy militias across the region, and dominates large segments of the economy. Its vast reach has yielded an Iran for which the adage about Pakistan increasingly applies: \u201cNot a country with an army, but an army with a country.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Khamenei\u2019s insecurities bind his rule to the guards. The U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq gave the IRGC license to expand its budget and fund and equip proxies abroad, while sanctions enriched the organization by turning Iran\u2019s ports into conduits for illicit smuggling. But the IRGC is not a cohesive bloc: it is a constellation of competing cartels whose rivalries\u2014generational, institutional, and commercial\u2014have been contained under Khamenei\u2019s authority. His departure will likely bring those feuds into the open.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One scenario in which the IRGC might move from dominance to outright rule would involve the guards allowing unrest to fester before stepping in as \u201csaviors of the nation.\u201d This would mirror Pakistan\u2019s military, which has long justified its dominance by presenting itself as the guardian of national unity against both India and internal disintegration. For the IRGC, such a strategy would require not just sidelining the clergy but shifting the organizing principle of the state itself from Shiite revolutionary ideology to Iranian nationalism. Clerics invoke God; the guards would invoke the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
A bazaar in Tehran, October 2025 Majid Asgaripour \/ West Asia News Agency \/ Reuters<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

But the IRGC\u2019s current dominance should not be mistaken for popularity. Its top leadership is handpicked by Khamenei, rotated frequently to prevent the accrual of too much power to individual officials, and widely associated with repression, corruption, and incompetence. As Siamak Namazi, an American who was held hostage by the organization for eight years, told me, \u201cIran is today a collection of competing mafias\u2014dominated by the IRGC and its alumni\u2014whose highest loyalty is not to nation, religion, or ideology but to personal enrichment.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Israel\u2019s assassinations of nearly two dozen senior IRGC commanders in their bunkers and bedrooms underscored both the group\u2019s vulnerability to penetration and the weaknesses of an institution that prioritizes ideological loyalty over competence. For an IRGC regime to endure, it would almost certainly require a new generation of leaders, less dogmatic than those cultivated by Khamenei and capable of appealing to the public through nationalism rather than clerical ideology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If the guards do emerge as Iran\u2019s rulers, much will depend on the type of leader who comes forward. A grievance-driven commander could cast himself as an Iranian Putin, substituting nationalism for Islamism while continuing confrontation with the West. A more pragmatic officer might resemble an Iranian Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, preserving authoritarian rule while seeking an alliance with the West, much as Egypt\u2019s president has done. The nuclear question would be central. In their writings, IRGC strategists often contrast the fates of Saddam and the Libyan dictator Muammar al-Qaddafi\u2014both of whom lacked nuclear weapons and fell\u2014with North Korea\u2019s regime, which has nuclear weapons and has survived. An IRGC-led Iran would face the same dilemma: pursue a bomb for survival or forsake it for the benefits of recognition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like Pakistan<\/a>, such an Iran would be defined less by clerics than by generals\u2014nationalists, keen to stoke the ardor of their people, and perpetually vacillating between confrontation and accommodation with the West.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

IRAN AS TURKEY<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

In terms of territory, population, culture, and history, Iran has few cousins closer than Turkey, another fiercely proud, non-Arab, Muslim country burdened by a long legacy of mistrust toward great powers. The Turkish experience under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan offers one possible parallel: elections that bring a popular leader to power, initial reforms that resonate with ordinary citizens, and then a gradual slide into majoritarian authoritarianism cloaked in the language of democracy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Iran to follow such a path, however, wholesale institutional change would be required. The Islamic Republic\u2019s byzantine layers of power\u2014including the office of the supreme leader, the Guardian Council, and the Assembly of Experts\u2014would need to be dismantled, the IRGC folded into the professional military, and the country\u2019s largely hollowed-out elected institutions empowered. Without these prerequisites, genuinely competitive and accountable politics cannot take root.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Iran, however, would not be starting from zero. As the social scientist Kian Tajbakhsh has noted, the regime\u2019s creation of thousands of local councils and municipal bodies produced \u201cdual-use institutions: created to serve an authoritarian order, but structurally available to support democratic transition\u2014if given the chance.\u201d In effect, Iranians have long practiced the forms of representative government without enjoying their substance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A populist leader could well emerge from any remotely fair election. In a country home to both significant resources and deep inequality, populism has been a recurring force in modern Iranian politics. In 1979, Khomeini railed against the shah and his foreign backers while promising free utilities, housing for all, and oil wealth that would flow to the people rather than a corrupt elite. A generation later, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a little-known mayor of Tehran, rose to the presidency in 2005 by vowing to put \u201cthe oil money on people\u2019s dinner tables.\u201d Whether through open or competitive elections, a post-Khamenei Iran could again see the rise of a populist outsider with nationalist credentials and the ability to mobilize anger against both elites and foreign enemies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Such a trajectory would not bring Iran to liberal democracy, but neither would it continue clerical rule. It would blend popular legitimacy with centralized authority, redistribution with corruption, and nationalism with religious symbolism. For many Iranians, this would be preferable to continued theocracy or military rule. Yet as Turkey\u2019s experience illustrates, populism can open the door not to pluralism but to a new form of authoritarianism\u2014one with mass backing and a ballot-box mandate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ZENDEGI-E NORMAL<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

History counsels humility in prediction. In December 1978, just one month before the shah\u2019s departure, a leading American scholar of Iran, James Bill, wrote in Foreign Affairs<\/em><\/a> that \u201cthe most probable alternative\u201d to the shah would be \u201ca left-wing, progressive group of middle-ranking army officers.\u201d Other scenarios, he suggested, included \u201ca right-wing military junta, a liberal democratic system based on Western models, and a communist government.\u201d The \u201cUnited States need not fear,\u201d wrote Bill, \u201cthat a future government in Iran will necessarily be antithetical to American interests.\u201d Most strikingly, just weeks before Iran\u2019s clerics seized power, Bill predicted they \u201cwould never participate directly in the formal governmental structure.\u201d Iranian intellectuals also misjudged events. Weeks before Khomeini consolidated his theocracy and commenced mass executions, one of Iran\u2019s leading intellectuals, the philosopher Dariush Shayegan, declared, \u201cKhomeini is an Islamic Gandhi. He is at the axis of our movement.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just as 1979 confounded both insiders and outsiders, outlier scenarios are again conceivable. Given the lack of alternatives, some Iranians look to Reza Pahlavi, the shah\u2019s exiled son, whose widespread name recognition is sustained by an online cottage industry of nostalgia for the pre-revolutionary era. Yet having spent nearly half a century abroad, he will need to overcome the absence of organization and on-the-ground muscle to prevail in the ruthless contests that define authoritarian transitions. Another possibility\u2014perhaps the greatest dread of many Iranian patriots, including even staunch opponents of the regime\u2014is a Yugoslavia-style breakup along ethnic lines. Iran\u2019s minorities could see a weakening of the center as an opening for revolt or as an opportunity to begin anew. Unlike Yugoslavia, however, Iran is anchored by a far older and more coherent identity: more than 80 percent of Iranians are either Persian or Azeri, nearly all speak Persian as a lingua franca, and even non-Persian groups identify with a state that has a continuous history for more than 2,500 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In essence, Iran once again appears to be a country up for grabs, with futures that could diverge dramatically. The United States and the rest of the world would benefit from a post\u2013Islamic Republic guided by national interest rather than revolutionary dogma. As the diplomat Henry Kissinger once observed, \u201cThere are few nations in the world with which the United States has less reason to quarrel or more compatible interests than Iran.\u201d Yet the United States\u2019 experience in Afghanistan and Iraq underscored the limits of foreign influence: even vast investments of blood and treasure cannot dictate political outcomes. Russia faces similar constraints. Moscow may prefer the continuation of an Islamic Republic that can serve as a perennial thorn in Washington\u2019s side and a source of instability that drives up global energy risks. But despite its best efforts, Moscow could not prevent the collapse of the Assad regime, its client in Syria. China, by contrast, has far more to gain from an Iran that fulfills its potential as an energy powerhouse than an Iran that exports instability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Iran has all the makings of a G-20 country.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Yet to whatever degree outside powers may tilt the balance, Iran today is large and resilient enough to chart its own destiny. It has all the makings of a G-20 country: an educated, globally connected population, tremendous natural resources, and a proud civilizational identity. For Iranian democrats, however, the international climate could hardly be less favorable. Western governments that once championed democracy have withdrawn resources and are preoccupied with their own democratic backsliding. The United States has pared back institutions\u2014such as the National Endowment for Democracy and Voice of America\u2014that were central to its Cold War success. In this vacuum, Iran is more likely to follow the broader global trend in which strongmen rise by stressing the virtues of order rather than the promise of freedom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Majority opinion may not determine Iran\u2019s transition, but to the extent that political hopefuls seek to appeal to it, one reality appears clear: Iranians are not yearning for empty slogans, personality cults, or even lofty notions of democracy. What they desire most is a well-managed, accountable government that can restore economic dignity and allow them to live a zendegi-e<\/em> normal\u2014a \u201cnormal life\u201d free from the suffocating grip of a state that polices what they wear, what they watch, how they love, whom they worship, and even what they eat and drink.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Islamic Republic\u2019s tenure has amounted to a lost half century for Iran. While its Persian Gulf neighbors became global hubs of finance, transport, and technology, Iran squandered its wealth on failed regional adventures and a nuclear program that brought only isolation, all while repressing and wasting its greatest source of wealth: its people. The country still has the natural resources and human capital to rank among the world\u2019s leading economies. But unless Tehran learns from its mistakes and reorders its politics, its trajectory will remain one of decline rather than renewal. The question is not whether change will come, but whether it will finally deliver a long-awaited spring\u2014or merely another winter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Foreign Affairs<\/em><\/p>\n

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