The New Yorker magazine published an article by writer David Remnick examining the lessons of the 1979 Iranian Revolution that overthrew the rule of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. The article raises the question of whether the Islamic Republic today is facing the same violent lesson, or whether the clerical establishment has learned something different from that experience, at a time when ongoing demonstrations across Iranian cities have placed the current system before a clear dilemma.
Remnick notes that Mohammad Reza Pahlavi addressed the nation on 6 November 1978, amid continuing unrest in Tehran, declaring, “I have heard the voices of your revolution.” He pledged to correct the mistakes of his regime, release detainees, call for parliamentary elections, investigate corruption within the pillars of his rule, and ease repression against the opposition.
The writer explains that this move, as often happens with fragile regimes, was interpreted as a sign of weakness and desperation rather than a genuine attempt at reform.
In a village outside the French capital Paris, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini launched a fierce attack on the Shah, describing his regime as a “weak dictatorship” that was “in its final breaths,” and insisting that there would be no concessions, regardless of the speech delivered by the Shah in Tehran.
Just two months later, the Shah fled Iran while suffering from cancer, beginning a difficult journey through several countries in search of an acceptable place of exile, before dying in July 1980 in Cairo.
Remnick then turns to Iran’s current situation, noting that its ruler and Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the successor to Khomeini, now 86 years old and one of the longest serving leaders in the world, is fully aware of the Shah’s story and the erosion of his system.
With mass demonstrations erupting in dozens of Iranian cities, the spiritual leader of the republic faces a dilemma not unlike that confronted by the Shah. However, Khamenei, backed by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and other instruments of force, has chosen bloodshed over reconciliation.
The article explains that the regime’s efforts to cut internet access and other means of communication have significantly slowed media coverage. Nevertheless, human rights organisations confirm that Iranian authorities have already killed up to two hundred protesters.
Remnick quotes Scott Anderson, author of the book King of Kings, a historical work on the Iranian Revolution published last year, who said, “Unfortunately, if the Ayatollah draws any lesson from the Shah, it is that the Shah was weak and surrendered.”
Anderson added that had the Shah been more ruthless and ordered his soldiers to kill people indiscriminately in the streets, his regime might have been saved, questioning how far today’s soldiers will continue shedding blood.
The article notes that a number of experts believe Iranian leaders have drawn their bleak guidance not only from the experience of their historical enemy, the Shah, but also from subsequent history. In this context, Remnick reviews the experience of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in the late 1980s, when he sought to modernise his system by democratising political life, ending censorship, easing the Cold War with the United States, and introducing market mechanisms into the economy.
Gorbachev, the article explains, concluded that “we cannot go on like this,” after an ideology driven system and confrontation had left the Soviet Union impoverished, isolated, and in constant conflict.
Although his liberal policies improved some conditions, he gambled with a fragile system and ultimately failed to control the forces he unleashed, leading to the collapse of the Soviet Union by the end of 1991 and forcing him from power.
Khamenei assumed authority in 1989, at the height of what was known as “Gorbachev fever.” The spectacle of the Soviet Union’s collapse deepened his suspicions, and those of the Iranian system, toward the West and toward any signs of internal reform.
Remnick cites a speech delivered by Khamenei to government officials in July 2000, in which he said, “I have now reached the conclusion that the United States has devised a comprehensive plan to undermine the system of the Islamic Republic.” He added that “this plan is a replica of the one that led to the collapse of the former Soviet Union,” noting that American officials intend to carry out the same approach in Iran, with numerous indications of this in their statements over the years.
The Islamic Republic has previously faced waves of internal unrest, including student protests in 1999 following the closure of a reformist newspaper, and the rise of the Green Movement in 2009 after the re election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in what was described as fraudulent.
In 2022, demonstrations under the slogan “Woman, Life, Freedom” also erupted following the death of Mahsa Amini after her arrest for not wearing the hijab properly.
Despite this history, most experts on Iranian affairs believe that the Islamic Republic has not faced an existential threat as serious as the current one. Earlier protests expressed rejection of the system’s rigid religious ideology, its insistence on hijab, its control over media and education, and its general brutality.
Remnick explains that this time the spark came from the broader economic crisis endured by Iranians. Inflation has exceeded 50 percent, the national currency, the rial, has sharply declined in value, prolonged electricity outages and water shortages have become common, and food prices have risen astronomically, to the point that some basic goods have disappeared from markets.
He adds that the only sector not significantly affected by the economic crisis is the regime’s elite, particularly commanders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, who form a central pillar of the security establishment and reap enormous profits from economic interests across multiple sectors, including oil, ports, manufacturing, and cement. Many Iranians view the Guard as a form of armed mafia.
This accumulated resentment over years has deepened a national sense of anger and crisis. Remnick quotes Fatemeh Shams, a literature professor at the University of Pennsylvania, who said in an interview with Isaac Chotiner in the same magazine, “This is an uprising of a starving people.” She noted that the protests have moved beyond major cities to reach areas traditionally considered conservative, quiet, and loyal to the system.
Remnick stresses that economic factors alone are not driving the demonstrations. The vulnerability of the clerical system has been exposed by the severe damage suffered over the past two years by its most powerful and costly external allies, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, and the Houthis in Yemen. This has led Iranians to ask more openly than ever why the country’s resources are spent on foreign allies rather than directed inward.
He adds that despite the regime’s boasting of its security apparatus, June witnessed cooperation between the occupying power and the United States to strike Iranian nuclear facilities with little resistance. The occupying forces, which have penetrated the Iranian system through intelligence operations over the years, were also able to kill a number of senior military, intelligence, and political figures without obstruction, forcing Khamenei himself into hiding during the bombardment.
The writer suggests that as Khamenei observes recent American incursions in Venezuela, a close ally of Iran, he is likely asking whether Donald Trump would carry out his threat to intervene if more protesters are killed in Iran. Rather than acknowledging the entrenched corruption within his system, Khamenei has blamed the protests on the United States and the occupying state.
Remnick argues that what distinguishes Iran’s situation today from 1979 is that Khamenei’s system is unlikely to find a safe refuge. Under the Shah, many members of Iran’s elite had been educated abroad and spoke foreign languages, enabling them to leave the country in 1979 and rebuild their lives in cities such as London or Los Angeles.
By contrast, the Islamic Republic has lost many of its brightest minds to emigration, while the remaining elite generally come from rural backgrounds. Remnick quotes Karim Sadjadpour, an Iran expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, as saying that “their backs are against the wall,” and that “their mentality is kill or be killed.”
The article concludes by noting that the current protests in Iran are not religious in character and do not target a specific speaker or group. At their core, they represent an expression of national pride and a demand for a normal, prosperous, and stable life. Chants calling for freedom echo through the streets, even if they do not necessarily amount to an explicit call for democracy.
Nevertheless, Remnick cautions that it remains difficult to predict the precise outcome, whether the system will collapse or manage to endure.
A few months earlier, Sadjadpour published an article in Foreign Affairs titled “The Autumn of the Ayatollahs,” examining possible scenarios for Iran’s future after Khamenei’s death or removal. He asked whether Iran might resemble China and transition from a religious system to a technocratic one, become like Pakistan as a security state led by Guard generals, slide into North Korean style isolation and terror, drift toward post Soviet Russian authoritarianism under Vladimir Putin, or mirror Turkey’s authoritarianism under Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Sadjadpour analysed these scenarios in depth, drawing on a deep understanding of Iran’s history and particularities, and concluded that attempting to extract confident predictions from the chaos unfolding in the streets and government offices is an act of folly.
The article also refers to an essay by Iran expert James A. Bill, author of The Eagle and the Lion on US Iranian relations, published in Foreign Affairs. Bill argued that the most likely alternative to the Shah had been “a progressive left wing group of mid ranking army officers,” noting that other possibilities included “a right wing military council, a liberal democratic system based on Western models, or a communist government.” History, he concluded, ultimately chose a completely different path.
