Iran’s cycle of changes

It is one of modern history’s sharper ironies that the Iranian people, who in 1979 overthrew the Western-backed monarchy of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi in the name of Islamic redemption, are now demanding liberation from the very clerical order that replaced him. The revolution that brought Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini back from exile in Paris promised moral renewal, social justice, and an end to corruption under the guardianship of religious authority. Four decades later, it has delivered an austere and coercive state under his successor Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, sustained by clerics, morality enforcers, and the Revolutionary Guards. The Shah’s rule, despite its intolerance of dissent, had opened Iran to modern education, global culture, and consumer prosperity. This exposure created a society that was socially dynamic but politically stifled. Resentment grew as inequality widened and repression hardened. When Islam was offered as an alternative moral order, many Iranians embraced it as an antidote to corruption and foreign domination. That gamble proved disastrous as the Islamic Republic replaced one form of authoritarianism with a worse form, cloaked in divine legitimacy and enforced through rigid interpretations of Sharia. In 2025, Iranians find themselves completing a tragic full circle, yearning for liberal freedoms they once derided as decadent and dangerous. Protest, in Iran, is not an anomaly but a recurring condition. Each wave of unrest has been driven by different triggers, yet all converge on the same fault lines, economic distress, social suffocation, and political exclusion. The Islamic Revolution was the first rupture. In 1999, students protested the closure of a reformist newspaper and were met with violence in university dormitories. In 2009, millions took to the streets after the disputed re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, demanding to know where their votes had gone. The Green Movement was crushed, but it permanently eroded the regime’s moral authority. From 2017 onward, the character of protest shifted as discontent was no longer confined to political reform but extended to basic survival. Spiralling inflation, unemployment, and decaying infrastructure pushed ordinary citizens into open revolt. In 2019, a sudden fuel price hike ignited nationwide anger. Then came 2022 and the death of Mahsa Amini in police custody for an alleged hijab violation. Her death unleashed one of the longest and most emotionally charged protest waves in Iran’s history. Women publicly removed their headscarves, students mobilised, and the slogan “Woman, Life, Freedom” became a generational creed. The state responded with bullets, mass arrests, and executions. Hundreds died, yet everyday defiance persists, visible in the quiet refusal of many women to comply with dress codes. Iran’s tragedy lies in repetition. Each uprising exposes the same unresolved contradictions, a collapsing economy, intrusive social control, and the absence of meaningful political voice. Until these are addressed, the streets will remain Iran’s only functioning parliament. The question is no longer whether protests will return, but when. Beneath the turmoil lies a deeper possibility of whether through reform, rupture, or another uncertain transition, Iran could reclaim its historical stature. With its cultural depth, human capital, and resources, it has the potential to rival the Gulf monarchies that now advertise Westernised modernity. In such a future, Iran and Israel, two ancient civilisations with intertwined pasts, could emerge as parallel centres of regional stability and innovation. The people who once demanded Islam now demand freedom. Their success or failure will shape not only Iran’s destiny but the balance of power across the Middle East.