Why prospects for democracy in Iran are dim

Let me begin by stating upfront that I hope that I’m wrong. I hope that I’m ridiculously wrong. I hope to be so wrong that this article chases me until the day I die. I hope that whenever I opine about Iran, someone posts a link to this article and sarcastically asks, aren’t you the person who wrote this? I’m sure I’d smile and become a little happier when I see those sarcastic replies. If you believe that your loved one has an incurable disease, you won’t be sad to be proven wrong when they make a miraculous recovery.

That said, I see no clear path for Iran to become a democratic nation in the near or even middle future. All of the scenarios in favor of a democratic Iran look illogical, unlikely, and ignore the realities on the ground. Not only that, I honestly don’t see any realistic scenarios for Iran to have a stable central government—of any kind—if the Islamic Republic collapses.

The Islamic Republic is an evil regime which recently killed thousands of Iranians in less than forty-eight hours, the vast majority of whom (at least ninety percent) were peaceful demonstrators. So it’s understandable why so many people feel like a point of no return has been crossed, and that everyone should embrace the idea of the regime's downfall. Still, I can’t ignore the question “what comes next”?

There are many questions to be asked here, questions that cannot be answered satisfactorily, or at least, I can’t. I will address these questions, and I believe these questions will make it clear why I’m so pessimistic about the prospects of democracy in Iran.

Question #1: Does Reza Pahlavi want a democracy?

I don’t think any fair-minded person can deny that the leader of the opposition, at this point in time, is Reza Pahlavi, the son of the last Shah of Iran, who was deposed in the 1979 revolution. Supposedly, he is the one who’s coming into power if the current regime falls (a problematic assumption, which we’ll discuss below). Pahlavi has insisted all his life that he wants a constitutional monarchy in the style of nations like the U.K., a system in which he’s a symbolic monarch but the country is run by an elected parliament. He’s also said many times that he wants this constitutional monarchy to be created as a result of a referendum in which people have the option to choose from many forms of government.¹

To me this position is, to put it mildly, deeply suspicious. The way I understand it is that these countries transitioned into democracies with extant monarchies. While the U.K. restored monarchy in 1660, the first real Prime Minister considered more powerful than the monarch, Horace Walpole, was born in 1717. In Spain, Juan Carlos willingly gave up power and facilitated a transition to democracy. In Japan, democracy was created after WWII by American occupiers who allowed the Emperor to retain his title. While it makes sense for a country to retain monarchy as an institution if the history organically transpired that way, I don’t see any logical reason for Iran to revive a destroyed institution simply to not entrust it with real power. It seems like a huge risk, at the very least. It seems to me that it’s very easy to start with a semi-democracy as a monarch and then quickly consolidate power.

And I believe that Pahlavi has been planning for something since he was a teenager in exile. I’ve never seen someone so meticulously PR-driven and strategic. And it seems to me that his greatest strategic asset is his vagueness. Does anyone know anything about Pahlavi’s economic views? Do we know whether in his constitutional monarchy, the king would be the commander in chief of the armed forces or not? Will the king have the power to veto parliament? Pahlavi has stuck to a few talking points his entire life, and they’re all vague. It’s clear that he wants to avoid alienating anyone who might support him, and I don’t like that. He seems too much of a strategist to be trusted with an allegedly symbolic position of power.

Finally, I don’t like that he’s never thoroughly criticized his father. The late Shah, for all of his flaws and strengths as a leader, was indisputably a despot who came back to power with the help of a coup, became more and more tyrannical as time went by, removed all freedom of press, made elections completely meaningless and rigged, and even created a single party system. It seems to me that if Reza was truly a democrat and desired nothing but a symbolic national position, he’d start by stating where his father went wrong, and why he’d be different.

Question #2: Can Pahlavi actually seize power?

But let’s give Reza Pahlavi the benefit of the doubt. Let’s imagine that he’s the willing architect of a democratic Iran.² So, let’s say for the sake of argument that Pahlavi coming into power will lead to a democratic Iran. Well, the next natural question is: how? And I simply see no way. Even if the Islamic Republic falls, I can’t see how Pahlavi comes to Tehran and sits on the throne. To demonstrate that, let’s review three scenarios in which Pahlavi can come to power.

Scenario number one is that he comes to power with the help of foreign intervention. The U.S. or Israel kill Khamenei and major IRGC leaders, and the regime collapses. Well, the real world is not like Crusader Kings: if you capture or kill the king of the opposing faction, you haven’t actually seized power. You still have to deal with the ideological foot soldiers who are armed, who are loyal to the regime, and who believe in martyrdom as the highest religious value—or even if not, know perfectly well that losing power means losing all the unearned privileges they have, from access to funding to reserved academic positions.

If you want to destroy the Islamic Republic, you can do it from the air. Hit important people, destroy economic infrastructure, make it impossible for a central government to keep things under control. But if you want to install a new government, you have to defeat every police station commander. You have to fight a long war of attrition against guerrilla enemies. You have to enforce order. Additionally, one presumes that as an Iranian nationalist, Pahlavi would have to also put up with armed separatist movements which would immediately pop up and fight for independence.³ So if the Islamic Republic collapses tomorrow, you’ll have two problems on your hands: separatist movements on every section of the national borders, and remnants of the old regime—millions of them—willing to fight you over every inch of soil in the center.

I hope you can see by now that while destroying a regime from the air is possible, there’s no way to install Pahlavi or anyone else as the new government unless you’re willing to put boots on the ground, to accept a high number of casualties and massive expenditure, a project that would be much bloodier and more costly than the Iraq War of 2003.

I don’t think either Trump or Netanyahu want this. I don’t think Trump wants regime change at all, and Netanyahu is perfectly happy to simply tear Iran to shreds and leave its ruins behind without bringing anyone into power. Because of the inherent massive cost of installing Pahlavi, I’m pretty sure that neither the U.S. nor Israel consider him a real alternative. They’re just using him to put a bit more pressure on Iran—to either completely capitulate (what Trump wants) or to be destroyed (what Netanyahu wants).

Now, onwards to the second scenario: many monarchists (and proponents of other ideologies) claim that while the IRGC and other armed forces in Iran are commanded by lunatics, the foot soldiers would desert and join the people if a revolutionary movement becomes serious. This idea is, to put mildly, completely delusional. This would be a repeat of how the Islamic Revolution in 1979 succeeded, but the situation is completely different now. Khamenei knows that’s how the Shah fell, and he has spent every second of his life securing his regime against this scenario. While there are some soldiers who only serve to complete their mandatory military service, there are still millions, probably up to twenty million, ideologically committed armed military and paramilitary ready to kill and be killed for the Islamic Republic. This dichotomy between the commanders and the normal soldiers only exists in the fantasies of people who think the Islamic Republic can be easily deposed.⁴ The reality is that even the leadership of the Islamic Republic is scared of these people. I’m pretty sure that Khamenei would have embraced reforms much more readily if he wasn’t scared of these people turning away from him. No, if you want to seize power, you have to dispense with these people. And they’re armed. And you’re not. And even if Israel arms you, you’d still most likely be defeated. It’s funny (not in a ha-ha way) how people saw that the regime was willing to kill indiscriminately and don’t see how stupid this scenario is.

The third and final scenario is that Reza Pahlavi strikes a deal with the IRGC itself. This is also pure fantasy. First off, this is also a common fantasy, but the IRGC will never turn against Khamenei. They won’t stage a coup against him, they won’t make a deal behind his back, they won’t disobey him. But maybe Khamenei dies or is killed by a targeted foreign attack. Even then, why wouldn’t IRGC install a friendly cleric as Supreme Leader and lead the country with him as the figurehead? Even if the IRGC is willing to move on from the Islamic Republic as a form of government to ensure their survival and power, why would the IRGC want to bring Pahlavi to power? Don’t they have a commander to install instead? Do they feel themselves inadequate, or are too camera shy? What does Pahlavi even have to offer them? Calming the streets? I don’t think that he can actually do that—people started the uprising before he asked them to, and if people aren’t ready to leave the streets, they’ll ignore Pahlavi. To get the US off their back? They’ll just make a deal with the US directly. To bring legitimacy to their government? Do you think they care about that? No matter how you grok it, it doesn’t make sense.⁵

This is why I’d argue that even if Reza Pahlavi wanted democracy, he has no way of seizing power.

Question #3: Can any other groups or people who sincerely believe in democracy seize power in Iran?

No, they can’t. This is also pure fantasy. People on the streets haven’t picked Reza Pahlavi as the spiritual leader of the opposition because all of them are sincere monarchists, but because it’s blindingly obvious that he’s the only real alternative. They hate the current regime, they want it gone, and they’re pledging allegiance to the only person they perceive has a chance, just like you’d consent to having sex with Fred if he were the last man on Earth. I don’t think Pahlavi has a real chance, but if he has 0.01% of a chance, everyone else has no chance. They have no followers in Iran, they have no connections with foreign governments, they have zero means of coming near power. Plus, most of them don’t sincerely believe in liberal democracy anyway. They just say they do.

Question #4: Do the Iranian people even want democracy?

I simply have seen no evidence indicating so. Any time that protests erupt, the Western media seems to default into calling them “pro-democracy” protests—but are they? We are told repeatedly that people are fighting for their freedom, but are they? Do they have any specifically democratic demands, like free elections? Freedom of speech? No. I haven’t seen it.

The last time that protests in Iran were consistently centered on a democratic demand was in 2009, when people wanted the fraudulent reelection of Ahmadinejad to be canceled. But those protests were not primarily revolutionary at all. Three protest movements were rooted in economic demands, and they clearly wanted the regime to go, but none of those demands are necessarily democratic. Women Life Freedom protests were initially about freedom from mandatory hijab and women’s rights, but I think that lasted for about three days, then they were completely consumed by the same anti-regime people, and the actual impetus of the protests was sidelined.

But even if we ignore that, demanding individual freedoms is not the same as demanding democracy. You can be perfectly happy with a secular dictatorship which allows you freedom of clothing. I simply haven’t seen many demands and slogans which point to a desire for a democracy. I bet that if you compare the slogans of these movements with those that led to the 1979 revolution, you’d find the latter much more concerned with democracy, and we’ve seen where that one led.

The protesters aren’t acting like people who want democracy, either. They engage in fantasies of revenge and slaughter after they come to power. If you’re an Iranian, you have heard the phrase “a mullah hanged from every light pole” a million times in your life. They don’t tolerate dissent or any difference of opinion. You will be threatened on social media and showered in sexist insults if you criticize Pahlavi or people’s behavior. They go after children or relatives of the officials of the Islamic Republic even though those people have had no role in their oppression, trying to have them fired or deported simply because of their accidents of birth.

I’m sure many people reading this will say that this level of bloodlust is understandable because Iranians are angry, and they’re suffering and lashing out. Apart from infantilizing people who are mostly adults, this is simply not convincing. I know of many revolutionary movements which made promises about democracy and freedom of speech before coming to power but didn’t deliver. I don’t know of any which were openly hostile to the idea of freedom of speech and national reconciliation and an orderly transition even before being anywhere close to power and then resulted in a democratic government. Based on my understanding, the majority of protestors want the regime to go, they want to commit violence against anyone they don’t like, and they want their economic situation to improve. I agree or can at least understand two out of the three, but I don’t see how you can claim that people are fighting for a democracy.

Conclusion

I believe that the answers to these questions show that the prospects for a democracy in Iran are dim and unrealistic. Not only that, I don’t see how Iran can transition to an orderly government of any type if the Islamic Republic falls. I understand that other people might have different answers to the questions above, but I’m afraid they’re speaking with their hopes and wishes and ignore the reality. But as I said, I fervently wish to be proven wrong.

¹ This article is not the place for it, but I find this nonsensical, and the result of the average Iranian mindset not understanding liberal values. It shouldn’t be up to the majority of people to choose the form of the government; a secular liberal democracy is the only ethically legitimate form of government. ↩︎

² Even if not, he’d still be a better dictator than the Islamic Republic. I despise Pahlavi on a personal level because I believe he’s trying to goad the U.S. and Israel to wage all-out war against Iran, but my personal feelings aside, he’d definitely be objectively a huge improvement over Khamenei, even if you think the worst of him. ↩︎

³ Do you know why Türkiye has suddenly become Iran’s greatest defender? Not because Erdogan loves the Islamic Republic, no, but because Türkiye knows that Kurdish separatist wars in Iran, whether successful or not, will create major security threats for that country as well. ↩︎

⁴ In fact, I think the opposite is true: I think you’re far more likely to find rational and pragmatic people among the commanders, and lower down the ranks you go, you’re more likely to see ideologically devoted zealots. ↩︎

⁵ As an aside, why would I, as an Iranian citizen, even want that? My main problem is not with the so-called mullahs or Pezeshkian, my main problem is with the IRGC! If I want anyone to be gone, it’s them! It’s like amputating the foot that’s healthy and keeping the one with the life-threatening injury. ↩︎