Iran’s Revolution: Will the Islamic Regime Endure?

A wave of protests over the past few months has rocked Iran, with protesters calling for an end to the theocratic regime, the Islamic Republic.

The ongoing protests have unleashed a torrent of speculations about the regime’s future. Some observers have expressed hope that the widespread demonstrations could result in a regime change. Others, pointing out the lack of leadership and coordination among the protesters, along with the brutality of the theocracy and its successful history of suppressing previous unrest, are pessimistic.

However, the latter argument is not valid for several reasons. First, the lack of centralized leadership is not a source of weakness but a strength. Leaderless movements are difficult to repress. Conversely, appointing leaders would enable tyrants “to focus on them, to pick them off, to arrest them, kill them, denigrate them,” as pointed out by Carne Ross, the author of The Leaderless Revolution: How Ordinary People Will Take Power and Change Politics in the 21st Century.

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