Iran Toppled the Shah in 1979. Why This Time Isn’t Quite Like That
Iran is a cauldron. On Dec. 28, merchants in Tehran’s Grand Bazaar refused to open their stores in protest against steep inflation, the precipitous drop in the value of the currency and bleak economic circumstances. The bazaar has historically been one of Iran’s most important power centers, and when its merchants strike, it signals both economic desperation and political discontent.
[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]Protests briskly erupted in every province, from remote towns battered by unemployment and neglect to Tehran and other major cities. Iranian authorities have blocked access to the internet, arrested thousands and killed hundreds of protesters. President Donald Trump is weighing military strikes on Iran as the protests continue.
The economic catastrophe in Iran is the product of eight years of U.S. policies that combine comprehensive sanctions with covert operations, cyberattacks and military strikes. While these measures were aimed at weakening the Iranian government, they devastated the economic security of ordinary Iranians. And the Iranian elite with connections to the state, particularly those linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, profited from sanctions evasion.
The Iranian rial’s precipitous decline— losing approximately 90% of its value against the dollar over the past year—accelerated dramatically after military strikes on Iran by the U.S. and Israel last summer. Fear of renewed hostilities undermined hopes of recovery. Inflation made basic goods unaffordable for millions. Iran’s oil revenues—a crucial source of state income—were severely constrained by renewed sanctions and the government failed to offer viable economic policies to address the crisis while severely mismanaging the economy. The result was the perfect storm: soaring prices, currency flight, and widespread economic anxiety.
A tale of two Irans
A survey of social-media posts and commentary across newspapers, magazines, and television networks conveys a sense that the Islamic Republic is on the brink of collapse—beset by a grave economic crisis, facing a mass revolt undeterred by repression, and confronting an unorthodox American President who appears increasingly open to military strikes. Yet the larger question remains: Are the structural conditions in Iran today comparable to those that precipitated the Shah’s downfall and the triumph of the revolution of 1979?
The 1979 revolution didn’t succeed because Iranians were angry. They had been angry for years.
The revolution succeeded because three critical power centers aligned: the people, the clergy, and the bazaar merchants united against the monarchy. This coalition was built through years of organizing, through mosque networks, through labor unions, through the economic leverage of the bazaar. When those institutions moved together, the monarchy fell.
The contemporary political landscape in Iran is fundamentally different. Through years of research inside Iran’s power structures, I observed how its main institutions of power—the monarchy, clergy, military, bazaar and civil society—are configured in ways that make the chances of a 1979-style revolution far more complicated.
The monarchy, though attempting a comeback through exiled crown prince Reza Pahlavi, commands minimal support inside Iran. The prospects of Pahlavi and the illusion of popular support for restoration of monarchy have been manufactured by online misinformation campaigns run by Israel, according to reporting by Haaretz. Despite these efforts, President Trump has declined to meet with Pahlavi—a telling sign of how seriously even potential allies take the monarchist option.
The Iranian government engages in its own disinformation, of course, dismissing all dissent as foreign-orchestrated and using that narrative to justify intensified repression. But misinformation obscures what matters most: understanding the actual balance of power inside Iran and what would be required for meaningful change.
Consider the bazaar, whose strikes have generated optimism that 2026 might echo 1979. The bazaar was once Iran’s autonomous economic powerhouse—a network of merchants whose financial independence gave them leverage against state power. But 47 years of Islamic Republic rule, and particularly the last two decades of U.S. sanctions, have fundamentally altered this institution. Sanctions by the U.S. and its allies did weaken Iran but they also created unprecedented opportunities for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and the elites connected with the state to accumulate wealth through sanctions-busting operations. Businesses with links to the IRGC became Iran’s sanction-circumventing apparatus, controlling imports, managing currency exchanges, and monopolizing access to restricted goods.
As the military and security elites captured the commanding heights of Iran’s economy, wealthy, traditional bazaar families and businessmen lost their economic autonomy and increasingly had to partner with or defer to networks connected to the IRGC to maintain their businesses. Today’s bazaar strikes matter, but they don’t represent the same independent institutional power that helped topple the monarchy in 1979. The bazaar has been partially integrated into—or at least made dependent on—the very power structure it would need to oppose.
The bazaar is made up of businessmen who want stable conditions to continue making money. I recently spoke to Ali, who heads one of the largest families in the textile business of the Grand Bazaar in Tehran. He requested that I withhold his last name for security reasons. “We closed our shops and we are demanding changes from the government. Many of our factories can no longer run,” Ali told me. “The government needs to make fundamental changes in managing the sanctions and the economy.” As the protests escalated, the crackdown intensified, and the U.S. threatened military strikes, Ali was worried. “This is getting out of our control,” he said.
The Iranian clergy is far from monolithic. Shia Islam’s clerical structure has historically been decentralized, with different ayatollahs, seminaries, and religious networks operating with considerable autonomy. Individual clerics command vastly different levels of power, influence, and financial resources. Some clerics control enormous charitable foundations worth billions of dollars through donations from followers and budgets from the state, while others operate modest local mosques with minimal resources.
Competing factions of the Iranian clergy harbor fundamentally different visions for the country’s future. Some clerics support political reform and greater social freedoms, others demand harsher crackdowns on dissent, and many focus primarily on preserving their own institutions and financial interests. This internal fragmentation matters because it means there is no single “Islamic Republic” to topple. There are competing power centers that might splinter under pressure but might also reconsolidate in unexpected ways. Unlike 1979, when much of the clergy united behind Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini against the Shah, today’s clerical establishment has no comparable unanimity.
Most critically, we have no evidence that the Iranian military is defecting. This is usually decisive. Revolutions succeed when security forces refuse to fire on protesters or when significant military units switch sides. In 1979, critical military defections accelerated the fall of the monarchy. Today, Iran’s security apparatus remains intact, with the IRGC representing not just military force but economic and political power deeply invested in the survival of the Islamic Republic. The limited reports from Iran—since access to the internet was blocked on Jan. 8—suggest strongly that the security forces are responding with significant repressive force.
The fight within Iran
Inside Iran, many civil society activists and political prisoners understand these power dynamics. They understand war would trigger intensified repression and set them back by years or decades. They realize that pursuing violent revolution would prove catastrophically destructive. They focused on sustained movement building and everyday resistance.
The “Woman, Life, Freedom” uprising of 2022 exemplifies this: through years of outreach, patient organizing, and persistent civil disobedience, it secured what many consider the Islamic Republic’s largest concession since 1979—de facto abandonment of mandatory hijab enforcement across much of the country. “Woman, Life, Freedom” is one of contemporary Iran’s most significant sociocultural revolutions and its success came from making certain forms of control unsustainable through collective action.
Revolution requires the alignment of institutions capable of challenging state authority—and right now, that alignment doesn’t exist in Iran. Both the Islamic Republic and its foreign adversaries—the U.S. and Israel—have spent decades preventing organized resistance from coalescing through infiltration, arbitrary detention and deliberate discord. External disinformation campaigns compound the problem. When Western voices promote monarchist restoration (which most Iranians reject), they discredit genuine opposition and validate Tehran’s “foreign interference” narrative. When U.S. officials and Israeli intelligence operatives publicly back protests in Iran, they endanger dissidents.
Iranians deserve better than having their grievances weaponized for geopolitical advantage. Meaningful solidarity requires several commitments: distinguish hope from analysis; remain vigilant against disinformation; accept that transformation will prove slower and messier than wished. History suggests that without robust organization, protest cycles repeat fruitlessly—or worse, create openings for intervention or authoritarian alternatives.
Iranians have already endured one revolution whose promises withered. They merit clear-eyed support for building genuine transformation, not wishful thinking serving everyone’s interests except theirs. Real solidarity means supporting unglamorous organizing work, resisting simplistic narratives and exercising patience. Revolution isn’t a moment but a process—one requiring honesty about power and skepticism toward external manipulation.
The world watches Iran. The question is whether it sees clearly.