The story of Iran is difficult to disentangle. When I told my friends and family I was going to visit the country, many of them gave me one version: Iran is ruled with an iron fist by an evil Islamic dictator – it was not safe for me to go there, and I was simply risking getting kidnapped or killed. The stories they heard on the airwaves after I arrived were even more frightening. It was just after the Hamas leader Haniyeh had been assassinated in Tehran, and every day the headlines about Iran were some version of ‘Iran readying retaliatory strikes against Israel: WAR IMMINENT’.

Then there was the version of Iran I experienced. On the streets of Tehran, the possibility of war was regarded as little more than a joke. And everywhere I went there were constant transgressions of the supposed iron Islamic rule: a kind stranger allowed my friend and I to couch-surf at his home (illegal); thousands of women went hijabless in public (illegal); buskers drew huge crowds playing music in public (illegal); friends taught us Persian dances at a park (illegal); a hostel host invited friends for a private gathering who brought moonshine to share (very illegal).

So what really is the story of Iran? I’ve spent some time digesting my in-person experiences and trying to understand its complex history. And I’ve racked my interpretive resources to find the narrative thread to tie it all together. But this exercise has been impossible – revolutions, coups, invasions and wars have all roiled the country in the last hundred years, driven by a tumult of forces both internal (nationalism, Shi’ism, socialism, liberalism) and external (the US, Britain, the Soviet Union, Iraq, Israel). My experiences were often unexpected. The first time we went to the Iranian embassy in London to get a visa, there were protests outside from Marxists: it turned out to be the day of their presidential elections. Inside shopping centres in Iran, I saw advertisements for Paw Patrol: The Movie and police dog plushies being sold everywhere. Several Iranians recoiled when we told them we were going to travel to Pakistan and India; they asked why we would go to such dangerous places. So instead, I attempt a more modest goal: to pull back the curtain on political leadership in Iran and in so doing offer a more general reminder about the nature of power.

The image of Iranian political leadership in the popular imagination is that of a stern-faced Ayatollah[1] in his black turban and robes. The authority he wields seems absolute, as he publicly delivers Islamic edicts that demand obedience. But this dictatorial image is a mirage.

I have alluded to my observations of the frequent and unpunished transgressions of the law. Most powerful was the absence of the hijab. I remember when my friend and I arrived in Tehran. It was about 4 am. Our first impression of the place had come from our taxi driver, an old man who said of the American-assassinated general Qasem Soleimani – ‘he was the best of us’ – and who we later found out charged us triple the usual fare. Because we didn’t want to wake our host at such an early hour, we retreated to a park next to the nearby former American Embassy. This embassy had been turned into a museum – the ‘US Den of Espionage Museum’ – and painted along the outside of its walls were heavy-handed metaphors of US imperialism: McDonald’s fries, but with barbed wire instead of fries; a US soldier in Joker makeup; Mickey Mouse holding a pistol. At the park, we sat exhausted on a bench, watching the sun rise. Then, the first early morning walker arrived – a young woman walking her dog, in leggings; no hijab. In the context of what we had seen earlier – which had positioned Iran as an alien place, fundamentally opposed to the West – it felt like seeing a unicorn. But as we later realised, a sizeable minority of women do not wear their hijab in public. It is a show of courage and defiance.

In 2022, Mahsa Amini was arrested in Tehran for an improper hijab. Police beat her and killed her. This was an inciting incident for thousands to take to the streets in protest, registering their fury at the repression of women’s rights and the hated regime that was responsible. In Zahedan, where protests had been exacerbated by the rape of a 15-year-old Baloch girl by police, security forces killed dozens of people in a single day of massacre. In all, in the protests that spanned the country, over twenty thousand protestors were arrested, several hundred killed and hundreds more injured. I asked one young woman whether, in these conditions, she had been scared to join in. Her reply: ‘yes, but when there were 15-16-year-old girls out there being brave, of course I had to be there too’. Eventually, with the violence of security forces, internet shutdowns and mass arrests, the protests fizzled out. But the dynamics had shifted. The government pardoned most of those who were arrested for protesting, and many women, as I witnessed, were increasingly defiant of the hijab rules. Why did the government release the protestors? Why do they not crack down on the public displays of insolence? I heard again and again that everyone hated the government, and there would only need to be another inciting incident before they returned to the streets. The deeply unpopular regime is trying to thread a needle: to give enough so that the hatred is not white-hot, but not enough that people think they can achieve real change. Ultimate power lies in the hands of the people – and that power will topple the regime when the appetite for change exceeds (justified) fears of reprisal.

In fact, there had been a release valve for the unpopularity of the regime within Iran’s constitutional scheme. As leading US constitutional scholar, Bruce Ackerman put it: ‘Iran’s Constitution is based on the separation of powers—in which different branches engage in an ongoing competition for effective authority’.[2] The Islamic ‘Guardian Jurist’ wields significant power: he is in charge of the general policy of the country, commands the Armed Forces, and appoints the Chief Justice, the religious members of the Guardian Council, and the head of the national TV and radio networks. But Iran also has a popularly elected President. And though the Guardian Jurist is unquestionably more powerful under the Constitution, he has been forced to capitulate to the President’s policy direction on matters of serious national importance. In 2013, Hassan Rouhani won the presidency in a landslide on a platform of improving relations with the West, and by 2015, had succeeded in establishing the Iran Nuclear Deal, trading sanctions relief for restrictions on its nuclear program. The Guardian Jurist, Ali Khamenei, was opposed to both this general platform of improved Western relations and the Iran Nuclear Deal. Nevertheless, because the presidential position was legitimated by overwhelming public support, he was forced to cede his authority on these crucial issues.[3] 

That dynamic appears to be changing. The regime has increasingly, and to greater anger and disillusionment, exercised its power to exclude presidential candidates it disapproves of. In part, this has been a response to the growing divergence between the will of the people and its own narrow ideology. But its behaviour has also been shaped by external pressures, another force that has shaped the exercise of power by the Islamic regime.

Iran has few close allies, and therefore has been susceptible to a set of economic sanctions led by the United States. These sanctions have limited Iran from exporting its vast reserves of oil and isolated Iran from international financial flows. Its economy has been crippled. So, Iran has been pushed to make several efforts to seek détente with the United States, despite the United States labelling it as part of an axis-of-evil[4] and its historic support of Iraq in its devastating invasion of Iran.[5] The Nuclear Deal was the culmination of its most recent attempt. In exchange for sanctions relief, Iran agreed to drastically reduce its stockpile of uranium, to limit its enrichment capabilities, to stop using any advanced centrifuges, and to be subject to a comprehensive International Atomic Energy Agency regime of inspections and checks. Then, in 2018, President Donald Trump withdrew. The deal, which had also included the European Union and China, fell apart with the loss of its major participant. And the Iranian regime’s credibility demanded a response. Otherwise, in the eyes of the regime, the lesson to the United States would be that the United States could unilaterally dictate the terms of their relationship. So despite the people of Iran nonetheless continuing to demand improved relations with the West, the 2021 presidential elections were a sham. Popular candidates were mass disqualified by the regime to ensure the conservative Ebrahim Raisi was elected. Even so, sanctions have continued to bite, and the recently elected President Pezeshkian was allowed to run as a reform candidate after the sudden of death of Raisi, again seeking to reset relations with the West. It remains to be seen whether he will be able to do so. He faces significant headwinds, not least of which include the disapproval of other regimes. Almost as soon as he took office, Israel assassinated the leader of Hamas on Iranian soil. The Iranian regime felt compelled to respond. But even its limited responses – a widely telegraphed missile attack that killed no-one, and a more extensive attack that killed two – draw it further from achieving the rollback of sanctions that its people demand.

This analysis of political power in Iran may seem trite. Political regimes in all countries are beholden to the people they rule and to the pressures exerted by other countries. But the example of Iran draws in stark relief the oft-forgotten truth that power ultimately emerges from the bottom up. Even for the unpopular and tyrannical Iranian regime, its most consequential decisions can be traced back to their attempts to placate their populace. And as I saw firsthand, the government has surrendered a real measure of control as the people increasingly defy its repressive moral laws.

Indeed, it seems harder and harder for the regime to plot its ideological path through the vortices generated between external forces and the demands of its own people. The regime, with its elderly Leader, seems as weak as ever. Many see it as a matter of time before it collapses. But I am not sure it is so simple. The weakness of the regime has in part been generated by the economic sanctions and increasing violence directed toward Iran by the West.[6] And these actions, while appearing to weaken the regime, have also seemed to increase the likelihood of dynamic ruptures like war. In July, the Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, was given the privilege of giving an address to a joint session of the US Congress. There, he proclaimed that ‘when we fight Iran, we’re fighting the most radical and murderous enemy of the United States of America’. His rhetoric has been backed up by assassinations and missile strikes that is trending toward full-blown conflict.[7] That is an outcome that ought to be avoided with the greatest vigour. Western pressure is reaching the full extent of its usefulness. Recent experience has shown that foreign driven regime change (Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya) may lead to devastating and unpredictable tragedy. Iran, for its part, has threatened to complete its nuclear program – increasing the risk of total global annihilation.

For a country that has suffered coups, revolutions and harsh sanctions, I was struck in my visit by how positive its people were towards their future. Most doubted possibility of conflict and told me that they saw better times coming ahead. I can only hope that they are right. The Iranian people are not our enemies. A peaceful future may be within our grasp. It is incumbent on us to demand of our leaders to reach out for it.

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[1] ‘Ayatollah’ is simply an honorific title for high-ranking clergy in Shia Islam, of which there are thousands today, rather than the title for the Leader.

[2] Bruce Ackermann, Revolutionary Constitutions (Harvard University Press, 2019) 325.

[3] Ibid 324.

[4] Iran for its part calls the United States ‘Great Satan’.

[5] See John Ghazvinian, America and Iran: A history 1720 to the Present (OneWorld, 2020) Dulce et Decorum est.

[6] Its proxies, Hamas and Hezbollah, have recently been ravaged by Israel.

[7] One report suggests that President-elect Donald Trump is considering airstrikes against Iran.