For the reason that Twenties, Iran has lived by two defining political moments which have mirrored two distinct civilisational identities. They’ve formed not solely the nation’s inner character but in addition its relationship with the broader world.
At this time, with the Islamic republic beneath unprecedented pressure, a 3rd Iranian second could also be approaching.
Modernity on the shah’s phrases
The primary Iranian second was the reign of the Pahlavi monarchy, which started in 1925 with Reza Khan Pahlavi, a military officer, being instated to the throne and led to 1979 with the outbreak of the Iranian Revolution. It was constructed round a specific imaginative and prescient of Iran: secular, modernising, and firmly anchored within the dominion of the Western-led camp throughout the Chilly Conflict.
Tehran recognised Israel after it was created in 1948, equipped oil to Western markets, and served as Washington’s chosen guardian of the Gulf. The shah projected energy throughout a area fraught with ethnic and sectarian rivalries, main a rustic that posed a problem to its Arab neighbours, but in addition served as a mannequin of state-driven improvement.
Central to the Pahlavi venture was a deliberate try to anchor the monarchy’s legitimacy not in Islam, however within the Persian imperial previous. Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi consciously linked his rule to the traditional Achaemenid Empire — the dynasty of Cyrus and Darius that solid the primary nice Persian civilisation within the fifth century BC.
The grandiose celebrations of 1971 on the ruins of the traditional capital of Persepolis, marking 2,500 years of Persian monarchy, have been essentially the most theatrical expression of this declare: a declaration that the Pahlavi throne was not a contemporary building however the heir of an unbroken imperial custom. In doing so, the shah sought to put himself above faith — a king of kings in a lineage older than Islam itself.
But beneath the floor of modernisation and imperial grandeur, the monarch was nakedly authoritarian. SAVAK, the dreaded secret police, was synonymous with torture and repression. When the mass protests of 1978 and 1979 erupted, each geopolitical partnership the shah had cultivated proved nugatory.
No overseas ally moved a muscle to save lots of him. A monarch that had prioritised strategic utility over widespread legitimacy discovered himself fully alone. The primary Iranian second ended not with a conflict, however with a revolution — and the lesson went unlearned by those that adopted.
The Islamic republic
From the ashes of the shah’s rule emerged one thing genuinely novel: the Islamic Republic of Iran, based beneath Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s doctrine of velayat-e faqih — the guardianship of the Islamic jurist. It grew to become solely the second Shia state for the reason that Safavid Empire (1501-1736), which had itself made Twelver Shiism Iran’s defining identification.
The brand new republic was constructed on the premise that Islamic ideas ought to govern not simply non secular life, but in addition politics, economics and even social life. The general public sphere was to be managed, morality enforced, and Iran’s cultural identification explicitly de-Westernised.
The place the Pahlavis had embraced the US and Israel, the Islamic republic constructed its identification in express opposition to each. Its overseas coverage grew to become outlined by resistance: assist for Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, the Houthis in Yemen, and Shia militias throughout Iraq and Syria — an online of proxies Tehran referred to as the “axis of resistance”. This ultimately brought about the continuing disaster in Iran’s neighbourhood.
When it comes to financial governance, the regime seemed eastwards, aspiring to a mannequin not not like China’s: authoritarian in politics, state-directed in economics, impartial of Western establishments.
That independence got here at an infinite worth. Greater than 3,600 totally different sanctions have been imposed on the republic — a cumulative siege that devastated the lives of unusual Iranians. The decline of the regional affect of Iran emerged following two main stunning occasions: the Arab Spring, which raised questions concerning the credibility of Iran’s declare of defending the oppressed, and the October 7 assaults, which arrange Iran as a possible navy goal for Israel.
Three main armed conflicts scarred its existence: the Iran-Iraq Conflict of 1980–1988, during which a whole bunch of hundreds died; the 12-day conflict involving Israel and the US in June 2025; and the continuing battle starting on February 28.
Every conflict deepened the siege mentality on the core of the regime’s identification — the conviction that in the present day’s Iran is perpetually encircled and its very survival is beneath risk.
Second of precarity
One can perceive, looking back, how the primary second ended. The Pahlavi monarchy misplaced its home legitimacy, and its overseas patrons seemed away. The revolution adopted. However the trajectory of the second Iranian second is way much less clear — and that opacity is itself a supply of regional and international anxiousness.
The Islamic republic in the present day is neither the assured revolutionary energy it was within the Eighties, nor a secure non secular state able to indefinitely managing its contradictions. Mass protests over the previous twenty years have raised social, financial and political questions concerning the nature of the social contract that the Islamic republic presents.
Concurrently, its regional affect is declining, its nuclear programme has caused direct navy confrontation, and its financial system – devastated by sanctions and endemic corruption – can’t ship the prosperity wanted to purchase widespread acquiescence.
There are a number of eventualities for what occurs subsequent. The regime might survive in its present kind. A reformed Islamic republic may retain its Shia theological identification, whereas abandoning its most confrontational postures, although such a transition would require a political class keen to barter, and an opposition able to receiving and holding onto energy responsibly; neither situation is clearly current.
There’s additionally a extra turbulent state of affairs: fragmentation, civil battle and an influence vacuum. This can’t be dominated out in a rustic that encompasses Persians, Azeris, Kurds, Arabs, and Baluchis, held collectively more and more by coercion alone.
Iran’s subsequent chapter won’t be written by overseas powers alone, or by the clerical institution alone, or by the protest motion alone. It is going to emerge from the collision of all these forces — inner and exterior, historic and speedy.
This new Iranian second is a leap into the unknown: for Iranians most of all, but in addition for the area and the world that may really feel its penalties. Precarious and perplexed, Iran stands on the edge. What lies past stays to be seen.
The views expressed on this article are the writer’s personal and don’t essentially mirror Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
