Despite mounting pressure, Iran has not collapsed. In an era shaped by swift interventions and externally driven transitions—Syria, Libya, Iraq—it’s tempting to imagine Iran’s regime will be next. But Iran is not a puppet, nor a failed state held together by foreign consent. It is a layered, sovereign actor—and attempts to force its transformation will likely cost far more than predicted.
That does not mean it is immune. It means Iran’s collapse—if it occurs—will not follow the familiar scripts of military intervention, top-down puppeteering, or sudden surrender. It will be complex, asymmetric, and regionally disruptive.
Why Iran Is Structurally Different
Unlike Syria, which ultimately ceded control to Russian military command, or Libya and Iraq, which crumbled under foreign attack and internal vacuum, Iran maintains full-spectrum state sovereignty. Its leadership reacts swiftly under pressure, retaliates proportionally, and retains strategic continuity—even under high-level assassinations or cyberattacks.
It is not conventionally strong. Its economy is strained and its airpower limited. But it draws resilience from asymmetric strengths: a deeply institutionalized bureaucracy, entrenched regional proxies, and a legitimacy narrative rooted in endurance rather than expansion.
This system does not rely on foreign protection or external permission. It is internally woven and hardened by survival logic.
Civilizational Identity as Strategic Glue
Iran’s political architecture is not sustained solely by Shiite theology. It draws strength from civilizational memory—anchored in the Persian language, dynastic pride, and a millennia-long tradition of sovereignty. Political imagery often places Imam Hussein and Cyrus the Great side by side. This isn’t ideological confusion; it’s an adaptive nationalism that accommodates contradiction for the sake of continuity.
Such memory doesn’t prevent collapse—but it complicates it. Regimes may rise and fall, but civilizational states tend to resist externally imposed futures. Iran may evolve, but if it does, it will likely do so on its own cultural and political terms—not through outside design.
A more likely trajectory than liberalization is a hybrid model: a nationalist-Islamic recalibration, possibly under a new pact between the military and clerical elite. This would preserve continuity while adapting to demographic and geopolitical shifts.
The 1979 Exception
Iran’s 1979 revolution was a rare convergence: a permissive global order, elite defections, clerical cohesion, and a largely passive international response. It happened without military defeat or foreign intervention.
Those conditions no longer exist. Today’s multipolar world is fractured, transactional, and interventionist. Transitions are rarely organic; they are managed, steered, and contested. Replicating 1979 is far less likely under today’s hardened geopolitical climate.
The Collapse Scenario: Still Possible, Still Costly
Iran’s regime is not invincible. Its vulnerabilities are real:
- The aging of its ideological elite
- A younger, digitally active population impatient for reform
- Chronic economic mismanagement
- Uncertainty around the post-Khamenei succession
What if China and Russia remain silent? What if the U.S. and its allies escalate their campaign beyond sanctions? What if Iran’s deep state fractures—or even facilitates regime change to avoid institutional collapse?
These are no longer abstract hypotheticals. They are plausible stress points that could cascade into disintegration. History shows that regimes don’t always fall slowly—they can collapse abruptly through elite paralysis or one catastrophic misstep.
Military options, covert operations, or cyber warfare might destabilize Iran further, but without elite fracture, they may not achieve regime collapse.
The Missing Variable: The Public
Iran’s population is not a passive backdrop. From the 2009 Green Movement to the 2022 Mahsa Amini protests, Iranians have displayed enduring protest capacity, civic awareness, and networked mobilization—often in the face of brutal crackdowns. What’s evolving now is not just protest culture, but digital coordination, diaspora alliances, and symbolic resistance that erodes the regime’s moral capital.
Crucially, Iran lacks strong opposition leadership but has a rising culture of spontaneous defiance—women, students, athletes, and artists taking frontline symbolic roles. A critical threshold may be reached when mass discontent aligns with elite hesitation and security fragmentation. When regime crises become national—not just urban or class-based—they become far harder to suppress.
Notes on Global Consensus
Any discussion of Iran’s future—especially regime change—must consider the prevailing dynamics among global powers. Unlike regional actors, these states possess the capabilities to decisively enable or constrain transformation efforts. China and Russia, with their strategic partnerships and economic ties to Iran, have consistently shown reluctance to support abrupt regime changes that risk destabilizing their interests or regional balance. Meanwhile, the United States and its Western allies maintain firm opposition to the current Iranian regime, but their objectives are tempered by geopolitical limits, wariness of unintended consequences, and divergent priorities among themselves.
The absence of a unified global consensus on how to address Iran complicates any effort to impose rapid transformation, as fragmented international stances encourage Tehran to exploit rivalries and maintain strategic autonomy.
An Alternative Scenario: Global Backdoor Alignment
One must also consider the possibility of a quiet, informal diplomatic consensus among global powers—an alignment achieved through backdoor channels rather than open declarations. In this scenario, global actors privately negotiate terms to facilitate regime change while managing risks of chaos and unintended escalation. Under such a setting, Russia and China might not openly endorse regime change but may decline to obstruct it if the transition preserves their core interests. This “soft greenlight” scenario would involve covert coordination, elite bargaining within Iran, and external guarantees for continuity and containment.
It is possible—but extremely delicate. The trust deficit among global powers, uncertainty within Iran’s own elite ranks, and the unpredictability of public reaction mean that even a managed transition could spiral into regional disorder.
Notes on Regional Consensus
The article previously framed regional consensus—among Pakistan, Turkey, India, and the Gulf states—as a requirement for post-collapse stabilization. This remains a strategic necessity, but not necessarily a prerequisite for collapse itself.
Disorder can precede alignment. Regime failure could arrive before any regional actors are ready to manage the consequences. This is what makes the Iranian scenario uniquely risky: it could disintegrate long before its neighbors—or adversaries—are prepared to absorb the fallout.
Two Strategic Questions Still Remain
- Is military victory essential?
Can the Islamic Republic be dismantled without overt military action? If not, who is prepared to fight—and who will manage the aftermath? - What replaces Iran’s system—and who signs off?
Iran is too large, too strategic, and too interconnected to simply “fall.” Any transition, whether managed or chaotic, will reverberate across the region and beyond.
Scientific Conditions for Regime Change: Where Iran Stands
Political science identifies key preconditions for regime change: ideological collapse, elite fracture, mass mobilization, external enabling, economic breakdown, and succession crisis. Iran currently shows signs of stress in all of these areas—but not full convergence.
The ruling ideology, while contested, still unites key elite factions. Security and clerical institutions remain largely intact. Protest movements erupt periodically but have not yet achieved nationwide sustainability under repression.
Iran may be inching closer to the threshold—but it has not yet crossed the scientific tipping point. This fragile space between stress and systemic failure is where real risk—and miscalculation—resides.
Three Plausible Futures
| Scenario | Likelihood (2025–2030) | Cost / Risk |
|---|---|---|
| Hybrid Continuity | High | Medium |
| Managed Transition | Moderate | High |
| Sudden Rupture | Low | Very High |
Conclusion: Collapse Is Not a Strategy
While multiple futures are conceivable, one trajectory remains far more probable: hybrid continuity. The Islamic Republic is more likely to adapt—through internal bargaining, ideological recalibration, and structural evolution—than to be overthrown outright. Elite fracture, external consensus, and mass defiance are all possible, but their perfect alignment is rare.
The world must prepare for multiple outcomes—but resist the temptation of fatalism. Iran’s collapse is not inevitable, nor is its permanence guaranteed. What is certain is this: disrupting such a deeply rooted state will carry consequences far beyond its borders.
The real question is not whether Iran can fall.
It is: What kind of region—and what kind of world—will rise from its collapse?
“در این حرم همه کس را راهی نیست
خدا را خستگان را همین است دستگیر”“Dar in haram, hama kasey rā rahī nest,
Khodā rā khastegān rā hamīn ast dastgīr.”“Not everyone finds passage in this sanctuary;
But for the weary, God remains the final refuge.”
— Hafez
This verse speaks to Iran’s enduring psychology of resistance—not just as a theocratic state, but as a civilization steeped in the belief that trials refine, not extinguish. While foreign analysts often measure Iran through tanks, protests, or GDP, its foundational belief lies elsewhere: that the state, like the soul in Hafez’s verses, survives siege through inner discipline, historical continuity, and a confidence in destiny beyond worldly calculations.
Muhammet Ali Zurnacı
Three Corporate
June 21, 2025, Istanbul