The similarities between the present and the events that preceded the Shah's exile are striking. Radical clerics took advantage then, but who will prevail this time?
Source: The Guardian
Translation: Telegrafi.com
A critical moment is looming for Iran, and thus for the Middle East. The global consequences of any overthrow in Tehran have been starkly clear since the 1979 revolution that ushered in the rule of radical Islamist clerics. In Oman, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and his team have begun indirect talks with a high-level American delegation. Many analysts believe that the gap between the two sides is too wide to bridge and that conflict is inevitable. Just this weekend, after already threatening military action, Donald Trump said that regime change is “the best thing that can happen” in Iran. Tensions and risks are rising.
The hold of Iran by those who came to power after the 1979 revolution is now at risk. The ultimate US objective seems to be regime change. In fact, this may already be underway. In December 2025 and January 2026, Iran was gripped by the largest wave of protests since the early 80s, with hundreds of thousands taking to the streets—from Mashhad to Abadan.
Such scenes brought to mind the last days of the Shah of Iran, when millions took to the streets. And as we live through contemporary events, there are striking similarities between then and now that should inform the debate about what might happen, about our hopes and fears. One obvious parallel is the central role of the economy. Rising inflation was a key driver of the latest unrest. It was the same almost 50 years ago. In 1977, the price of basic consumer goods rose by as much as 27 percent. Even then, the main actors were the merchants and businessmen in Tehran’s bazaar, whose livelihoods were threatened.
A second parallel is emerging: a cycle of repression, misery, and protest that resembles the one that toppled the Shah. In 1978, it began when a conservative Iranian newspaper published a defamatory article about Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, sparking mass protests among his admirers. In the holy city of Qom, hundreds of religious students took to the streets, attacking symbols of the Shah’s rule and the modernization he had sought to impose. Security forces used live ammunition to restore order, and six students were killed. There was further unrest in Tehran.
The protests might have died down, were it not for the tradition among Shiite Muslims - who still formally make up the vast majority of the Iranian population - to observe a 40-day period of mourning before a final collective commemoration.
Ryszard Kapuściński, the famous Polish reporter, described how family, friends, neighbors, and relatives—“the whole street, the whole village, a crowd of people”—would gather at the house of the deceased. “If the death was natural ... this gathering consists of several hours of ecstatic, pathetic discharge, followed by a state of numb and humble submission,” he wrote. But, “if the death was violent, caused by someone,” then “a thirst for revenge seizes people [and] ... they pronounce the name of the murderer, the author of their grief, and it is believed that, even if he is far away, he will tremble at that moment, [because] his days are numbered.”
Exactly 40 days after the Qom protests in January 1978, new demonstrations led to new killings, along with mourning and memorial processions that inevitably turned into new mass protests. These, of course, prompted further deadly repression. The cycle intensified until in January 1979 the Shah, “the author of their grief,” left Iran – ostensibly for a vacation – never to return.
That cycle can repeat itself. Last Thursday, Wall Street Journal reported that merchants in Tehran's Grand Bazaar had called on their counterparts across Iran to return to the streets at the end of the traditional 40-day mourning period for the killings in the first week of January. The aim of the protest will be "to simultaneously, in their cities, keep alive the memory of the dead and continue the national uprising," it said on its channel on Telegram a trade association of bazaar workers, quoted by the WSJ. The aim is “to avenge the largest street massacre in modern history.”
This could be a much bigger challenge for the regime than the threat of US strikes if, as is expected, the talks fail. Ali Ansari, a prominent Iranian historian, has estimated the total number of deaths in opposition to the Shah in 1978 at around 2,800. Some believe as many as 30,000 may have died in January. That means a lot of mourning and more 40-day commemorations in the weeks ahead.
Kapuściński, along with hundreds of international reporters and photographers, was on the ground in Iran in 1978, but there is no such equivalent today, and the regime continues to restrict the internet. This makes it difficult to know exactly who was on the streets of Iran last December and in January. That the unrest was widespread and an authentic expression of deep anger and alienation seems clear. But the tragic biographies of the victims that have emerged offer only a fragmentary view of the identities of those risking death and injury in the name of freedom.
We know that the revolutionary movement of 1978 was a broad coalition. It included the radical clerics who followed Khomeini and the many millions of Iranians, often poor, less educated, who saw the exiled ayatollah as - sometimes literally - the answer to their prayers. But there were others, many of whom had worked just as hard and made just as many sacrifices in the effort to overthrow the Shah.
On the streets in 1978 and 1979 there were liberals and nationalists of every conceivable ideological bent – socialists and feminists, moderate clerics and their students, even some old-school communists. There were also representatives of Iran’s ethnic, linguistic and religious minorities. This diversity had advantages and disadvantages. As Kapuściński wrote: “Everyone was against the Shah and wanted to remove him. But everyone imagined the future differently.”
Even if the current regime is overthrown, any new direction may not be immediately clear, because it is worth noting that Khomeini did not immediately assume power upon his return. It took several years for his rule to be fully secured - built on the war with Iraq, new institutions, a new constitution, and new security forces, such as the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Basij. These were used to methodically crush any potential opponents in Iran between 1979 and 1988, and were also the bloody pinnacle of the regime's response to the more recent unrest.
There is a lesson in this for the brave men and women in Iran who today seek to overthrow their rulers. Now, as then, their triumph can come only through the massive mobilization of millions and the building of a broad coalition. But while all will share many common goals, there will be as many different visions for Iran’s future today as there were among those who overthrew the Shah in 1979. Back then, their very diversity became a weakness, allowing one faction to impose authoritarian rule and a harsh vision at the expense of all others.
So the regime may fall, but if it does, the future is hard to predict - just as it was amidst the turmoil 47 years ago. The people may prevail and discover that the real battle for freedom, prosperity and security has only just begun. /Telegraph/
