"We have now reached a very sensitive stage of the final struggle…continue to strike and do not show up for work. To the military and law enforcement forces: this is your last chance to break from the oppressive forces and join your people. Await my final call." These words, delivered by Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi in March to the people of Iran, perfectly encapsulate the sense of anticipation that gripped the Islamic Republic’s opponents and international observers alike over the fate of the regime.
In January, Iran’s security forces had massacred thousands of civilians to crush nationwide protests fueled by economic hardship and repression. Only weeks later, the United States joined forces with Israel to unleash an unprecedented strike campaign, killing Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the man who had ruled Iran for almost four decades, and decapitating the senior leadership of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). President Donald Trump told Iranians to "take over your government," Pahlavi appeared poised for a triumphant return from exile, and for a moment, it seemed the Islamic Republic could fall.
Eight months later, those heady days seem a distant memory. The IRGC did not wilt under pressure, internal or external; instead, it dug in and dragged mighty America into an increasingly embarrassing stalemate over the Strait of Hormuz. What became of the hopes and ambitions of those who would overturn the Islamic Republic and live free?
Newsweek spoke to civilians inside Iran, pro-democracy figures living beyond their homeland’s borders and independent analysts to explore whether they still believe a brighter future is possible—and whether the U.S. will be a part of building it. U.S.-Israeli strikes in February swept the Islamic Republic’s supreme leader and many of his senior security chiefs off the board, but failed to produce a political or military collapse. Before looking to the future, we must first understand why the hopes of a renewed uprising earlier this year were unfulfilled.
"Where the expectation of a quick collapse went wrong was in its reading of the adversary. Many actors in this arena had simplistic views of the Islamic Republic and underestimated its capabilities," Khosro Isfahani, director of the National Union for Democracy in Iran (NUFDI), told Newsweek. Khamenei spent decades embedding the Revolutionary Guards in virtually every aspect of Iranian society, from domestic security to the economy and intelligence services, so that killing its commanders would not dismantle the machinery of repression overnight.
"What we see today is a decades-old project of Ali Khamenei that came to fruition years ago and has only now entered its openly visible stage," Isfahani said. His assassination may, perversely, have worked against those hoping for regime change. "Toward the end of his life, when Khamenei was isolated by advanced age and by the risk of Israeli assassination, Iran was, for all practical purposes, governed by a collective leadership," said Ali Alfoneh, a senior fellow at the Arab Gulf States Institute and an expert on the IRGC.
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