Iran is living through one of the most dangerous moments in its post-revolutionary history. Nationwide protests have become sustained rather than episodic.

As a new wave of unrest has spread across the country, violence has intensified. The true death toll cannot be verified yet.

These events have revived a familiar question: Is Iran heading towards another 1979?

• READ MORE: Other Iran reports

The temptation to rely on this analogy is understandable. Images of mass mobilisation and rapidly recurring protests evoke memories of the final months of the Shah’s rule. Yet the comparison is ultimately misleading.

The success of the 1979 revolution cannot be explained solely by mass mobilisation. Instead, it was the convergence of coordinated opposition under Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and, more decisively, the ruling elites’ inability to effectively repress dissent that ensured its triumph.

Mohammad Reza Shah had cancer, was heavily medicated and was visibly indecisive. His leadership faltered during crises. He left the country twice amid political upheaval, first in 1953 after being challenged by Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh and again in January 1979 as protests spread nationwide.

Equally important, the Shah’s repressive apparatus was fragmented and socially heterogeneous. Apart from SAVAK, the Shah’s central intelligence organisation, the police and gendarmerie were tasked with maintaining social order while the Iranian army focused on territorial defence rather than political repression.

Lacked ideological vetting
These institutions lacked systematic ideological vetting and drew personnel from diverse social and ideological backgrounds.

When the Shah left the country, some segments of the police stopped their repressive tactics and cooperated with protesters to maintain public order while senior military commanders hesitated, prioritised self-preservation and ultimately abandoned the monarchy.

The situation today is fundamentally different. Unlike the Shah, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s leadership is not marked by hesitation or indecision during crises.

Since assuming the position of supreme leader in 1989, Khamenei has overseen a profound transformation of the Islamic Republic into what I describe as a theocratic security state that relies more on repression rather than societal consent.

As the supreme leader, he presides over a highly institutionalised, cohesive, ideologically committed and deeply invested coercive apparatus. This structural reality, rather than popular sentiment alone, defines the limits of revolutionary change in Iran today.

The Islamic Republic’s coercive power is not concentrated in a single institution. Instead, it is distributed across overlapping organisations with redundant chains of command. These forces are concentrated within the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the Basij, the police, the intelligence services and the social networks attached to them.

Iran’s coercive institutions are dominated by the regime’s hardcore supporters. Their loyalty is not merely transactional. It is ideological, institutional and generational. Ideological vetting and patronage ensure that their loyalty is not only enforced but actively cultivated.

Tied to regime survival
Their social mobility, economic security and sense of identity are tied to the survival of the regime and Khamenei’s leadership. For them, regime collapse is not a political transition; it is an existential threat. In moments of crisis, these loyalists act preemptively to prevent the diffusion of protest and frame unrest as foreign-backed sedition, lowering internal barriers to violence.

Consequently, even protests that are larger and more widespread geographically than those in 1979 would not fundamentally challenge the regime. Instead, they would lead to stricter repression. This highlights a key lesson: Protests by themselves do not cause revolutions.

Revolutions occur when mass unrest intersects with elite paralysis or defection. That happened in 1979, but it has not happened now.

What could alter this equilibrium is not protest alone but a direct shock to the regime’s leadership structure. External intervention, particularly by the United States, would likely aim to disrupt elite coordination by targeting senior political and security figures with strikes.

Such an approach would only generate a genuine regime crisis if it removed Khamenei himself. Power in the Islamic Republic has been heavily centralised within the office of the supreme leader and his inner circle. His sudden absence could trigger elite confrontation over succession and weaken cohesion at the top.

But intervention could also reinforce loyalist unity. If Khamenei survived, core supporters within the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the Basij and the intelligence services would almost certainly close ranks, as they have done during previous external confrontations. Under those conditions, elite defection would remain unlikely.

Even in the event of regime collapse, Iran would not face the institutional vacuum seen in some post-intervention states. The country’s modern bureaucracy, which has maintained continuity since the early 20th century, would likely continue functioning in the short term. Administrative breakdown would be constrained by state capacity, social organisation and national identity.

Prolonged insurgency?
Some warn that the fall of the Islamic Republic would inevitably lead to a prolonged insurgency. That risk cannot be dismissed. However, unlike the cases of Iraq or Afghanistan, in Iran, there would not be external state actors willing and able to finance, organise and sustain armed radical movements.

Iranian society has also shown deep resistance to religious extremism and political radicalism. It is possible that instability following a regime collapse could be contained.

The real danger, then, is not that Iran is on the verge of repeating 1979 but that persistent reliance on that analogy blinds policymakers to how the Islamic Republic functions today.

Misreading the nature of power in Iran does not increase the chances of peaceful change. It increases the likelihood that Iranians themselves will bear the cost of repression, escalation and prolonged uncertainty.

Saeid Golkar is assistant professor at the Department of Political Science at the University of Tennessee, Chattanooga and senior fellow on Iran policy at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. This article was first published by Al Jazeera.

An academic says hostage diplomacy is a well-known tactic of the Iranian regime and New Zealanders should not go to the country.

Topher Richwhite and Bridget Thackwray are understood to have been detained for months after entering Iran.

The New Zealand government negotiated for the safe release of the pair but has remained tight-lipped about the details.

• LISTEN TO RNZ MORNING REPORT: ‘Iran is in the middle of a revolution’ – Massey University lecturer Dr Negar Partow
• Protests in Berlin, US cities in solidarity with Iranian women
• Iran protests: Why the country’s women are rebelling
• Other Mahsa Amini solidarity reports

A senior lecturer from Massey University who was born and raised in Iran, Dr Negar Partow, said there was a pattern of this kind of action in Iran.

However, she told RNZ Morning Report it was not necessarily naive for the couple to visit the country.

When they arrived in July it was much quieter than what it became when the unrest started in September after the death of Mahsa Amini, who was detained by morality police for allegedly not covering her hair properly.

However, travelling in a Jeep — a US brand — might have created suspicions, she said.

NZ not especially targeted
The move against the New Zealanders was not especially targeted at this country, she said, with as many as 70 nations having citizens in Iranian prisons.

“The fact that Iran entered a revolutionary phase complicated the situation and gave the Islamic Republic the opportunity to use them and to create a hostage diplomacy. This is not particular to Aotearoa. They do it all around the world,” she said.

People with dual citizenship, diplomats, activists, and human rights and environmental advocates were especially vulnerable to attention from Iranian authorities.

If the couple had been focusing on environmental concerns that may have made them a target, she said.

“As the Islamic Republic becomes more and more challenged and de-legitimised by this revolution, these hostage crises will increase and they will use any opportunity as a bargaining chip.”

There have been conflicting reports on now the couple were detained.

Dr Partow said Iran used different models, including imprisonment or being detained in a safe house and not being allowed to communicate.

Richwhite and Thackwray would have had their passports confiscated and their cellphones removed with their Instagram posts stopping in July.

She believed they were not put in prison.

Tepid resoponse by NZ
Asked about the tepid response by the New Zealand government to the unrest in Iran, she said the government was trying to do a delicate balancing act while the couple were being detained.

Many Western governments had to resort to hostage diplomacy with Iran.

While Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta has warned against visiting Iran due to the potential for violence, Dr Partow said it was important to remember the violence was being perpetrated by the security agencies not the protesters.

She said now that the couple had been freed, she was hopeful Aotearoa would take a stronger stance.

“Yes we have been too kind but I’m hoping that as we come out of this period and everybody’s back to normal diplomacy we will take stronger action against the Islamic republic,” she said.

“As the prime minister mentioned as well, this was a delicate diplomatic situation … we did have two New Zealanders inside Iran detained and I think that [strong criticism of Iran] would create more complications.”

Expulsion of ambassador
The expulsion of the ambassador, campaigning for oil embargoes, speaking out publicly to support the rights of Iranian women and human rights lobbying at the United Nations were among measures New Zealand should be considering.

“Now that we have been the victim of hostage crisis in the Islamic Republic that should give us much more importance into the project and we should actually work on it,” she said.

As for advice for potential visitors, she said: “Definitely not. Iran is in the middle of a revolution.”

Ordinary citizens were not in a position to offer help to foreign tourists and it was far better that they stayed away.

She said as the revolution approached the six-week mark, the response from authorities to the demonstrations was becoming even more violent and oppressive.

Asked about Act’s move to block a motion calling for a unified condemnation of Iran’s oppression of women’s rights unless Greens MP Golriz Ghahraman apologised for interrupting a speech made by party leader David Seymour in the House, she said it should be remembered that the Iranian government was now killing children and this was a more important consideration.

Deputy PM pleased couple released
The government is remaining tight lipped about what it took to secure the release of the couple.

Deputy Prime Minister Grant Robertson said Iran was a dangerous place and New Zealanders should obey the travel warnings not to go there.

Consular officials around the world did not judge New Zealanders who got into trouble —  instead they got on with the job of helping them regain their freedom.

“I’m just pleased we’ve been able to get them out.”

Robertson told RNZ First Up he could not comment specifically on the couple’s case — but he said it was important to understand the customs and rules of other countries — and to understand whether you should be there at all.

He said no doubt the pair would reflect on what they have been through.

Call for NZ govt to take strong stand
An Iranian-Kurdish journalist now living in New Zealand said the government needed to do more regarding the actions of Iran’s government.

Behrouz Boochani, who was granted refugee status in New Zealand in July 2020, said New Zealand should speak out loudly against the Iranian regime.

He said the current unrest was a revolution and was a call for regime change in Iran.

While there had been mass protests in the past, this year felt different because it involved more people and more cities.

He said he was delighted the couple had been freed. However, the Iranian community in New Zealand had been disappointed in Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s response to the unrest in Iran to this point.

He said since Mahsa Amini’s death another 250 people had been killed, including more than 20 children.

“So we expect the New Zealand government to strongly condemn this violence and strongly support the protesters on the street and the people of Iran.”

The US and Australia have criticised the Iranian government’s actions and it was time New Zealand followed suit.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.