What’s next for Iran? The choice lies with its people

Iran’s long-running standoff with the West has once again returned to the global spotlight—this time fueled by retaliatory missile launches, a fleeting ceasefire, and renewed talk of escalation. Alongside these events, familiar questions echo in diplomatic circles and media headlines alike: Is regime change in Iran inevitable? Should the West intervene? Is the Islamic Republic nearing collapse?

But these questions, often posed from afar, overlook something essential. If lasting, legitimate change is to come to Iran, it won’t be imposed. It will have to come from the Iranian people themselves. Despite years of sanctions, covert operations, and high-level diplomacy aimed at curbing Tehran’s reach, the country’s political trajectory still bends inward—toward its own citizens’ resolve and imagination.

This isn't just about preserving sovereignty. It's about understanding the deeply local nature of political legitimacy in Iran—a system shaped less by foreign policy than by cultural memory, generational fatigue, and the hard calculus of everyday survival. Outsiders calling for reform often miss the point: without broad internal buy-in, even well-intentioned pressure becomes counterproductive.

Tehran’s grip on power is no longer what it once was. A string of political shocks over the past decade has exposed widening fractures in the regime’s authority. One of the most defining came in 2022, when the death of Mahsa Amini—detained for allegedly breaching hijab rules—triggered nationwide protests. What began as a call for justice quickly evolved into a broader cry against systemic control.

The breadth of dissent was striking. High school students, university activists, Kurdish minorities, and professionals from Iran’s urban middle class flooded the streets. Their message was clear: this wasn’t just about one death—it was about an entire system built on coercion. Predictably, the state hit back. Detentions soared. Online access was throttled. In some cases, demonstrators faced the ultimate penalty. And yet, resistance persisted. Crackdowns no longer scare protestors into silence the way they once did. Instead, they expose a deeper rot in the state’s legitimacy—especially among Iran’s youth, who see dwindling prospects and rising repression as twin burdens.

Economically, the picture is bleak. Persistent inflation has gutted household purchasing power. Young graduates struggle to find employment. Basic goods often feel out of reach for middle-income families. For many, the choice is stark: adapt, endure, or leave. And yet the regime remains intact. So, what holds it together?

Iran’s political architecture was built to absorb shocks. Since the 1979 revolution, it has operated as a hybrid regime: part theocratic, part pseudo-democratic, with elected officials layered beneath a powerful unelected core. At its apex stands the Supreme Leader—currently Ayatollah Ali Khamenei—who oversees the judiciary, the armed forces, and the intelligence apparatus.

This system isn’t just resilient—it’s adaptable. It tolerates a spectrum of internal debate (within limits) and occasionally reshuffles its political figureheads to release pressure. Reformist presidents may rise, but critical levers of power—military, judiciary, media—remain firmly in conservative hands. Dissidents are permitted to speak—until they cross invisible boundaries.

For this reason, efforts at regime change that rely on outside actors often falter. Iran’s political order is neither fragile nor monolithic; it is entrenched, managed, and deeply invested in its own survival. Foreign attempts to destabilize it only serve to reinforce state narratives about Western interference—rhetoric that hardliners are quick to exploit. But that doesn't mean change is off the table. History says otherwise. From the 1906 Constitutional Revolution to the fall of the Shah in 1979, Iran has seen sweeping upheavals before. When they come, they come from within—and usually when the state oversteps its bounds too far for too long.

Iran’s sprawling diaspora has become one of the regime’s most persistent critics—and one of its most effective storytellers. Across the US, Europe, and Canada, exiled Iranians have launched advocacy networks, satellite media channels, and online campaigns to draw global attention to repression back home.

Their voices matter. But diaspora influence has its limits. For those inside Iran, movements viewed as foreign-funded or exiled-led often lack local credibility. Authentic change tends to require not just visibility, but proximity—leaders who know the streets they’re trying to liberate. Western policymakers face a dilemma. Intervene too much, and they risk undermining Iran’s civil society by tainting it with geopolitical motives. Do too little, and they appear to abandon those risking their lives for basic freedoms.

The smarter path lies somewhere in between: amplifying Iranian voices without speaking over them, offering refuge to dissidents without co-opting their cause, and supporting tools that allow access to open information—encrypted messaging apps, VPNs, digital literacy programs. The real test for the West isn’t whether it can drive regime change. It’s whether it can get out of the way long enough for Iranians to define what change actually looks like.

Iran doesn’t need a foreign-imposed revolution. It needs breathing room—space for its own citizens to debate, dissent, and determine their future. That space is shrinking. But it isn’t gone yet. Today’s Iranian youth are more educated, digitally connected, and ideologically untethered than generations before them. They’ve seen the outside world. They’ve felt its freedoms through a smartphone screen, even if they’ve never traveled abroad. And they’re increasingly unwilling to accept that their future must be sacrificed for ideology they don’t believe in.

Still, no one should expect a clean arc toward liberal democracy. Change in Iran won’t be linear. It won’t follow a Western script. It will emerge, slowly and unevenly, from the collision between tradition and aspiration, repression and resilience. Those watching from the outside would do well to resist the temptation to narrate Iran’s struggle for its people. Because in the end, the only question that really matters isn’t whether Iran needs change. It’s how—and when—Iranians will choose to pursue it.

The West’s role, if any, is to act as a quiet enabler, not a conductor. That means reducing the costs of dissent, not branding the opposition. It means amplifying, not appropriating. And it means recognizing that the legitimacy of change is not measured in headlines or hashtags, but in the courage of those who stay, speak up, and take real risks. When the tipping point comes, it will be theirs to own—not ours to orchestrate.