The Cost of Staying Too Long: Iran’s Unfinished Warning to the World

In 1979, by the time many democracies were maturing from their infancy stage, Iran still had one major task unfinished: to overthrow a king and reinvent its identity. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and his followers toppled the Pahlavi monarchy and established the Islamic Republic of Iran, an experiment in theocratic governance that fused religious clerics with absolute political power.

Illustration by The Geostrata

What began as a wave of “neither East nor West, only Islam” idealism quickly calcified into a rigid system where the Supreme Leader outranks presidents, cabinets, and courts. The revolution was marketed as freedom with faith, but for many, it soon meant freedom confined by doctrine. Over four decades later, Iranians are again wrestling with the legacy of that same revolution, a legacy that refuses to fade.

"WOMAN, LIFE, FREEDOM": THE FEMINIST SPARK THAT REFUSED TO DIE

Until the 21st century, Iranian women fought not just for dignity, but for the simple right to exist on their own terms when their global counterparts were leading and representing nations. For a time before 1979, women in Iran had won surprising freedoms: educational opportunities, voting rights, and relative personal autonomy compared to many neighbouring societies.

But as the Islamic Republic entrenched itself, women were pushed into a narrower public role. Dress codes tightened, civil liberties shrunk to practically none, and policing of women’s bodies became a state priority.

Then came September 16, 2022, one of the darkest days in the history of Iran and what prematurely ignited the revolution. Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish Iranian woman, was detained by the morality police for allegedly violating the country’s compulsory hijab laws. Within days, she was dead. The regime insisted she died of pre-existing conditions; her family and eyewitnesses said bruises and trauma suggested otherwise. Her final breath sparked instant outrage.

What began as grief turned into a roar heard around the world. “Woman, life, freedom!” became more than a slogan. It became a challenge, a defiance, a declaration that the bodies of Iranian women, long regulated, legislated, and restricted, were not state property. Women cut their hair in open streets, burned their scarves, and marched shoulder to shoulder with young men and marginalised communities. The movement was no longer about clothing; it was about claiming one's very personhood.

PROTESTS THEN, REPRESSION NOW

The first major wave, from September 2022 into 2023, was emblematic to say the least. Women led the calls for regime change. By the end of that period, hundreds had been killed, thousands detained, and countless families traumatised by state violence.

Yet the movement did not disappear even a bit. Instead, it endured, simmered under the surface, and evolved better than before. The Iranian regime did too, not by reforming itself, but by tightening its grip. It silenced dissent, amplified religious justifications, and leaned harder on instruments of repression like the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and the Basij militia.

It is the very nature of power: to suppress, defeat, and abuse, but never to loosen its grip on the reins, even as it chokes those it rules.

Fast forward to 2025–2026. The spark has become an inferno.

2025-2026: ECONOMIC MELTDOWN MEETS POLITICAL FRACTURE

In late 2025, Iran’s economic foundation, once anchored to oil exports, began to shake violently. Chronic international sanctions, especially on the oil sector, had already strangled state revenues. Inflation soared beyond 50 per cent, basic staples became luxuries, and the Iranian rial collapsed, devastating household purchasing power.

What began as protests against economic pain, bread prices, unemployment, and inflation quickly morphed into much more. People in the bazaars stopped selling. Teachers refused to teach. University students marched. Mothers stood with their children in the streets, screaming till their lungs burnt, “No justice, no peace!” Yet, the slogans couldn’t reach the deaf ears of the powerful. The issues were no longer just economic, but existential. 

What makes these protests especially volatile is that they cut across society, from the urban affluent to rural labourers, from the youth who have never known life before the internet to ethnic minorities who yearn for recognition. 

A BRUTAL CRACKDOWN AND THE INTERNET BLACKOUT OF 2026

As the protests spread, the Iranian government responded with escalating force. Security forces opened fire. Mass arrests surged. Hospitals and morgues began documenting thousands of dead, young men and women alike.

In January 2026, the state implemented a near-total internet blackout, a digital curtain meant to cut Iranians off from each other and the world, and to conceal the scale of the crackdown. The government’s strategy was clear: isolate, intimidate, and attempt to starve dissent of its connections.

Reports from inside Iran, when they surface, often paint a dire picture. Neighbourhoods look no different from a battle zone. Security forces are using water cannons, tear gas, metal-packed shotguns, and live ammunition. Hospitals are running out of supplies. Families searching for children who never made it home. Estimates vary, but some reports suggest tens of thousands may have been killed, with many more wounded or missing.

This level of violence matches, and in local memory eclipses, the harshest crackdowns since the Islamic Republic began. The world watches, even as Tehran tries to lie about the scale, deflect blame, and survive.

WOMEN AT THE HEART OF CHANGE

What distinguishes the current moment from earlier cycles of unrest is the centrality of women’s resistance. Many analysts and scholars argue that Iran’s modern struggle cannot be separated from its gender politics, because the regime’s attempt to control women’s bodies became a metaphor for controlling society itself.

Women are not just participants in protests; they are leaders, symbols, messengers, and martyrs. Every chant against compulsory hijab laws carries centuries of suppressed agency. Every time a woman removes her scarf in public, it is a bold, unapologetic refusal, not just to comply with a dress code, but to be defined by others. This is feminism shaped under fire. It is raw, it is emotional, and it refuses to be erased.

GEOPOLITICS: FRIENDS, FOES, AND THE CHESSBOARD IN IRAN

Domestically, Iran is teetering. Abroad, it has long been a central player in Middle Eastern geopolitics, sometimes as a benefactor, sometimes as a suspect, often as both.

Israel and the United States

Relations between Iran and the United States have been hostile since the 1979 Revolution, especially after U.S. diplomatic ties ended in 1980 and mutual distrust calcified into decades of sanctions and proxy conflicts.

Iran’s relationship with Israel is even sharper. The two have been locked in a shadow war of proxies, Iran backing militia groups like Hezbollah and Hamas, and Israel responding with strikes on Iranian assets in Syria and elsewhere. The 2025–2026 cycle of protests unfolded in the wake of military tensions in the region, including damaging strikes that weakened parts of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, actions that rattled both internal prestige and external confidence.

The United States, under its leadership, has publicly voiced support for Iranian protesters and even cancelled diplomatic engagements with Tehran. Former U.S. President Donald Trump explicitly urged Iranians to continue their protests and promised support, further straining ties.

Regional Realpolitik

Iran’s power projection extends across the Middle East through alliances with Syria, Iraq’s militias, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the Houthis in Yemen. For regional rivals like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, this network is perceived as destabilising. For smaller states, it is often threatening. And for global powers, Iran is both a bargaining chip and a headache.

If Iran’s internal order collapses, the ripple effects transcend borders, potentially destabilising Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, and beyond. That is why foreign capitals are watching with equal parts fear and opportunism.

PROTESTS, LANGUAGE, AND THE SPIRIT OF INSURRECTION

In the streets, slogans tell stories that cannot be ignored. People cry “Death to the dictator!”, a reference to both Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the clerical elite who have ruled since 1979. Protesters also sing songs of solidarity, share stories, make art on walls, and find ways, even in digital blackouts, to let the outside world know: we are here, and we are not invisible.

Women, especially, have become icons of resistance. They post videos with hashtags like #WomanLifeFreedom, #IranProtests, and #MahsaAmini. They ask questions that burn beneath the surface of society: Who owns my body? Who decides my future? Those questions echo beyond Iran’s borders, resonating in feminist movements across the world, from North America to South Asia, from Europe to Australia.

WHAT COMES NEXT? HOPE, FEAR, OR SOMETHING ELSE?

Is Iran on the brink of another revolution? Scholars differ. Some see trends that feel revolutionary: broad participation, unifying demands, strong female leadership, and global solidarity. Others warn that the regime’s control apparatus, economic leverage, and ideological grip are still formidable.

But the protests of 2025–2026 are unmistakable in their energy and scale. They are not just about economics, or even about women’s rights. They are about the right to shape one’s destiny, to speak freely, and to be treated with dignity.

One protester told a reporter: “We are tired of dying quietly.” That phrase is now etched into the narrative of Iran’s struggle.

THE EMOTIONAL WEIGHT OF THE MOMENT

To understand Iran today is to understand grief and grit, rage and resilience. People have lost friends. Mothers have lost children. Entire communities carry the trauma of loss, injury, and disappearance. Yet they march again. They sing again. They call for justice with voices cracked from tear gas and whips.

It is important that the world, but most importantly, global citizens and not just the policy and peace-makers, look at the conditions in Iran and learn their lessons, to say the least. Because what is happening to Iran is not exclusive to Iran; it is the same story everywhere: poverty, inflation, starvation, and women being murdered. It’s the same picture, just in different colours.

You can always choose to ignore these things, but then what? What happens when the same wave that crashed their country now crashes yours? This is solely what history tries to do, teach the lessons of time so they are not repeated.

We, as citizens, have far more in common with an average citizen of Iran or Sudan than we ever will with the rich of our own communities. This is not just another protest wave. This is a generation saying no to being overlooked, subdued, or silenced. It is a feminist uprising without a manifesto, a movement for personal autonomy and collective liberation. It is a nation reimagining itself. Again.

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BY SHUBHANGI ASHISH

COVERING PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA

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