There is a recurring myth—dressed in different language in every era:
that history is divided into a “right” and a “wrong” side, and that societies simply need to choose a camp.
In reality, the fundamental dilemma has never been ideological.
It has always been—and remains—a question of sovereignty, and to a large extent, of class. It is not about democracy versus authoritarianism, nor “the West” versus “the East,” despite what Samuel Huntington tried to convince us with his Clash of Civilizations at the threshold of the new millennium.
It is about whether a country retains the ability to decide for itself, or whether it outsources that ability in exchange for calm, access, and wealth—for the few or for the many.
The Great Surrender (and why it was no accident)
The client regimes of the 20th century—military juntas, “pro-Western stabilizers,” anti-communist bulwarks—were not historical anomalies. They were mechanisms of sovereignty outsourcing.
The scheme was simple:
Elites would surrender:
- political independence
- economic resources
- cultural orientation
And receive in return:
- international protection
- access to capital
- immunity
Only the narrative changes:
yesterday, “communist threat” / today, “human rights,” “democratization,” “alignment.”
The logic remains the same: hand over decision-making and you may sleep quietly.
But quiet is not a collective good. It is a privilege.
In societies that surrender sovereignty, the many live with diminished dignity; the few accumulate wealth and security; and politics becomes the management of permitted choices.
The country functions.
But it does not belong. Because sovereignty is always “inconvenient.” Sovereignty is not romantic. It is neither fair nor gentle nor clean.
It often comes with:
- harsh internal mechanisms,
- social conflict,
- cost, erosion, error.
But it has one characteristic that cannot be purchased: it keeps historical responsibility within the borders.
When a sovereign society fails, it fails through its own choices.
When a surrendered society fails, it fails on behalf of others.
The obsession with being on “the right side of history” is itself a symptom of surrender.
It assumes that History has a center, the center decides, and everyone else must align.
Societies with historical memory—even when oppressive, contradictory, or unjust—know what must not return: the era when others decided on their behalf.
This is not ideology. It is trauma.
Perhaps the honest question is not whether a regime is “good,” but whether a society will negotiate its own transformation from within, or delegate it to forces from outside.
The first path is slow, painful, uncertain.
The second is fast, clean, communicatively digestible.
There is no historical progress without cost.
Only a question of who pays it.
The most dangerous moment for a society is not when it clashes—
but when it becomes convinced that it does not deserve to decide for itself.
That is where true subjugation begins.
Iran: Historical Memory, the Collapse of Normality, and the Threshold of Provocation
To understand Iran today, one must begin with what cannot return.
The Pahlavi regime did not simply fall.
It destroyed the social contract, opened the way for the clerics, exposed the country geopolitically, and ended in humiliation at the hands of Saddam Hussein.
This is not a footnote. It is historical memory. And in Iran, that memory defines what cannot reappear as a solution.
The clerics are not merely a religious regime in the simplistic sense. They are an imperial system wrapped in heavy theological fabric. The Qur’an functions first as a mechanism of discipline and then as a moral guide. Their strategic goal remains unchanged: the continuity of Persian regional power. And there should be no illusions: any serious patriotic regime that replaces them will maintain the same geopolitical axis—with a different internal mechanism of legitimacy.
Iran today is not a battlefield of “freedom narratives.”
It is a classic case of collapse of normality.
Sanctions that directly hit daily life, a currency that cannot buy, supply chains breaking down, a society that cannot function at a basic level. The state governs through repression not out of ideological fanaticism but because it simply has no other tool.
You don’t need agents to bring people into the streets.
You need empty shelves.
Iran is burning not because “the masses awakened,” nor because “women wear headscarves”—these occur in many neighborhoods across the region. Iran is burning because everyday life has broken. No imperial project—clerical or secular—survives when the daily fabric collapses from within.
The real wager won’t be decided only on the streets, but on who can restock the shelves.
Comparisons with the U.S. or Western states are misleading. Not because there is “no discontent” there—there is, especially with ICE units lately—but because there is no generalized material scarcity and because a dense internal security web makes field-level foreign interference nearly impossible. Destabilization there is institutional, cultural, communicative—not material.
In Iran, the ground is already cracked. The question is not how many protest.
It is who defines the narrative.
How many provocateurs does it take to light the fuse?
Very few.
Not because they are “powerful,” but because they act in an environment that has already collapsed and perform a role. They don’t shout slogans; they manufacture an image.
The model is simple: genuine social discontent (hunger, fear, repression). A small core appears knowing when, where, and which image is needed. The snapshot is violent, visually “clean,” stripped of context.
This does not invalidate popular anger.
It diverts it.
And here lies the danger: violence disconnects protest from legitimacy, freezes the neutral public, and legitimizes repression to the internal audience. The regime doesn’t “need blood” to survive.
“Agents” in practice are not Bond or Ethan Hunt. They are the opposite: low-paid risk-takers, ideologically fanatical or psychologically unstable, people with no social capital—thus expendable. Systems do not invest in intelligence for provocation. They invest in expendables. Provocation doesn’t require discipline; it requires the absence of inhibitions.
In the broader frame, the West often confuses its desires with reality. There is no unified, mature alternative authority ready to replace the regime as in 1979. The promotion of Reza Pahlavi functions more as a geopolitical instrument than as an internal movement. Meanwhile, the regime retains significant popular and class support in conservative provincial regions, and the power structure—the IRGC—is not dismantled by demonstrations.
Iran is not in a “1979 moment.”
It is in a prolonged phase of erosion without a successor narrative.
The regime does not need more bloodshed to survive—it needs control of tempo.
The West has no Plan B—beyond harsher sanctions, missile strikes, and endless communications strategies.
But in an Iran where normality has collapsed,
none of these refill the shelves.
