If the Islamic Republic falls, what could Iran look like?

Despite having had 43 years in power to get it right, the Islamic Republic has failed in almost all of its aims. Iranians today are less prosperous, less free, and arguably even less religious than they were before the 1979 revolution that brought clerical rule to the country.

The one success it has had is in killing off, shuttering, jailing or exiling anyone, or any entity, that posed a challenge to it – and to such an extent that few can even imagine an alternative to the current regime.

“Even thinking about the fall of the Islamic Republic is difficult,” says one political science student in Tehran. “The Islamic Republic is an ideological structure. It’s affiliated with religion. An alternative can’t even be thought about. Thinking about the fall of this regime is beyond realistic – it’s surreal.”

Opponents to the Islamic Republic have long been fragmented, cursed with infighting and mistrust, especially within the diaspora. But some Iranians contemplating whether to take part in the historic protests across the country – sparked by the killing of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini – are asking for a plan, so that their efforts and sacrifices, including a raucous day of widespread protests, will lead to something. “Where’s our government in exile?” one protester pleads during a conversation.

Perhaps it is time to start contemplating an Iran after the mullahs. “There is a need for the leaders to show some kind of leadership,” says Mahdi Ghodsi, an Iran expert at the Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies. “We need to have those leaders to step in as soon as possible.”

In conversations with several experts, a number of names have emerged of Iranians, both inside and outside the country, with the credibility, integrity, bases of public support, and perhaps the skillset to lead, or be part of, a transitional government.

Among the top figures for a movement that is led by women, and was sparked by opposition to the mandatory hijab, are Nasrin Sotoudeh and Narges Mohammadi, the jailed human rights lawyers and women’s rights activists who have bravely campaigned for the rights of women for years. There are also Shirin Ebadi, the Iranian lawyer and Nobel Peace Prize winner now living in exile, and Masih Alinejad, the New York-based journalist whose calls to women to remove their headscarves has played a key role in raising awareness about women’s rights and individual liberty.

There are also prominent political strategists inside Iran, such as writer Ahmad Zeidabadi, free speech activist Hossein Ronaghi, death penalty opponent Emaddedin Baghi, student leader Majid Tavakoli, human rights lawyer Abdolfattah Soltani, bus drivers’ union leader Reza Shahabi, and labour organiser Esmail Bakhshi.

All are activists with integrity and widespread credibility, though not really natural politicians with strong bases of popular support. All have been in and out of prison for standing up for their beliefs and for the rights of others, but they have also shown restraint, maturity, leadership, and organisational skills.

“I do not think activists make good leaders per se,” says one Iran expert. “You need people who have technocratic knowledge, and people who understand bureaucracy and democratic compromise.”

It is a measure of their effectiveness that the regime has placed all of Iran’s most promising opposition leaders under constant surveillance, summoning them repeatedly before courts and interrogators on trumped-up accusations, and hustling them in and out of jail.

It is vital that a proposed transitional government reflects the rich tapestry of Iran. This means it must include representatives or leaders of Iran’s embattled Kurdish, Arab and Baluch ethnic minority groups, along with advocates of Azeri-speaking and Turkic-language populations and representatives of minority religious groups, including the Baha’i, Christian, Zoroastrian and Jewish faiths, as well as adherents to the Sunni and Sufi strains of Islam.

Reza Pahlavi, the Virginia-based son of the previous monarch, has a support base among Iranians in the diaspora and within Iran. And although he has rarely been mentioned by protesters in the current round of protests, he could represent monarchists.

The concerns of religious Iranians could be reflected in the inclusion of dissident clerics and their associates, some of whom have publicly come out in support of the protests. There are figures such as Hassan Khomeini, the reformist grandson of Iran’s revolutionary founder, and pro-reform cleric Fazel Meybodi, as well as Faezeh Rafsanjani – the daughter of former president Hashemi Rafsanjani – and dissident religious teacher Fatemeh Sepehri. They could serve as figureheads to reassure Iran’s large pious population that their concerns will be reflected in a transitional authority.

There are universally respected figures who could play a role in any transitional government. They include former football star and coach Ali Karimi, who has been charged in absentia with national security crimes after he criticised the crackdown on protesters enraged by Amini’s killing.

Hamed Esmaeilion, a Toronto-based dentist who tragically lost his family in the 2020 downing of a Ukrainian Airways flight in a reckless missile attack by the regime, appears to be a cool-headed and savvy leader and organiser who successfully lobbied the Canadian authorities to list the Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) as a terror organisation.

Mostafa Tajzadeh, a former deputy minister of the interior under the reformist government of Mohammad Khatami, has been consistently on the side of democratic reform, and may also have the technocratic skills needed to help oversee a shaky transition.

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A strong opposition voice representing as broad a tapestry as possible is crucial for the purpose of reassuring international players with a stake in Iran’s future that their interests will be safeguarded even after supreme leader Ali Khamenei is deposed.

“They should gather forces as soon as possible, not just to negotiate with the United States and European Union, but to negotiate with Russia and China,” says Ghodsi. “They should convince Russia and China they would collaborate with them again, not with just the West. Such guarantees would facilitate the transition.”

One huge wild card in Iran is the armed forces, which have shown few signs of breaking with the regime so far. A few military figures, such as Rear Admiral Habibollah Sayyari, have demonstrated flashes of integrity and independence in recent years, but most have been obsequious. Ali Alfoneh, an Iran expert at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, says the most likely scenario in the aftermath of the Islamic Republic is a military junta headed by Revolutionary Guard figures eager to enrich themselves.

“If the IRGC junta sacrifices some clerics, perhaps Khamenei, abolishes the hijab, legalises booze and dance clubs, the IRGC dictatorship can at least last 10 years in power,” he says. “The IRGC is the main smuggler of booze into Iran from Iraqi Kurdistan. They believe in profit, not the prophet!”