Nearly sixty years ago, the architect of the Islamic Revolution, Ruhollah Khomeini, declared in a famous speech that if the revolution failed to run the country better than the Shah, “the people will throw us out after 10 or 15 years.”
In reality, the opposite happened. Over the decades, Iran’s situation has deteriorated so drastically that many opposition figures now look back with nostalgia at the Shah’s era — a period they once helped overthrow.
Despite the economic collapse, repression, and widespread public anger, the Islamic Republic clings to power with an iron grip, far removed from Khomeini’s original promise of accountability and improvement.
Today, the regime survives not because it delivers prosperity or freedom, but because it relies on brutal force, ideological indoctrination, and its terror proxies across the region. This stands in sharp contrast to the vision Iranians were sold in 1979 — and further exposes the decay at the heart of the Tehran dictatorship.