Interests in Syria and Gaza

The Islamic Republic of Iran was in this failed state from the start. Inefficacy was intrinsic to it since its inception in 1979 and in this case, you couldn't claim it gradually lost efficacy in a process of decline. Iranian society has meanwhile paid the cost of an essential dysfunctionality the regime couldn't whitewash with vapid slogans like Reconstruction, Reforms, Justice and the like.

For the Islamic Republic, the country as "homeland" does not exist.

For the current powers in Tehran, the country as "homeland" does not exist. It has shown it is more concerned with saving Syria and Gaza than the parched province of Khuzestan or other parts of Iran. And the people in its field of vision are not Iranians, but the Islamic "community" or ummah. This community, it believes, needs religious leaders whose security may be assured at the cost of the blood of common folk if need be.

The regime is an entrenched, medieval structure that has barely evolved. Even its propaganda has failed, as the declining number of its partisans indicates. Its only defenses now are the threat of violence, hanging over Iranians like a sword of Damocles, and Western appeasement.

But Iranians increasingly are shedding their fear of the repressive state, and their recurring protests might even embolden the West to take their side for a change.

Experience has led younger generations in Iran to rectify their forefathers. With evident signs of dogged and growing support for the Pahlavis, the country's exiled princes, Iranians want an end to 40 years of turmoil and instead, a future of prosperity alongside their neighbors and other nations.