Inflation, unemployment, currency collapse, and declining living standards have once again pushed large segments of the Iranian population into the streets. As in previous protest cycles, outside observers quickly began predicting the imminent collapse of the Islamic Republic. Others speculated that the United States or Israel might take advantage of the unrest to strike Iran again, following the brief but intense confrontation of mid-2025. That twelve-day war, although limited, revealed an important reality: Iran was not as weak as many had assumed. Tehran demonstrated its ability to launch effective missile strikes, while Israel showed its capacity for rapid and precise retaliation. The confrontation ended without escalation, but it forced both sides to reconsider the costs of a wider conflict. More importantly, it underscored a broader point: despite deep internal problems, Iran remains a resilient state with strong coercive power. Yet both dominant narratives – imminent regime collapse due to protests or externally driven political change – rest on a flawed assumption: that Iran’s society forms a single political community with shared interests, identities, and goals, which – once sufficiently pressured – would move collectively toward regime change. It does not.
Iran’s current protests are driven primarily by economic hardship, inflation, unemployment, and social restrictions, not by a shared political vision. Protesters demand relief from inflation, corruption, and repression, but they do not rally around a common alternative system of governance. This distinction matters. Economic distress can mobilize large crowds, but it does not automatically produce a cohesive political movement capable of governing a complex and ethnically divided country. What is most striking – and often overlooked – is how deeply ethnic diversity shapes Iran’s political limits.
Contrary to popular belief, Iran is not a purely Persian nation-state. Persians are not even the majority of the population. Azerbaijani Turks, Kurds, Arabs, Balochis, Turkmen, and other minorities together outnumber them. According to some unofficial estimates, even Azerbaijani Turks alone may outnumber Persians in Iran. None of these communities identify themselves as Persian, and many actively resist being framed as such. Yet much of the external discourse – especially in Western and Israeli political circles – continues to treat “Iranian” and “Persian” as interchangeable terms. This misconception is not merely academic, and it has real political consequences.
Not long ago, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu released a video message addressed to “the people of Iran,” urging them to imagine a future free from the current regime. In parts of his remarks, he referred to “the noble Persian people,” implicitly equating Iran’s entire population with Persians. The speech was emotionally powerful and strategically aimed at encouraging dissent, but analytically shallow. It overlooked a fundamental reality: Iran’s complex ethnic structure and the deep differences in identity and political aspirations among non-Persian communities. By focusing on Persians, the message ignored the profound diversity of Iranian society.
For Iran’s ethnic minorities, such rhetoric reinforces a long-standing fear: that any post–Islamic Republic order would simply reproduce a Persian-centered hierarchy under a new political label. Although the Islamic Republic replaced the monarchy, both systems relied on strong centralization, cultural homogenization, and the suppression of non-Persian identities. These latter two elements are just as important as political control in understanding minority grievances.
This dynamic is especially clear in South Azerbaijan, the northwestern region of Iran that is home to more than 30 million Azerbaijani Turks. For decades, South Azerbaijanis have faced linguistic discrimination, cultural marginalization, and economic neglect. Education in the Azerbaijani Turkish language remains restricted. Environmental disasters – most notably the drying of Lake Urmia – have disproportionately harmed Azerbaijani regions, while the state response has been slow and insufficient. For many South Azerbaijanis, these outcomes are not accidental policy failures but part of a broader pattern of exclusion.
Historical memory deepens this sense of alienation. After World War II, Azerbaijani Turks and Kurds established autonomous republics in northern Iran – from November 1945 to November 1946 for Azerbaijanis, and from January to December 1946 for Kurds. These short-lived experiments in self-rule were crushed after the withdrawal of Soviet troops, when Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi sent his forces to retake control. The repression was brutal: mass arrests, executions, and widespread displacement followed. Thousands were killed or imprisoned, while many fled to Soviet Azerbaijan, where they remained stateless for years. Sayyid Ja’far Pishevari, the leader of the Azerbaijani People’s Government, died under suspicious circumstances in a car accident in 1947. The trauma of this repression has been passed down through generations. For many minorities in Iran, the Pahlavi era is thus remembered not as a time of stability, but as one of violent assimilation and state terror.
This history is often ignored by those who promote Reza Pahlavi, the son of the last shah, as a unifying alternative for Iran’s future. His prominence, however, reflects a deeper problem: the lack of a genuinely inclusive and credible national leader for Iran’s dissatisfied population. To Persian elites in exile and some of Iran’s urban middle class, Pahlavi represents secularism and modernization. For many minorities, by contrast, he embodies the return of a system that denied their identity and political rights. Rather than uniting Iran, a Pahlavi-centered transition would likely intensify ethnic resistance and deepen fragmentation. In short, imposing another dictator on a multinational Iran would bring nothing positive.
Just as South Azerbaijanis resist a Persian-centered political transition, the same logic applies to other minority groups. Kurds, Arabs in Khuzestan, Balochis in the southeast, and Turkmen in the northeast all have distinct grievances, territorial concentrations, and political aspirations. Some seek autonomy within a federal Iran, while others openly call for independence. These goals are often incompatible, preventing the formation of a single, unified opposition platform. This reality explains why Iran’s protest movements repeatedly fail to evolve into a cohesive political force. Protesters share anger, not strategy. They share suffering, not a roadmap for political reorganization. Economic and social grievances can bring people together temporarily, but once political questions arise – about power, identity, and territory – deep divisions resurface and stall collective action.
If Iran’s central state were to collapse suddenly, the outcome would likely not be a smooth democratic transition. Instead, it would involve contested authority, regional power struggles, and possible clashes over territory and resources, particularly in ethnically mixed regions such as Khuzestan, West Azerbaijan, Kurdistan, and parts of the southeast. Recent history warns that multiethnic states often face fragmentation when political frameworks fail to manage competing identities. Cases like Yugoslavia, Iraq, and Syria show how unrest rooted in economic grievances can escalate into prolonged division – and Iran is not immune. At the same time, this does not mean that Iran’s minorities form a unified separatist front or that the country is on the verge of disintegration. Rather, it underscores that any serious analysis of Iran’s future must account for its ethnic diversity. Ignoring this reality risks oversimplification and misleading conclusions.
Western policymakers often focus on Iran’s urban, Persian-speaking middle class because it is easy to see and hear. Minority regions, by contrast, are far away, politically sensitive, and harder to reach. As a result, they are often ignored in discussions about Iran’s future – a blind spot that fuels unrealistic expectations. Ironically, foreign opponents can make this worse. Ignoring minority voices can push many people away and strengthen Tehran’s story that outsiders are interfering in Iran’s affairs.
Iran’s unrest is real, serious, and unlikely to be resolved quickly, but it is not revolutionary in the classic sense. It lacks unified leadership, a shared political vision, and an agreed alternative state structure. Above all, it lacks consensus across Iran’s deeply divided ethnic composition. Maybe the regime is on the verge of collapse, maybe not – but the dominant narratives remain misleading. Iran is neither a monolithic Persian nation nor a society waiting for foreign salvation. It is a state shaped by economic decline, historical trauma, and unresolved questions of ethnopolitical identity. Any serious discussion of its future must begin with this reality, not with wishful thinking.
Further Reading on E-International Relations
