As protests once again spread across Iranian cities in recent weeks, observers asked a familiar question: Is the Islamic Republic finally nearing collapse? Rising prices, currency freefall, labor strikes, and open defiance of clerical authority have produced a level of unrest that would destabilize most regimes.
Yet, despite repeated cycles of mass protests in Iran, including the most recent spate, they have so far failed to translate into a political rupture. The problem is not a lack of widespread opposition; a violent crackdown this month resulted in the killing of thousands of protesters. To suggest the regime is anything but deeply unpopular is a misreading of how power operates in Tehran. The central issue is not whether Iranians want change but why sustained unrest has not yet fractured the regime—and the answer is that the Islamic Republic was built that way.
As protests once again spread across Iranian cities in recent weeks, observers asked a familiar question: Is the Islamic Republic finally nearing collapse? Rising prices, currency freefall, labor strikes, and open defiance of clerical authority have produced a level of unrest that would destabilize most regimes.
Yet, despite repeated cycles of mass protests in Iran, including the most recent spate, they have so far failed to translate into a political rupture. The problem is not a lack of widespread opposition; a violent crackdown this month resulted in the killing of thousands of protesters. To suggest the regime is anything but deeply unpopular is a misreading of how power operates in Tehran. The central issue is not whether Iranians want change but why sustained unrest has not yet fractured the regime—and the answer is that the Islamic Republic was built that way.
The Islamic Republic today functions as a theocratic security regime organized around Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his family. Power is structured in concentric circles, with Khamenei and his immediate family at the center. Authority is highly personalized, and political survival depends less on formal institutions than on proximity to the supreme leader himself and his sons.
Khamenei’s leadership is defined by rigidity, discipline, and a deep sense of personal mission. He views himself not simply as a political authority but as a guardian entrusted with a divine responsibility to preserve the Islamic Republic, a belief that leaves little room for hesitation or compromise during crises. Since assuming the position of supreme leader in 1989, he has steadily transformed the system into a theocratic security state that privileges coercion over popular consent, relying on a highly institutionalized and ideologically committed repressive apparatus. This structural reality, more than public sentiment, sets the boundaries of political change in Iran today and reflects a leader who prioritizes regime survival as a sacred duty rather than a negotiable political choice.
Immediately surrounding this core is the Beit-e Rahbari, or Office of the Supreme Leaderthe most powerful and least visible institution in the Islamic Republic. Khamanei’s Beit operates in practice as the regime’s actual executive authority. Over the past three decades, it has evolved into a vast and opaque parallel state that sits above the constitution, parliament, and presidency.
Staffed by thousands of loyal clerics, security officials, and ideological technocrats, the Beit shapes decision-making across military, intelligence, economic, judicial, and cultural domains. Rather than governing through impersonal rules or institutional checks, Khamenei governs through trusted individuals embedded across the state. The Beit also serves as the primary channel through which Khamenei’s family, particularly his sons, exercise influence, turning it into both an institutional and familial center of authority. The Beit is not merely an extension of Khamenei’s authority. It is the mechanism that allows his rule to endure, absorb shocks, and operate without constant visibility.
Surrounding the Beit is an extensive clerical network that confers religious legitimacy on the system. Through seminaries, Friday prayer leaders, provincial representatives, and regime-aligned senior clerics, Khamenei’s authority is presented as divinely sanctioned. He is portrayed not merely as a political leader but as the representative of the Hidden Imam. This theological framing converts obedience into a religious duty and recasts repression as a moral necessity rather than a political choice. Clerical institutions such as the Assembly of Experts and the Guardian Council reinforce this sacred legitimacy while actively disciplining dissent within the religious establishment itself.
This logic is openly articulated by senior clerics embedded in the security apparatus. For example, Hojatoleslam Ali Saeedi, who leads the armed forces’ Ideological-Political Bureau, has said defending the Islamic government justifies the deaths of thousands and that safeguarding the Islamic state is the most crucial goal of all obligations. Within this framework, the clerical establishment has also played a central role in labeling protesters as mohareb (enemies of God), a designation that religiously sanctifies repression and legitimizes extreme violence and atrocities against dissenters. This categorization, more than public sentiment, defines the limits of revolutionary change in Iran today.
Beyond the clerical layer lies the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and the broader security apparatus, forming the regime’s coercive shield. Created to defend the Islamic Republic, the IRGC’s primary mission since 1979 has been regime protection: preventing coups, suppressing dissent, and shielding the supreme leader. Over time, it evolved into a praetorian Guard, extending beyond military functions into a multi-branch security organization with intelligence, expeditionary units, and the Basij militia—each deeply embedded in society.
The IRGC’s structure aims to contain unrest through decentralized provincial commands combining the IRGC, Basij, and local security forces. The Basij, with offices across neighborhoods, schools, and workplaces, acts as a network for surveillance, mobilization, and coercion, absorbing public anger through repression while shielding the regime from social pressure. Domestically, the Guards are entrenched economically and politically through vast networks and state-backed companies, controlling key sectors and gaining financial independence. However, all of this happened by Khamenei’s order as a way to co-opt the IRGC. That is why the Guard remains tightly linked to the supreme leader and the Beit, with its survival tied to Khamenei’s system.
These three layers encircle Khamenei and together constitute the regime and the instruments that sustain it. Using the metaphor of a human body, Khamenei stands as the head, while the Beit serves as the torso, coordinating and controlling the system. The regime’s two hands are the IRGC and the clerical network, which enforce authority and confer religious legitimacy. Beneath them sit the government and public administration that support the system but do not direct it. Ministries, municipalities, and service-providing institutions continue to manage daily governance and preserve institutional continuity. This outer shell absorbs public frustration and sustains the appearance of normal state function. Yet it holds little real power. The bureaucracy administers society, but it does not govern the regime.
This structural configuration sharply reduces the likelihood that popular discontent will translate into elite fracture, which is necessary for authoritarian breakdown. Protests are contained by security forces, justified by clerical discourse, obscured by a propaganda apparatus controlled by the supreme leader’s office, and absorbed by bureaucratic routines. Power remains centralized, insulated, and defended by institutions whose survival depends on preserving the core.
Understanding this architecture is essential. The Islamic Republic is not resilient because it enjoys legitimacy or popular consent. It is resilient because it has been deliberately engineered to deflect pressure, concentrate power, and shield its center from both society and its own institutions. Any serious assessment of Iran’s political future must begin with this structure rather than with assumptions drawn from revolutionary analogies or expectations of inevitable collapse.
