The Iranian Revolution at 30

The Iranian Revolution at 30: Still Unpredictable
Charles Kurzman
How is it possible that the Islamic Republic of Iran has lasted 30 years? Some of the
revolutionaries themselves are probably surprised by this longevity. In 1979, they wrote
a constitution that enshrined Imam Ruhollah Khomeini as the leader of the Islamic Republic.
Surely they didn’t expect him to live another 30 years, past age 100, but their insistence
on Khomeini’s unique characteristics made it unlikely that anybody else would
be qualified to succeed him.
Sure enough, after Khomeini’s death, the constitution had to be rewritten to allow Hojjat
al-Islam ‘Ali Khamene’i to serve as head of state. He did not have the scholarly credentials
to serve as a top-ranking cleric (marja‘-e taqlid), much less to overrule other topranking
clerics, as Khomeini had been constitutionally permitted to do, yet the Islamic
Republic survived.
Most international observers didn’t expect the Islamic Republic to last this long. They
have been talking about the regime being in crisis since the first year of the revolution,
and with good reason. The regime has weathered innumerable crises, from the assassination
of much of the top leadership in 1981 to Khamene’i’s recent stare-down with
President Mahmud Ahmadinejad over interim cabinet ministers. 1
The most ardent supporters of the Islamic Republic have encouraged this discourse of
permanent crisis. Every month, hard-line propagandists denounce some new, unpleasant
economic or political development as an indication of a global conspiracy against
Islam that must be prevented at all costs from undermining the Iranian people’s fervent
support of their Islamic Republic. All opposition figures, even the mildest liberals, are
said to pose an imminent threat to the survival of the regime. If the regime is so easily
threatened, it seems hard to imagine how it could have survived so long.
Of course, paranoids are sometimes correct. The Islamic Republic of Iran has faced
and survived a concerted campaign for “regime change” by the world’s greatest superpower,
the United States. In late 1995, Newt Gingrich, then the Speaker of the US House
of Representatives, insisted on $18 million for “covert” operations against the Islamic
1. According to political scientist Farideh Farhi, Ahmadinejad tried to keep several interim
appointees past the constitutional limit of three months, in order to avoid having them
rejected by parliament — Khamene’i told him to obey the constitution.
Charles Kurzman, author of
The Unthinkable Revolution
in Iran (Harvard University
Press, 2004), teaches sociology
at the University of North
Carolina, Chapel Hill.
32 The Middle East Institute Viewpoints: The Iranian Revolution at 30 • www.mideasti.org