All the conditions are there for Iran’s regime to fall – except one
On January 15, someone identified herself as the daughter of a high-ranking commander within the Iranian regime’s “repressive forces” in the name The studio of the Persian-language satellite television station Manoto, an opposition channel based abroad that broadcasts via satellite to Iran. Using the pseudonym Fatemeh, the woman wept as she described what it was like to grow up in the heart of the Islamic Republic’s regime with a father whose crimes she witnessed firsthand, including “ordering killings.”
Fatemeh explained that fake passports and suitcases full of US dollars were hidden in her family’s home. He claimed that his father and other high-ranking officials “would be the first to flee if something happened.”
Fatemeh’s depiction of life at the heart of the regime, which has reportedly recently massacred at least 12,000 innocent people in the streets, is chilling. Its story brings to mind Mohammad Rasoulof’s seminal 2024 film Sacred Fig SeedIt explores the inner lives of the wife and daughters of a senior regime prosecutor who were called upon to sign the death sentences of protesters arrested during Iran’s 2022 Women, Life, Freedom uprising. Like the daughters of Rasoulof’s fictional pro-regime family, Fatemeh describes herself as participating in the protests, but was arrested and released after her father’s intervention. “We don’t want this,” she says through tears, referring to the bloodshed and violence unleashed by her father and his colleagues.
There is a perception that Iranians who support the Islamic Republic, who are estimated to make up 15 percent of the population, are locked behind the regime despite the bloodshed or carnage on citizens protesting in the streets. But like any other constituency, the regime’s supporters, including direct employees and others who benefit from its largesse, are not a monolith.
During my time in prison, I met more than a dozen female Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) members who served as prison guards, prisoner transport escorts, interrogation “caretakers,” and English translators. Many owed their jobs to high-ranking fathers, brothers or husbands in the Revolutionary Guard. While some had wholeheartedly swallowed the regime’s hard-line Islamist propaganda, the majority were clear-eyed pragmatists. I knew many of them well enough to say that they, like Fatemeh, would not have participated in the massacre. Like Fatemeh, many will desperately search for a way out.
When the current protest movement in Iran began on December 28, the country was scoring high on all measures of a potential revolutionary situation except the first. Economic collapse, elite discontent, a broad social coalition united in their demands, and tolerant geopolitical conditions all indicated that an uprising was imminent. However, as with all of Iran’s recent mass protest movements except 2009, the regime has managed to inoculate itself against internal divisions and divisions. History has shown that separation from the upper echelons is essential for a revolutionary movement to succeed.
What would it take to cause the Islamic Republic to disintegrate from within, potentially creating more Fatemehs, or at least providing a way out for already existing Fatemehs? And more importantly, how many Fatemehs are there within the regime’s various armed groups, including those who served in the army and the IRGC, who may never have embraced the regime’s revolutionary ideology in the first place?
Iran expert Karim Sadjadpour likes to say: HEFollowing Iran’s 1979 revolution, the regime consisted of “80 percent true believers, 20 percent charlatans.” He now predicts those numbers are reversing. This was certainly my experience with the Revolutionary Guard and various other regime officials. Those who appeared to be ordinary opportunists certainly outnumbered those whose ideological commitment to Islamist revolutionary ideals appeared rusty. The question is how the opposition can create conditions that will enable these disgruntled regime elites to defect.
Academic literature on revolutions provides some clues. Between 1970 and 2013, approximately 45 percent of revolutions involved the departure of security forces, proving a strong predictive effect on the success of the revolutionary attempt. When revolutionaries are unarmed and GDP and economic growth in the country are low, they are more likely to secede. Both factors aggravate the current situation in Iran, which is experiencing an unprecedented economic crisis. The reason casualties were so staggeringly high in the latest massacre was that protesters were overwhelmingly unarmed in the face of military-grade weapons fired by security forces.
To encourage defection, conditions must be created where both the cost of remaining loyal to the regime and the opposition’s likelihood of success are high. Western governments interested in supporting the democratic aspirations of the Iranian people can play a role in promoting both.
First, much more could be done to impose costs on senior Islamic Republic officials. Western governments should consolidate autonomous sanctions regimes, including imposing travel bans on people like Revolutionary Guard-linked Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, who was infamously invited to this year’s World Economic Forum in Davos just weeks after the worst mass murder in Iran’s modern history. Partner countries should follow Australia’s lead in expelling ambassadors and banning the Revolutionary Guard. Cases filed against Iran and Iranian officials should be referred to the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court, respectively. Religious Leader Ali Khamenei, who largely avoided sanctions as head of state, should also not be spared.
Simultaneously, incentives and incentives should be offered to defecting regime officials. Following the massacre, a senior member of Iran’s UN mission in Geneva was detained. reported He requested asylum in Switzerland with his family. Paths should be created in a way that clearly encourages others to follow the same path.
It is also very important to increase the coherence, visibility and effectiveness of the Iranian opposition. In recent years, social media campaigns and pro-monarchy satellite channels have increased the popularity of the ousted Shah’s son, Reza Pahlavi. Pahlavi describes himself as a transitional figure ready to assist in the post-revolutionary transition to democracy, and indeed could play a positive role in this process. However, he is unlikely to be accepted as the sole leader of the opposition, as there are significant movements inside and outside Iran that oppose any attempt to revive the monarchy.
Western governments could help ensure the legitimacy of a transitional council of Iranian opposition forces based outside the country and help create a broad-based and resilient opposition that could position itself as a viable alternative to the Islamic Republic, ready to step in should the regime fall. Given the hopelessly divided nature of opposition groups in the Iranian diaspora, they may need encouragement and pressure from friendly governments to unite against their common enemy.
What is certain is that the January 2026 uprising will not be the last for Iran. The unprecedented massacre of unarmed and peaceful protesters shows that for Ayatollah Khamenei, the struggle to cling to power is now existential. Those who want to save Iran from the Islamic Republic should focus their energies on overthrowing the regime from within.
Kylie Moore-Gilbert, academic in Middle East political science at Macquarie University, author of memoir Sky Uncaged: My 804 Days in an Iranian Prison and a regular columnist.
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Kylie Moore-Gilbert is an academic in Middle Eastern political science at Macquarie University, author of the memoir The Uncaged Sky: My 804 Days in an Iranian Prison, and a regular columnist in The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald.
