Who could replace Iran's Islamic regime if it falls?

Drawing on lived experience, community testimonies and Nietzschean philosophy, Dr Shiraj explores why Iran’s cry for help may come with a hidden cost - and what history warns about trading one master for the next.

Dr Shiraj writes: The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche warned that seeking salvation can mean trading one master for another. As Iran calls for outside help, is history repeating itself? 

Thousands of Iranians have marched around the world in recent months, holding signs that read “Free Iran” and calling for the exiled Prince (Pahlavi’s) return. But beneath the chants is a harder question: if Iran looks abroad for rescue, what and who might replace the fall of the Islamic regime? In conversations I have had with members of the Iranian community in recent weeks, a clear divide has emerged. Many hope for Western intervention, whilst others worry that seeking salvation from outside risks repeating Iran’s history. 

I am of Iranian heritage and have lived in Iran. I have felt the fear of the unknown, the sudden courage, the fragile hope of the Iranian people. The protests of December 2025, reportedly the deadliest since the Islamic Revolution in 1979, have left thousands dead. We may never know the true numbers.  

Violence is not abstract. It is visible on walls and pavements. Videos circulate of families searching for their children among the dead.

Last night, my cousin in Iran sent a message. “There are still trails of blood on the streets”, she wrote. More than a month has passed since security forces used overwhelming force, yet the marks remain. The violence is not abstract. It is visible on walls and pavements. Videos circulate of families searching for their children among the dead. A father going through the black body bags and asking his son to answer his calls is too painful to watch. Under such conditions, the appeal of outside rescue is not ideological; it is human. 

But revolutions are not new to Iran. More than a century ago, in 1905, the Constitutional Revolution sought to limit monarchical power and establish the rule of law. It unfolded under heavy Russian and British influence. In 1979, King Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (Shah of Iran) was overthrown by the Islamic Republic. A year later, in 1980, Iraq, supported by Western powers, invaded the Iranian border in the hope of overthrowing the new Islamic regime. Instead, the war strengthened internal consolidation and reshaped the Iranian political order. A historical pattern appears to be emerging: struggles for change in Iran seem to be entangled with outside powers. 

In recent decades, Iranians have tried to change their country from within. The Green Movement of 2009 brought thousands into the streets, but it was crushed. In 2022, the “Woman, Life, Freedom” uprising challenged the moral authority of the state after the death of Mahsa Amini. That too was met with force. Now, once again, protesters face extraordinary violence. At each stage, external actors have hovered on the edges, sometimes supportive, sometimes opportunistic, but often guided by their own interests. The question is not whether international solidarity matters. It does. The question is what happens when solidarity turns into expectation. When hope shifts from internal reform to external rescue. 

The dried blood trails on my cousin’s street are proof enough of what is at stake. But history shows that change driven mainly by outside power rarely produces the freedom people imagined. 

This is where Friedrich Nietzsche’s warning becomes relevant. Nietzsche wrote about the danger of replacing old idols with new ones. When traditional authorities collapse, we often replace them with similar ones. Nietzsche’s idea of self-overcoming is about creating new values rather than inheriting them from a power that promises certainty. It requires moral, cultural and institutional change to endure the instability that follows the fall of a dominant order. A society that cannot bear that burden may mistake a change of rulers with transformation, therefore, mistaking one master for another. 

Applied to politics, the implication is uncomfortable: if liberation is delivered from outside, it risks carrying external priorities with it. Regimes can be removed by force. But the habits and the culture required for democratic life cannot be airlifted in. None of this diminishes the courage of those protesting. Nor does it excuse brutality.

The dried blood trails on my cousin’s street are proof enough of what is at stake. But history shows that change driven mainly by outside power rarely produces the freedom people imagined. External pressure can weaken a regime. It can also harden it, as the Iran–Iraq war did in the 1980s. It can remove leaders, as happened in 1905 and 1979, but it cannot build the restraint and shared responsibility that democracy requires. Nietzsche would say that if Iran is to change in a way that lasts, that change will have to be claimed, not granted. It will have to be shaped by people who are prepared not only to resist authority, but to exercise it differently. 

“No one is coming to save us” is the uncomfortable truth. Freedom- when it comes, must belong to those who bled for it. When old rulers fall, new ones are always waiting. The real question is whether Iranians can build something that does not need another master. 

That is harder than revolution. And far more important.