From the illusions of 1979 to the brutality of recent repression, the parable of the ayatollahs is the story of a revolution that swallowed its own sons and betrayed its own people. It has ended up “growing” more pro-Western public opinion throughout the Middle East. The recent mass protests, brutally suppressed by the regime, with up to thirty thousand dead, have often called for American intervention.
By Federico RAMPINI
The Iranian Revolution of 1979 was born with a promise of liberation. Against a modernizing but oppressive autocracy; against the national humiliation caused in 1953 by the coup that overthrew Prime Minister Mossadegh (with Anglo-American support); against a monarchy perceived as subservient to the West.
Ayatollah Khomeini returned from exile, awaited by millions. He spoke the language of spirituality against Western materialism. Many wanted to believe that it was the dawn of a more just order. A European elite fell in love with him, as the reports of the Marxist philosopher Michel Foucault published at the time in Corriere della Sera show. The illusion did not last long. In 1979 the revolution was a mosaic: there were Islamists, Marxists, liberals, nationalists. The turning point occurred within a few months. With the American hostage crisis, the attack on the American embassy in November 1979, Khomeini transformed anti-Americanism into an ideological glue. America became the “Great Satan”. The new constitution institutionalized theocracy. The clergy assumed greater powers than any elected body. The purges began. Left-wing militants who had contributed to the overthrow of the Shah were imprisoned, tortured, and executed. Women took to the streets against the mandatory headscarf: and were oppressed.
In 1980, the war with Saddam Hussein’s Iraq broke out. Eight years of massacre. The regime used it to consolidate itself. The rhetoric of martyrdom mobilized an entire generation. Hundreds of thousands of young people died on the front. Iran emerged devastated, but not defeated. The war strengthened the most radical wing and militarized the Islamic Republic. The central role of the Pasdaran, the Revolutionary Guard, was born, a power not only military but also economic.
Having also embraced the Palestinian cause since 1979, Tehran invested in building an “Axis of Resistance.” It financed and armed Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, and Shiite militias in Iraq, expanding its influence worldwide through a preaching of anti-Western hatred and jihad. Among the messianic missions that the ayatollahs’ dictatorship attributed to itself was the conquest of Islam’s holy sites, Mecca and Medina, thus overthrowing the Saudi monarchy.
The nuclear program, accelerated in the 2000s, added a new element of tension. For Israel and many Sunni monarchies, a nuclear-armed Iran is an existential threat. Western sanctions multiplied. The regime used external siege to justify internal repression. Anger grew among the population against this Persian neo-imperialism that destroys wealth and opportunities to finance wars and terrorism in neighboring countries.
In 2009, the “green revolution” broke out. Images of the protests went around the world. The regime responded with mass arrests, torture, and executions. It was a key moment: the Islamic Republic is not reformable from within. The 2015 nuclear deal, negotiated by US President Barack Obama, seemed to open a window. There was talk of Iran’s reintegration into the global economy. But the agreement was fragile: it provided no guarantees on missiles and terrorist militias, and even for the nuclear program it offered a temporary ceasefire, not a permanent solution. The US withdrawal from the agreement under the Trump presidency and the reinstatement of sanctions closed that parenthesis. The Iranian economy sank into inflation, unemployment, and endemic corruption. The Pasdaran controls entire sectors of production. The promise of social justice of 1979 was transformed into an oligarchic capitalism with a strong military character.
Since 2017, protests have been repeated. It is no longer just students and the urban middle classes; workers, the suburbs, the provinces are taking to the streets. In 2022, the death of Mahsa Amini, arrested by the morality police for wearing a headscarf “incorrectly”, sparked the deepest revolt since the birth of the Islamic Republic. “Woman, life, freedom” became the slogan of a generation that has not known the Shah and despises the revolutionary myth. The response was brutal: hundreds killed, thousands arrested, death sentences.
The attack of October 7, 2023, a green light for Hamas, turned out to be a strategic mistake. Iran hoped to strengthen the Axis of Resistance and block the rapprochement between Israel and Saudi Arabia. The Israeli counteroffensive hit Hamas and Hezbollah, as well as Iranian targets in Syria. Russia and China, allies of Tehran, did not intervene to its aid even on June 21, 2025, during the American attacks.
From the illusions of 1979 to the brutality of recent repression, the parable of the ayatollahs is the story of a revolution that swallowed its own sons and betrayed its own people. It has ended up “growing” a more pro-Western public opinion throughout the Middle East. The recent mass protests, brutally suppressed by the regime, with up to thirty thousand dead, have often called for American intervention. (Corriere della Sera)