The revolution that Trump imagines and incites in the hottest days of the protests is a revolution “à la French”: the expulsion of the tyrant and the destruction of the old regime. For Iranians, this is nothing new. They already experienced it in 1979.
By Andrea NICASTRO
Trump urges Iranian citizens to make a revolution, to storm the palaces of power, but as soon as the ayatollahs suspend the hangings, he stops, starts over, and moves on to something else, as he pleases: Cuba, Greenland, tariffs. History, however, moves much more slowly than a social media post.
The revolution that Trump imagines and incites in the hottest days of the protests is a “French-style” revolution: the expulsion of the tyrant and the destruction of the old regime. For Iranians, this is nothing new. They already experienced it in 1979. Then, the entire pro-monarchist ruling elite fled shortly after the Shah (fighter pilots fled by plane to Iraq, the court billionaires transferred capital, the bourgeoisie sent the young people into voluntary exile). Those who remained lost almost everything or were killed. Order was rebuilt only after years, after internal and external wars, just like in Enlightenment France. This cost Iran at least a million dead.
Trump also asked protesters to remember the names of those responsible for the repression. So he also imagined a period of “revolutionary purges.” He was right to think so. Revolutionary tribunals are usually set up (France 1789, Russia 1917, and Iran 1979 are the most structured examples, but there are many others from China to Vietnam, from Cambodia to Cuba) that purge the old ruling class to make way for new power. This is the phase of terror. In 1789, in Paris, Robespierre’s Jacobins guillotined Danton and others, only to be “purged” by those considered even “cleaner” six years later. In Iran, in 1979, after the fall of the Shah, the winners began to fight among themselves: communists, liberals, and Islamists. The “revolutionary fire” has continued to burn to this day, with tens of thousands of executions of political opponents. In a country that today has 90 million inhabitants, with 50% of the economy in the hands of the ayatollahs or the Revolutionary Guard, a phase of “terror” would open the door to an unprecedented massacre.
The French Revolution model is the worst form of regime change. The package includes this third phase of war among the revolutionaries themselves, which is usually even bloodier than the battle against the old order. That is why neighboring countries, from Saudi Arabia to Qatar to Turkey, oppose American bombing and close their airspace. They fear revolutionary fever, an orgy of destruction that could spread to their own countries. The fourteen years of civil war in Syria, with 600 dead and 12 million refugees (out of a population of 30 million), are a very vivid warning.
After the Bastille is stormed, ordinary people go home to sleep. They expect someone else to take the country forward: in the Iranian case, to guarantee oil exports and the payment of salaries. Those with a political project, meanwhile, occupy the police station, the Central Bank, the media, and thus seize real power. This is what Ahmed al-Sharaa did in 2024, after overthrowing the dictator al-Assad in Syria. As Lenin would say: is there a revolutionary vanguard in Iran capable of doing this?
In the last decades of popular protests, this is precisely what has been missing. Revolts have erupted almost every two years, with great spontaneity, but without leadership. There is no growing opposition within the ayatollah system. Those who tried were arrested. The Islamic Republic did not make the mistake of Italy and Germany, which allowed the affirmation of antagonistic ideologies such as fascism and Nazism. In this year 2026, it is the son of the last shah who is proposed for this role. “I will lead the transition phase,” he assures. But with what weapons? With what followers? Is there a “closed train” to bring him from Los Angeles to Tehran, like the one the Germans used to send Lenin to Petrograd? Ayatollah Khomeini arrived on an Air France plane and the people, who had been listening to his sermons on clandestine tapes for years and going to the mosque every Friday, now considered him the ideal leader, almost sent from heaven. The enthusiasm was so great that people saw his face in the clouds.
The son of the shah is a new figure in the slogans of the protests. In support of Reza Ciro Pahlavi stands the precedent that Lenin was also accused of being in the service of the enemy. Six months later, he led the October Revolution.
It seems paradoxical, but revolutions are gradual events, spread over years. After the fall of the top, second-rate figures take control of the state machinery (of course, “in the service of the people”). This is an emergency transition, with minimal planning. Therefore, the leaders of the transition almost always disappear into oblivion. In the Region, this happened in Egypt in 2011, when President Mubarak handed over power after 18 days of protests. The “democratic transition” began, which ended with another military coup. Historical statistics and the complexity of Iranian power suggest that here too someone could take over in the event of the fall of the current leaders. The issue of the headscarf will be discussed later, elections can be scheduled in a year; in the meantime, the borders are protected, shops and salaries begin to circulate again. People are happy that they are no longer dying on the streets, and a climate of optimism is growing.
There are hundreds of less compromised figures, even hostile to the current regime, willing to give up the nuclear program, as Trump demands, who are not in exile and could play this role. One of them, the winner of the 2009 elections, Mousavi, is still under house arrest.
The best solution to get rid of the ayatollahs without destroying civilian infrastructure would be a military coup. The downside is that it usually does not change social values, but freezes them. The military cancels democratic victories in the squares, but in return puts the country back on track. Coups in Latin America, Franco in Spain, the colonels in Greece sold dictatorship as stability. The prototype remains French: after the revolution, Napoleon restored calm and liberated the country’s productive forces. He even built an empire. The ideals of the first hours were exchanged for national power.
According to WikiLeaks, the US had been in contact with Egyptian opposition figures for years and helped them through social media and by convincing the army not to fire on the crowd. There is also a strong suspicion that in Venezuela, the vice president knew about Maduro’s kidnapping. Has the CIA found opposition figures in Tehran as well? There is reason to hope so. But this would only be the first phase. History does not stop when a president declares that “mission accomplished” (the young Bush, Iraq 2003). It has a habit of getting confused for years, with purges, violence and settling scores, before finding a new balance. (Corriere Della Sera)