Iranians are increasingly discontented with how their country is run but the Islamic Republic persists because of its ability and willingness to crush dissent by force, ex-CIA analyst and National Security Council director Ken Pollack told Eye for Iran.
Pollack’s assessment comes as Iran faces overlapping crises at home and abroad.
The country is under intense economic strain, social dissent has become more visible and the Islamic Republic is recalibrating after military setbacks suffered by the June war with Israel.
Yet despite the pressure, Pollack said the system remains intact for a simple reason.
“Revolutions only succeed when regimes lose either the capacity or the willingness to use force,” he said. “The Islamic Republic learned from 1979. It is determined not to repeat the Shah’s mistake.”
“There is no question this country is in a pre-revolutionary state,” Pollack added. “They’re trying to have a revolution.”
Pollack pointed to Iran’s long cycle of unrest, tracing repeated efforts to challenge the Islamic Republic back to the 1999 student uprising.
Since then, protest waves have erupted every few years, including nationwide demonstrations and the women-led revolt that followed the death of Mahsa Amini in morality police custody.
Each time, he said, the population pushed harder, experimented with new tactics and widened the social base of dissent.
What stopped those efforts, Pollack said, was not a lack of public anger but the clerical establishment's consistent readiness to deploy force.
Pollack said episodes of unrest, such as at a public memorial service on Friday for a lawyer who died under mysterious circumstances, highlight the paradox defining Iran today: visible cracks in social control paired with an unflinching security response.
Looking ahead, Pollack identified the eventual death of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei as the most serious potential inflection point.
At 86, the health of the veteran theocrat has become a subject of quiet speculation even inside Iran. Succession, Pollack warned, can destabilize authoritarian systems by exposing elite rivalries or paralyzing decision-making.
“Succession can just as easily lead to chaos, fragmentation or something worse,” he warned. “These systems often survive by becoming more repressive, not less.”
Pollack also criticized US policy for focusing too narrowly on Iran’s nuclear program while sidelining Iran's regional behavior and domestic repression. He warned that treating nuclear negotiations as the central problem risks missing broader forces shaping Iran’s future.
“The nuclear program is an irritant,” he said. “The real issue is the regime’s drive to dominate the region and its willingness to repress its own population to survive.”
For now, Pollack said, Iran remains suspended in a dangerous middle ground: a society actively trying to change its political fate and a state still capable of stopping it.
“These regimes can endure for a long time,” he said. “But when they finally break, it usually happens faster than anyone expects.”
The detentions took place during a seventh-day memorial ceremony that drew activists and supporters, some of whom later gathered outside the venue and chanted slogans including “Death to the Dictator” and phrases backing Iran’s pre-1979 monarchy, according to videos posted online.
The memorial was held for Khosrow Alikordi, a prominent rights lawyer and former political prisoner who represented detained protesters. He was found dead in his office in Mashhad last week. Supporters and fellow lawyers have questioned the official account of his death, while Iranian authorities say forensic examinations show he died of a heart attack.
“The seventh-day memorial was held with full cooperation of the responsible bodies,” Mashhad public prosecutor Hassan Hemmati-Far said, adding that authorities allowed funeral and memorial ceremonies to go ahead in Mashhad and the nearby city of Sabzevar.
He said the situation changed after the ceremony ended, when a gathering formed outside the mosque. Hemmati-Far said Javad Alikordi, the lawyer’s brother, along with Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi and activist Sepideh Gholian, addressed the crowd from atop a vehicle.
“By making provocative remarks, they encouraged those present to chant norm-breaking slogans and disrupt public order,” Hemmati-Far said.
Authorities said police later intervened to manage the scene and that two officers were injured. Hemmati-Far said the incident led to the detention of 39 people.
Families, activists dispute official account
Families of some detainees and rights activists have disputed the authorities’ account, saying those arrested were subjected to violence during detention and have since been held without contact with relatives or access to lawyers.
According to family members, several detainees, including Mohammadi, were beaten during arrest. Mohammadi’s brother, Hamidreza Mohammadi, told AFP she was “beaten on the legs and grabbed by the hair,” adding that her past medical conditions made her detention a serious concern.
“Immediate and full access to medical facilities must be provided, independent and impartial complaints must be registered against those responsible for beatings, threats and insults, and all injured detainees must be sent without delay to forensic medical authorities,” the Narges Mohammadi Foundation wrote in a statement.
Authorities also said Javad Alikordi later left the scene but was arrested hours afterward after posting videos online that officials described as containing false statements.
Hemmati-Far said all detainees were being held in a legal detention facility and that investigations were continuing.
Rights groups and activists say at least several dozen people remain in detention in what they described as incommunicado conditions. Iranian authorities deny wrongdoing and say detainees’ rights are being respected.
