Iran’s Theocracy is Already Over – It Just Hasn’t Fallen Yet.

I can still see myself as a ten-year-old boy watching Walter Cronkite on the evening news and counting the days Americans were held hostage during the Iranian Revolution. At that time, Iran was not just an idea; it came into American homes every night as something new, scary, and real. After the shock of October 7, I finally read Ayatollah Khomeini’s Islamic Government: Governance of the Jurist, which was the plan for that revolution. Khomeini spoke with calm confidence about how Islam would eventually win over the West. He said that history was moving in one direction. But as we read the news today, things have drastically changed.. Not only is Khomeini’s vision failing, it is also actively destroying itself.

When Sacred Authority Replaced Accountability

The Islamic Republic now rules over a society that has already moved on. Its leaders still kill, imprison, and threaten people, but they don’t try to convince them anymore. This is the end for a government that says it has God’s authority instead of the people’s. The “Guardianship of the Jurist,” or wilayat al-faqih, was the main idea behind Khomeini’s ideas. He argued that because the Shi‘a messiah, the Hidden Imam, is not present, political power should be held by a supreme Islamic jurist acting on behalf of God. This judge would not have to worry about elections, courts, or being held accountable to the public. People would no longer see disagreement as political dissent; they would see it as religious rebellion. The system said it would make things morally clear. It gave people power that no one could question.

It’s not just the level of dissent that makes this moment different; it’s also how confused the regime is about how to deal with it. The state no longer speaks with ideological certainty; it makes things up as it goes along. Instead of theology, there are threats; instead of explanation, there is repression; and instead of persuasion, there is silence. Even the language of loyalists now sounds more defensive than triumphant. When a government that says God is always right starts to act strategically in response to events, something deeper has already gone wrong. This isn’t just instability; it’s a crisis of meaning happening right now.

Before this teaching, Shi’a people had different ideas. Shi’a clerics did not rule directly in the past. They were instead teachers of morality and the law. Khomeini didn’t like this limit and said that God wanted clerical rule to happen. He mixed religious truth with state power, which made the line between faith and force less clear. Once faith was needed, it was impossible to be honest. The system made sure that people did what they were told, but it also made sure that people didn’t believe.

After Khomeini took power, he quickly got rid of any opposition. Revolutionary courts had a lot of power and didn’t follow the rules very well. Ebrahim Raisi was in charge of the mass killings of political opponents and people who were thought to be dissidents. Later, he became president. During the first few years of the Islamic Republic, thousands of people were killed or sent to prison. The regime’s main goal wasn’t just to make people afraid; it was to scare them. The state made violence a part of religion.

Khomeini promised fairness and a return to morality. Instead, he made repression holy. Piety was redefined as brutality, and virtue as submission. Over time, this change weakened both religion and authority. People still had to follow the rules, but their faith in the government began to fade. That decay would not be able to be stopped.

Khomeini didn’t think Iran would be his last stop. He saw the Islamic Republic as the driving force behind a worldwide Islamic revolution that would free Muslims from Western control and wipe out Israel. This way of thinking was not just a side effect; it was a big part of it. Israel became the regime’s spiritual enemy, and they blamed it for both Iran’s problems at home and the region’s instability. People praised martyrdom as a good thing, and death was seen as a victory.

But a system that makes endless struggle holy must also give back transcendent meaning. Iran did not. The country is tired, alone, and broken inside decades later. Israel, which many people thought was doomed by history, has gotten stronger and more connected to the region. The Islamic Republic is no longer the future of political Islam; it is now a relic that forces people to live in the past.

A Society Already Beyond Theocracy

The regime’s self-negation is most evident in the widespread disbelief among the populace. Christianity has grown underground in Iran, even though apostasy is punishable by death. At the time of the revolution, there were only a few hundred converts. Now, there are more than a million. This is not a coincidence, nor is it only because of Western influence. Christianity offers what the regime lacks: a moral framework free from coercion.

For many Iranians, Christianity means having a conscience without being watched, having dignity without being forced, and forgiving others without being loyal to a political party. Not only does theology bring in new members, but so does the lack of force. Islam is also losing its credibility at the same time. Almost half of Iranians now say they don’t have a religion, and only a small number still say they are Shi’a Muslims. A theocracy that makes people not believe in God is not broken; it is working exactly as it should.

There have been protests in Iran before, but they were still within the moral framework set by the government. Millions of Iranians don’t argue with the system anymore; they just ignore it. A state can endure anger; it cannot endure apathy towards its sacred assertions. When people stop being afraid of God as the regime defines Him, repression loses its spiritual support. What is breaking now is not order, but the story that used to make it make sense.

Women are now the regime’s biggest threat. Khomeini’s system relied on patriarchal control as an evident manifestation of Islamic order. This included rules about how women should dress, move, and what their legal status should be. The goal of these controls was to show moral authority. They showed moral bankruptcy over time. The death of Mahsa Amini in 2022 took away any last pretense.

Women who took off their hijabs, cut their hair, and led protests were not asking for policy changes. They were giving a theological judgment. Their resistance showed that fear and coercion can’t make someone virtuous or faithful. Women are not requesting inclusion in wilayat al-faqih. They are proving that it can’t exist.

Under Islamic rule, Khomeini promised fairness in the economy. Instead, what came out was a clerical oligarchy. The Revolutionary Guard controls most of the economy, and religious foundations work without being watched. Inflation, unemployment, and lower living standards are problems for regular Iranians. Wealth moves up and out, paying for foreign militias while the infrastructure at home falls apart. There is no way to hide the contradiction.

This has caused a lot of quiet panic among the clerical class. Clerics rule in God’s name, but they can see God lose credibility in real time. They make people follow rituals that they don’t believe in anymore and punish people who break them. This mental conflict leads to stricter enforcement, not change. The more faith breaks down, the more violence takes its place.

For decades, the regime has used antisemitism as a way to hold itself up. Israel is not just an enemy; it is also the regime’s religious excuse. As long as Israel is there, failure can be seen as resistance. Without Israel, the government would have to answer to its own people and to God. Tehran has to be hostile toward Israel. It is necessary for survival.

But even this scaffolding isn’t working. Iran has gotten weaker, but Israel has not. Proxy wars have not made Israel an outcast; instead, they have brought Arab states closer together. The Abraham Accords marked a regional transition from ideological fixation to pragmatic collaboration. Iran was left preaching metaphysics to a region that was choosing to live in the real world. Antisemitism couldn’t save a system that was already falling apart from the inside.

A Society Already Beyond Theocracy

The more important question is whether this moment will end in failure or success. The Islamic Republic has crossed a line that can’t be crossed again. Regimes based on sacred authority do not slowly regain trust after it is lost; they last until they break. Now the question is not if people believe in the system, but how long it can work without belief. Overthrows are events, but delegitimization is a process that has already happened.

Khomeini thought that history was going in the direction of his beliefs. It didn’t. Systems that say something is sacred and can’t be changed always fall apart first in belief, not power. Iran has already gone past that point. The society that will outlive the Islamic Republic is already post-theocratic, whether the government wants to admit it or not. Faith has become private, authority has lost its sacredness, and fear has lost its mystery.

The next government will have to deal with a population that no longer thinks that clerical rule is God’s will. Wilayat al-faqih has not only failed to govern effectively; it has also obliterated the moral conditions essential for its own existence. Khomeini will not be remembered as a prophet of fate. People will remember him as the man who showed that when power says it speaks for God, it eventually makes people stop believing in both.