What is going on with Iran?

There has been a lot of news about Iran recently. Several readers have asked some version of “what is going on with Iran?” With that in mind here is some context and history which may be helpful and/or informative.

Three major topics which relate to each other help provide this context. The first is a broad history of Iranian leadership. The second is how Iran is viewed from the perspective of the ‘west’. The third are broad geopolitical realities that relate to topic one and two.

First, the history.

For thousands of years, Iran had been governed by some form of Monarchy. Starting in the year 1925 Iran was ruled under the Pahlavi dynasty, otherwise known as the Shah. In simple terms, Iran was ruled by a king.

Similar to constitutional monarchies like the United Kingdom and historic Canada, Iran had a separate head of government. During the Pahlavi dynasty this was the prime minister of Iran.

In 1953 a western-backed coup d’état overthrew Iran’s democratically elected prime minister and reinstated the Shah.

In 1978-1979 Iran had a revolution. This revolution was the end of the Pahlavi dynasty. 

After 1979 the Shah was replaced by Ruhollah Khomeini. Under Khomeini, Iran changed from a western-backed monarchy into a theocratic Islamic republic. In simple terms, instead of a separation of church and state, the church is the state.

In 1989 Ruhollah Khomeini, then titled the supreme leader, died and was succeeded by Ali Khamenei. Since 1989 Iran has not had a change in leadership.

Second, how Iran is viewed.

For this period before the 1978-1979 Iranian revolution Iran was viewed favourably by the west. Iranian culture more closely resembled western values and it was generally considered ‘forward thinking’ and ‘advanced’.

After 1979 the Iranian government positioned itself as opposed to western values and opposed to western nations themselves. Ruhollah Khomeini was famous for styling the United States of America as the ‘Great Satan’ and Israel as the ‘Little Satan’.

Certain speech, such as insulting the supreme leader is punishable by imprisonment, mass executions of political prisoners occur, extensive use of child soldiers, women are 2^nd class citizens. For anyone who is familiar, the Canadian novel The Handmaid’s Tale authored by Margaret Atwood drew some of its inspiration from this time period in Iran. To simplify, from a western point of view Iran has a significant lack-of-freedom problem.

Suffice it to say, Iran after the 1978-1979 revolution is not looked at favourably by the west. Many of the policies and values are opposed to the point of being mutually exclusive.

Third, geopolitical realities.

Iran is currently considered a state sponsor of terrorism. This means a state or country that funds or enables other groups to commit terrorist acts. It is well known that there are several groups on multiple countries terror entities’ lists (including Canada’s) that are primarily enabled by the Iranian government. Multiple portions of the Iranian government itself are on the Canadian terror entities list.

There is also the anti-western economic and security bloc that Iran has historically formed with Russia. When looking at geopolitics, the world can be thought of as superpowers and their allies projecting their spheres of influence. Historically, the United States of America and its allies (like Canada in NATO) have been generally opposed to Russia and its allies like North Korea and Iran.

With that context in mind, the Iranian protests which began on December 28, 2025 are potentially significant to the west.

In a country where insulting the supreme leader can be associated with severe punishment, people are chanting “death to the dictator”. It appears that there is a significant movement towards violent revolution and the peoples’ desire to reinstate the Shah.

As it turns out, the son of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (the Shah who was overthrown in 1979) is alive, is still considered by many to be the crown prince and has been asking for the job publicly on western media for quite a while.

It could very well be the case that the west may once again have the appetite to help reinstate another king.

Vezina is the CEO of Prepared Canada Corp. He can be reached at info@prepared.ca.