Iran is at a critical inflection point as its aging and ill Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, has no clear successor. The constitutional requirements for the role were tailored specifically for his predecessor, Khomeini. With no one in the wings who meets the criteria, the country faces significant instability upon his death.

Shia tradition dictates memorial services 40 days after a death. This created a repeating protest cycle: state violence created martyrs, whose memorials 40 days later sparked new demonstrations, leading to more deaths and more memorials, thereby escalating the conflict.

While appearing as a traditionalist, Khomeini's core concept, the "Guardianship of the Jurist," was a profound theological revolution. It proposed for the first time that clerics should directly rule the state, breaking with centuries of Shiite political quietism. This innovation provided the ideological basis for the new republic.

The Iranian Revolution was fueled by a Shia worldview centered on martyrdom, cosmic struggle between good and evil, and an apocalyptic final battle. U.S. policymakers, lacking any understanding of this religious framework, were completely unprepared for its political power.

Prominent Western left-wing intellectuals were initially supportive of Ayatollah Khomeini. They were drawn to his anti-imperialist rhetoric about "the disinherited of the earth," mistakenly projecting their own ideals onto him and predicting he would usher in a "humane" form of governance.

The Shah was seen as a repressive autocrat, yet he was indecisive when confronted with mass protests, partly due to his illness. This politically toxic combination alienated the people through repression while emboldening them through weakness, creating the perfect conditions for his downfall.

The concept of an "Islamic government" was deliberately left undefined. This vagueness allowed various anti-Shah groups—from secular liberals to Marxists—to project their own hopes onto the revolution, creating a broad but fragile coalition. The lack of detail was a feature, not a bug.

Dara Khosrowshahi theorizes the Shah of Iran's regime collapsed because he modernized too fast, focused excessively on military power over industrial growth, and failed to bring along rural populations and integrate Islam into his vision, creating a power vacuum for the Islamic regime to exploit.

Ayatollah Khomeini's political genius was blending traditional religious conservatism with the era's fashionable anti-colonial nationalism. By framing the Shah as an American and Israeli puppet, he mobilized a broad coalition beyond just the deeply religious.