THE REPUBLIC THAT STOLE A NATION

A Human Chronicle of Iran’s Uprisings, Betrayals, and the Regime That Got Everything Wrong

This is not a policy brief. It is not a think-tank memo. It is a human indictment.

What follows is a forceful, original account of Iran’s long rebellion against tyranny—written with moral clarity, historical grounding, and unapologetic anger at a regime that has brutalized its people and destabilized an entire region.

INTRODUCTION — A NATION HELD HOSTAGE

Iran is not a problem country. Iran is a kidnapped civilization.

For over four decades, the Iranian people—poets, workers, students, mothers, engineers, farmers—have lived under a system that hijacked a popular revolution and turned it into a permanent machinery of repression. The Islamic Republic did not merely fail its citizens; it declared war on them, systematically stripping dignity, prosperity, freedom, and life itself.

This essay traces:

• The deep historical roots of Iranian resistance

• How a revolution for justice was hijacked

• Why uprisings never stopped

• Where the regime catastrophically went wrong

• How state violence and terror sponsorship became doctrine

• Why the current order is morally and historically bankrupt

And above all, it humanizes the struggle—because Iran’s story is not about slogans.

It is about stolen futures.

PART I — BEFORE THE CAGE: IRAN BEFORE 1979

Iran is one of the world’s oldest continuous civilizations. Long before the clerical rule, Iranians debated power, justice, and sovereignty.

Key historical foundations

• Constitutional Revolution (1905–1911) demanded:

• Rule of law

• Limits on monarchy

• A representative parliament

• This was one of the earliest democratic movements in the Middle East

The Pahlavi era (1925–1979): flawed modernization

• Significant modernization:

• Education expansion

• Women’s legal rights

• Infrastructure and industry

• But:

• Political repression

• Centralized authoritarianism

• Secret police abuses

• The Shah ruled over society, not with it

➡️ Mistake #1 (Historical):

Iran’s pre-revolutionary state failed to build inclusive political legitimacy—creating a vacuum that extremists would later exploit.

PART II — 1979: WHEN HOPE WAS HIJACKED

The 1979 Revolution was not born an Islamist.

It was plural, human, and hopeful.

Who opposed the Shah?

• Secular liberals

• Marxists

• Nationalists

• Students

• Clerics

• Workers

• Women

• Intellectuals

What people wanted

• Justice

• Sovereignty

• Freedom

• An end to corruption

But into this coalition stepped Ruhollah Khomeini, wielding absolutism disguised as piety.

The great betrayal

• Promised freedom → delivered theocracy

• Promised justice → delivered mass executions

• Promised dignity → delivered compulsory obedience

Within two years:

• Opposition newspapers shut down

• Political rivals jailed or killed

• Women forced into veiling by law

• Universities purged

➡️ Mistake #2 (Foundational):

The regime replaced dictatorship with clerical absolutism, eliminating pluralism at birth.

PART III — THE ARCHITECTURE OF REPRESSION

The Islamic Republic is not simply authoritarian—it is systematically violent.

Its pillars of control

• Supreme Leader above all law

• Guardian Council vetoes elections

• Judiciary as the execution arm

• Revolutionary courts without due process

• Security forces indoctrinated to kill

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) became:

• A parallel army

• A business empire

• A foreign terror network

• A domestic terror force

➡️ Mistake #3 (Structural):

Building a state whose survival depends on fear guarantees perpetual rebellion.

PART IV — DECADES OF UPRISING: IRAN NEVER SUBMITTED

Iran did not “accept” the Islamic Republic.

It endured it.

Major protest waves

• 1999 — Student protests crushed with batons and bullets

• 2009 — Green Movement:

• Millions marched peacefully

• Regime responded with torture and murder

• 2017–2018 — Economic protests nationwide

• 2019 — Fuel price uprising:

• Internet shut down

• ~1,500 killed in days

• 2022–2023 — “Woman, Life, Freedom” uprising after morality police murdered Mahsa Amini

➡️ Mistake #4 (Moral):

Every bullet fired at civilians radicalized the population further.

PART V — WOMEN: THE REGIME’S GREATEST FAILURE

If there is one group the Islamic Republic utterly failed to break, it is Iranian women.

Systematic gender apartheid

• Mandatory hijab

• Legal inequality

• Child marriage laws

• Exclusion from leadership

• Policing of bodies

Yet women became:

• Protest leaders

• Organizers

• Symbols of defiance

When women burned headscarves, they were not rejecting faith—they were rejecting state ownership of their bodies.

➡️ Mistake #5 (Existential):

Declaring war on women guaranteed the regime’s eventual collapse.

PART VI — ECONOMIC SABOTAGE OF A RICH NATION

Iran should be prosperous.

Instead:

• Youth unemployment is chronic

• Currency has collapsed

• Corruption is endemic

• IRGC monopolizes industry

• Sanctions worsen pain—but misrule caused it

Where the money goes

• Ballistic missiles

• Proxy militias

• Foreign wars

• Clerical elites

• Security forces

➡️ Mistake #6 (Economic):

Sacrificing national welfare for ideological adventurism destroyed social contracts.

PART VII — EXPORTING VIOLENCE: SPONSORING TERROR

The Islamic Republic has destabilized the Middle East for decades.

State-sponsored militancy

• Hezbollah in Lebanon

• Militias in Iraq

• Assad’s survival in Syria

• Houthis in Yemen

• Attacks on shipping and civilians

This is not “resistance.”

It is imperial violence cloaked in religious language.

➡️ Mistake #7 (Regional):

Turning Iran into a pariah weakened the nation while empowering its enemies.

PART VIII — THE PSYCHOLOGY OF A DYING REGIME

The current system is ruled by:

• Executions

• Hostage diplomacy

• Information blackouts

• Fear of youth

• Fear of women

• Fear of truth

It survives not because it is strong, but because it is afraid.

Signs of decay

• No charismatic legitimacy

• Generational rejection

• Clerics mocked openly

• Security defections

• Cultural disobedience everywhere

➡️ Mistake #8 (Strategic):

Confusing silence with consent blinded the regime to irreversible collapse.

PART IX — THE HUMAN COST

Behind every statistic:

• A mother burying a son

• A father beaten in prison

• A student blinded by pellets

• A girl executed for defiance

This regime has:

• Normalized death

• Criminalized joy

• Turned patriotism into treason

It has stolen time from an entire generation.

PART X — WHAT COMES NEXT

Iran’s future will not be clerical.

It will not be military.

It will not be imposed.

It will be:

• Plural

• Secular in governance

• Respectful of faith as personal

• Accountable

• Human

The uprisings are not over.

They are unfinished sentences.

CONCLUSION — HISTORY IS WATCHING

The Islamic Republic will not be remembered as a defender of Islam.

It will be remembered as a regime that murdered its own people while preaching virtue.

History is unforgiving to such systems.

Iran is rising—not because it wants chaos, but because it wants life.

And no amount of prisons, bullets, or terror exports can stop a nation that has decided it has had enough.

© Ibrahim Bunu — Original Human Commentary

Written in solidarity with the Iranian people and the universal demand for dignity.