For much of the past four decades, Western analysis of Iran has been trapped in a false dichotomy. On one side stands the Islamic Republic—durable, coercive, and treated as the only meaningful political actor. On the other stands “the Iranian people,” whose periodic eruptions of protest analysts admire but ultimately write off as incoherent.
That dichotomy is now increasingly wrong. A January 2, 2026, joint statement by a wide array of Iranian activists and political figures, issued despite repression and personal risk, deserves attention. Its importance does not lie in rhetorical novelty or moral clarity; Iranians have produced no shortage of either. Rather, its significance lies in what it reveals about coordination, convergence, and political learning inside Iranian society.
Iran’s opposition has long suffered from a paradox. It has been socially expansive but politically atomized. Labor movements, women’s networks, student groups, ethnic minorities, secular intellectuals, religious reformists, and exiled activists have mobilized but rarely in ways that produced durable political alignment.
Political transitions fail because opposing forces cannot agree on the rules of coexistence once power fractures.
The recent statement suggests that this pattern may be changing. Instead of advancing competing visions of Iran’s ultimate identity—monarchy versus republic, secularism versus religious democracy—it emphasizes consensus: opposition to coerced confessions; rejection of political imprisonment; insistence on civil liberties; commitment to pluralism; and recognition that any legitimate post-Islamic Republic order must emerge through popular sovereignty rather than elite imposition.
This may be modest, but it is significant. Political transitions fail because opposing forces cannot agree on the rules of coexistence once power fractures. Iran’s 1979 revolution collapsed into authoritarianism because pluralistic forces lacked coordination and mutual guarantees. What is notable today is that Iranian activists appear to be addressing that failure to ensure it does not repeat.
Authoritarian regimes do not fall simply because they are unpopular. They fall when repression ceases to prevent coordination. The Islamic Republic has survived not only through violence but also by isolating activists, severing networks, and forcing political actors into either exile or silence.
The emerging convergence challenges that strategy in three ways. First, it erodes the regime’s monopoly over political legitimacy. When diverse actors speak a shared civic language grounded in rights, law, and pluralism, it becomes harder for the state to dismiss opposition as sectarian, foreign-directed, or nihilistic.
Second, it mitigates uncertainty. Political actors inside Iran are beginning to signal to one another that a post-Islamic Republic order need not be a zero-sum contest for ideological dominance that mitigates the mistrust which regime has long exploited.
Third, it changes the timeline of political change. Convergence does not mean transition is imminent, but it does mean there will be a political grammar to fill the space when cracks appear.
For intelligence analysts accustomed to tracking regime stability through elite cohesion and security, this may seem abstract, but it is not: Elite defections more often follow than precede the emergence of an alternative political order.
The most constructive role for the diaspora is not leadership but international advocacy.
Any discussion of Iranian political convergence must grapple with the diaspora, which is both an asset and a liability. Exile politics have amplified Iranian voices globally, but they have also reproduced factionalism, personalization, and ideological rigidity, sometimes detached from realities inside the country.
The current moment offers an opportunity to recalibrate that relationship. The most constructive role for the diaspora is not leadership but international advocacy; sustaining independent Persian-language media; providing technical, legal, and organizational resources.
External actors should not seek leadership. Transitions fail when external actors mistake amplification for authorship. Western governments would be wise to take the same approach. After their experience in Afghanistan and Iraq, Western policymakers and regional leaders are wary of who may govern post-Islamic Republic Iran. The elephant in the room is Reza Pahlavi.
There is no question that the Pahlavi brand is present in Iran. Protestors have chanted slogans, “Long Live the Shah,” “Reza Shah, may your soul rest in peace” in Tehran, Mashhad, and other cities. It is also a fact that the Iranian polity today is not a monolith. Reza Pahlavi likely has a base around 25 to 35 percent, a strong plurality, but not enough to run roughshod over other political trends in a country of 90 million.
A parallel caution emerges from Venezuela, where the U.S. military’s capture of Nicolás Maduro on January 3, 2026, has prompted preliminary indications that Washington may be cautious about “flying in” opposition leader María Corina Machado. President Donald Trump has dismissed working with the Nobel Peace Prize winner for now. His wariness, born of failed interventions, will likely extend to over-relying on exiled figures in Iran.
The question is not whether Iran becomes a republic, a constitutional monarchy, or something else entirely; Iranians must decide that for themselves.
After the street protests peak, organization will matter most. Figures like Mostafa Tajzadeh, a prominent reformist and former deputy interior minister; Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi; filmmakers Jafar Panahi and Mohammad Rasoulof; and Abdollah Momeni, a tortured student leader and spokesperson for the 2009 Green Movement, are not isolated voices but rather carry deep influence. Key labor and guild leaders that economic and civil elements in Iran rely on, such as Mohammad Heydari of the teachers’ union and Sepideh Gholian, who endured torture for her reporting on transit labor union strikes, also embody the emerging convergence that blends political experience, moral authority, creative influence, and grassroots economic muscle that could prove essential for managing any post-regime transition. Rhetoric and online trolling that characterize prominent exile groups do not necessarily equate the capacity to manage a potentially volatile post-Islamic Iran.
For years, Western policy toward Iran has oscillated between engagement with the regime and rhetorical support for regime change. Both approaches underestimate Iranian political agency.
The emerging convergence suggests Western policymakers no longer face a binary choice between accommodation and abstraction. There is now a third option: strategic recognition of pluralistic Iranian civic forces as political actors without attempting to direct or instrumentalize them.
Practically, this implies several shifts. First, intelligence and policy assessments should treat Iranian civil coalitions not merely as human-rights constituencies, but as embryonic political infrastructure. Second, targeted sanctions, visa pathways, and diplomatic pressure should be understood as structural interventions to preserve political capacity under repression. Third, Western governments should resist the urge to predetermine outcomes. The question is not whether Iran becomes a republic, a constitutional monarchy, or something else entirely; Iranians must decide that for themselves. Finally, policymakers must recognize that the most dangerous mistake at this stage is neglect. Political convergence is fragile. Repression can reverse it. Silence is not neutrality.
None of this guarantees successful transition. Authoritarian systems can endure long after legitimacy erodes. Still, what is unfolding inside Iran today is consequential: the slow construction of a pluralistic political center capable of surviving the fall of an authoritarian state. It is the substrate upon which any durable Iranian future will be built.
