Iran’s System Keeps Its Grip, Despite the Chaos (or Because of It)

Governments rooted in revolution like Tehran’s have proved to be among the world’s most stable, even drawing strength from crises.

Since Mohammad Ayatollahi Tabaar was a child, he has heard confident predictions that the hard-line government of his home country, Iran, was doomed. “There has been this conventional wisdom since the revolution that the regime will not survive,” he said. Even a few months into the revolutionaries’ 1979 takeover in Iran, “people said it would fall within a year.” It was not a ridiculous belief. Iran’s new government faced isolation abroad, turmoil veering on civil war at home and a devastating war with neighboring Iraq.