The Islamic Republic has never won the consent of its people. It has only enforced compliance. The evidence is now quantified: in a December 2023 survey of 158,000 Iranians conducted by the Netherlands-based GAMAAN Institute, 81% of respondents inside the country answered "No" to the Islamic Republic, with only 15% in support. Among the diaspora, the rejection rate reached 99%. No democratic government in the world would survive those numbers. The Islamic Republic does not survive them either — it simply shoots its way past them.
The regime's record on dissent is one of the most documented in the world. The 2022 Woman, Life, Freedom protests — sparked by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in morality police custody — were met with arrests, torture, and execution. A UN Fact-Finding Mission concluded in March 2024 that the crackdown constituted crimes against humanity, including murder, torture, and rape. Executions in Iran doubled in 2025, with at least 1,500 verified by Iran Human Rights by early December of that year. Following the mass protests of late 2025 and early 2026, Human Rights Watch documented "mass arbitrary detentions, torture, and enforced disappearances," with tens of thousands arrested across the country.
A government that requires this level of violence to govern is not governing. Political scientist Max Weber's definition of legitimate authority — the consent of the governed — is simply absent here. What exists in Iran is occupation by a theocratic minority over a population that has repeatedly and clearly said it wants something else. The question the regime cannot answer is the one its own people keep asking: for how much longer?