The radical regime established by the Islamic Revolution of 1979 is directly responsible for some of the worst terrorist attacks since.
In 1983, Iran-backed Hezbollah attacked American and French military barracks in Lebanon, killing 307 people in total. Of these, 241 were American military personnel.
In 1994, Hezbollah operatives bombed a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, taking 85 lives.
Iran also supports Hamas, the terrorist organization behind the barbaric Oct. 7 attacks in Israel.
The regime led by Khamenei did not spare its own people either. It committed repeated, widespread, and long-lasting human rights abuses. In January of this year alone, Human Rights Activist News Agency counted almost 6,000 protesters killed by the regime. Other estimates reach 30,000.
Exiled Iranians are justified in their celebrations of Khamenei’s demise. But, now that he is gone, what should happen? The Trump administration has stated that it does not intend to engage in nation-building. There are certainly many lessons to learn from the costly intervention in Iraq.
In the short term, it is difficult to predict what would happen to Iran. Whatever happens, one thing is certain: a country needs more than institutions to be free.
Democratic institutions are only a necessary, not a sufficient part of the equation. As the examples of Iraq and Afghanistan show, the United States should reject the naive view according to which the adoption of the right kind of institutions (political parties, regular elections, separations of powers) is capable of promoting freedom. A country’s political culture is even more important than the formal structure of its government.
For that reason, it is worth paying attention to a silent revolution in Iran: the growth of Christianity.
Reports by independent organizations estimate that the number of Christians in Iran doubled in the last 10 years. Despite the repression of the Islamist government, there may be more than one million followers of Jesus (1.5% of the population) in the country.
Those numbers are still modest, but they can indicate a deeper change in Iranian society – one with political repercussions.
Christianity is substantially more compatible with democracy than Islam. And this is a purely empirical observation, noted by a large number of political scientists.
Of the 86 countries labeled as “Free” by Freedom House’s annual report, only one is a Muslim-majority nation: Senegal, which did not make it to the top 80.
All of the 19 longest-living democracies in the world are countries of Christian roots (the 20th is Israel).
Many of the core elements of democracy, such as recognition of natural rights, individual responsibility, equality, and limited government, are offshoots of Christianity.
As Jacques Maritain, one of the fathers of modern European democracy, once wrote: “This form and this ideal of common life, which we call democracy, springs in its essentials from the inspiration of the Gospel and cannot subsist without it.”
The elimination of authoritarian leadership and the adoption of democratic institutions will be important parts of the rebirth of Iran. But, perhaps, more than a violent transition, the people of Iran will gradually increase in their appreciation for freedom as they understand its true source.
Gabriel de Arruda Castro is an assistant professor of International Studies at Cedarville University