Intensifying factional infighting, daily executions, and the dilemma between war and negotiations expose a deeper crisis of legitimacy that proposals for a “Third Republic” are unlikely to resolve.
Iran’s ruling establishment is facing a deepening existential crisis, marked by intensifying internal power struggles, growing social opposition, and mounting uncertainty over the country’s political future. The crisis extends beyond disagreements over policy or leadership. It concerns the foundations of a system built around the absolute authority of the supreme leader and its ability to maintain power amid mounting domestic and international pressures.
The regime continues to rely on executions and repression to contain dissent, while divisions within its own political ranks increasingly expose uncertainty over how the system can survive. Even among insiders, the viability of preserving the existing structure under the doctrine of velayat-e faqih—the rule of the supreme cleric—is becoming a subject of dispute.
War and Negotiations Deepen Factional Divisions
The prospect of war and the possibility of negotiations have created competing risks for Iran’s ruling factions. Neither course offers an easy solution: each could produce consequences that threaten the interests of different power centers within the regime.
Recent factional disputes illustrate the growing intensity of these struggles. Calls to remove, imprison, or prosecute former president Hassan Rouhani and former foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif have emerged alongside accusations from reformist figures that rival factions are pursuing suspicious activities.
These confrontations reflect more than ordinary political rivalry. As uncertainty grows over the regime’s strategic direction, competing factions are struggling to shape decisions that could determine their own political survival. The escalating hostility has raised the stakes of internal disputes, with the potential for political exclusion and harsher forms of retaliation.
At the same time, the regime faces a society whose demands increasingly conflict with the political and social order it seeks to preserve. The combination of internal fragmentation and public opposition makes the crisis more difficult to resolve through changes in personnel or tactical adjustments alone.
The “Third Republic” Proposal and the Limits of Reform
Against this backdrop, former Iranian lawmaker Mostafa Kavakebian has proposed a structural change as a way out of the impasse. He has called for preparations to begin for a referendum on changing the political system, suggesting that a “Third Republic” could be established to overcome existing deadlocks.
The proposal signals that questions about the regime’s institutional structure are being raised even by figures who have operated within its political framework. Yet a referendum intended to preserve the system by modifying its structure would face a fundamental problem: whether changing the institutional arrangement could resolve the underlying conflict between the ruling establishment and a population demanding political change.
The proposal also leaves unanswered the central question of who would control such a process, under what conditions it would take place, and whether citizens could freely choose among competing political alternatives.
A referendum conducted within the existing power structure would not, by itself, guarantee a free expression of public will. A credible democratic transition would require political freedoms, genuine competition, and the ability of citizens to choose their representatives without coercion.
A Crisis of Legitimacy, Not Just a Struggle for Power
Iran’s recent history has been shaped by repeated waves of nationwide protest, including six major uprisings over the past two decades, as described in the political analysis underlying this debate. These episodes have demonstrated the persistence of demands for fundamental change, even as the regime has relied on arrests, executions, and force to suppress dissent.
The central issue is therefore not simply which faction governs or how authority is distributed within the existing system. It is whether the current political order retains a viable basis of legitimacy among the people it governs.
The gap between public demands and the regime’s policies has become a defining feature of the crisis. International developments, including the pressures associated with war and negotiations, can intensify the conflict, but they do not eliminate its domestic roots.
Nor does a change in the regime’s formal structure necessarily resolve the problem. Without a genuine transfer of political authority to the people, a new institutional label could leave the underlying concentration of power intact.
Iran’s Political Future Remains Unresolved
The regime’s existential crisis reflects a broader confrontation over sovereignty, political representation, and the future shape of the Iranian state. Its internal divisions are unfolding alongside a persistent conflict between the ruling establishment and large sections of society that seek fundamental political change.
Whether the regime pursues negotiations, confronts further international pressure, or considers institutional restructuring, the central challenge remains unresolved: how to reconcile a system founded on the supreme leader’s absolute authority with demands for popular sovereignty and democratic accountability.
A proposed “Third Republic” may offer a new formula for managing the impasse, but its significance would depend on whether it genuinely enables Iranians to determine their political future. The decisive question is not what the ruling establishment calls its next arrangement, but whether the Iranian people gain the freedom to choose a political system and representatives of their own.