Iran is a massive country of 90 million people, most of whom are below 35. Anyone who tells you what will happen next is merely speculating.

The Monte Carlo simulation is a mathematical technique that predicts possible outcomes of an uncertain event. In business planning, you evaluate possible outcomes – pessimistic, conservative, base, optimistic, best case – and assign probabilities to each. In politics, polls and surveys help in predicting outcomes of elections or possibilities of changes in government. Proper research and quantitative methods require margins of error, confidence intervals to ascertain ranges, i.e. we’re % confident that these results are within a % margin of error. From 2004 to 2015, Hollywood movie producer Ryan Kavanaugh used the model to predict box office hits. It worked, until it didn’t. After a decade, his company Relativity filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy following mismanagement. But the idea that you can look at myriad data points and apply various factors to predict the probability of possible outcomes is commonplace.

Between an aging Supreme Leader, snap elections to account for the sudden death of the President, geopolitical turmoil between Israel and constant internal strife due to crackdowns on liberties & freedoms, Iran will only capture more and more of the spotlight in years to come.

Polls and surveys inside of Iran are challenging, but whenever I hear something pontificating over its future, it seems as if they forget that Iran is a mosaic of 31 ethnicities representing 90 million people. In this article, I will
i) summarize various public sources
ii) extrapolate them by projecting the percentages over Iran’s population of 90 million people, and then
iii) conclude with a model based on these.

Tale of the Tape

Iran’s population has grown from 37 million in 1979 to nearly 90 million today. Throughout, it has become much younger. In 1979, an older and more conservative society led to the revolution. But 45 years later, it’s not false to conclude that many in the country have not benefited and grown disillusioned, seeking change. Earlier efforts at reform proved frustrating and fruitless, so today, you hear a growing chorus of revolutionary fervour.

> Gamaan: Preference over Political Systems (2022)

GAMAAN, or the Group for Analyzing and Measuring Attitudes in Iran, bills itself is an independent, non-profit research foundation registered in the Netherlands. They study Iranians’ attitudes towards different social and political topics. “The survey titled ‘Iranians’ Attitudes toward Political Systems’ was carried out between February 17-27, 2022. Over 20,000 respondents participated in this study. The final sample used in this report consisted of 16,850 Iranians living inside Iran. The study’s findings reflect the views of literate Iranian residents aged above 19, who comprise 85% of the Iranian adult population. The results can be generalized to the target population with a 95% credibility level and credibility intervals of 5%.” There’s an argument to be made that such a survey would likely not have been easily accessible to most Iranians and those who could may have had a higher propensity to use a VPN. Those in Iran who feel compelled to access the Internet via VPN are prone to share a certain perspective. But, for sake of getting on with the exercise, extrapolating their percentages across Iran’s 90 million population suggests the following in absolute terms:

To summarize, it’s as if most were unhappy with the regime and favored a republic, but ultimately they trusted the exiled crown prince Reza Pahlavi most. It’s not like Pahlavi would return as prime minister in a republic, making that pair of answers a bit bizarre and mutually exclusive. Indeed, many Iranians have grown to distrust and dislike republics and conflate democracy with republic, when some of these terms are not related or mutually exclusive. 

But that said, even if “only” 22% of Iranians favour an Islamic Republic, this still translates to a massive 19.8 million people who seek the status quo. Given that this constituency represents the establishment in power (which is heavily armed, whereas the citizens are unarmed), one develops a better understanding of the challenges of people and true odds of any outcome: hence probabilities of outcomes, and not merely a people’s preference of outcome. After all, in business, I hope and pray for optimistic or best case scenarios, but I have to discount these possibilities for the more likely, or probable ones (i.e. it’s unrealistic to think the best case will happen to my business next year, if for example the economy is headed into a recession).

> ERF.I (2018-23)

ERF.i, or the Empirical Research and Forecasting Institute, is a research centre and think tank based in the United States. It was founded in 2022 by research fellows Taghi Alereza, Houshang Lahooti and Noah Farhadi. Its projects focus on data analytics and socioeconomic affairs and are led by experts in the field. The authors of the report conducted seven surveys in Iran since 2018, and based on those, in February 2023, it released the results of its second survey titled “Political Stance in Iran“ seeking to answer its central question: “Who represents Iranians?”

Again, seeing 60.4% support a return to a constitutional monarchy is a huge relative – and absolute number with 54M people. But that suggests that 36M people are opposed to it (for context: Canada is a country with 38M people). Another paradox of Iran is sheer size and numbers, which sway both ways.

But ultimately, ERF.i suggests that respondents fancied a return to the time before the 1979-Revolution when the constitutional monarchy held sway. And given the Qajar’s disastrous dynasty where Iran gave up major territorial concessions and weakened the nation economically, it’s not like those who favor a monarchy are encouraging the crown prince of the Qajar dynasty to step up. Their clear preference is in exiled Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, who lives in the USA: “Pahlavi nostalgia is further reflected in the survey’s findings that 79.9% of Iranians overwhelmingly favour Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi over the current political leaders.” For context, I’ve explained why republics as form of government are distrusted by many in Iran, the legacy of the Pahlavis and the appeal of crown prince Reza Pahlavi to those who oppose the regime.

Moving on, given Iran’s nature as a theocratic republic, it’s important to look at religion in Iran.

> Gamaan: Religion in Iran (2020)

Gamaan conducted another study in 2020 with the following breakdown. Extrapolating those percentages across 90M people shows again Iran’s massive population and the mosaic that live within it.

Clearly, given Iran’s young demographics, it’s not surprising to see religion fall in importance to many. While 61M people favor a separation of mosque & state, this still suggests that 12.6M people want laws to reflect religion. It just so happens that this 12.6M represent the status quo, and are backed by the military (IRGC).

> Government Survey (2015 vs 2023)
Interestingly, those numbers were consistent with a trend captured by a government survey leaked to BBC Persian showing support for a demarcation between religion and state climbing from 31% in 2015 to 74% today. To put that into absolute numbers:

Again, 74% or 66M people wanting to a secular society is a staggering statistic, but unarmed, how do those people seize power from 24M people (26%) who want laws to reflect religion, and thus, the status-quo?

> 1979 vs 2024

It’s worth noting that in 1979, Iran had a population of 37 million people. It’s impossible to have a precise number of the the percentage of those who supported the revolution. The “density estimation method” is a common method to estimate sizes of crowds:
1. Divide the Area into Grids: Break down the protest area visible in the photo or video into a grid of smaller sections.
2. Estimate Density in Sample Sections: Select a few representative sections within the grid and count the number of people in these sections.
3. Calculate Average Density: Calculate the average number of people per unit area based on your sample sections.
4. Estimate Total Area: Determine the total area covered by the protesters in the photo or video.
5. Calculate Total Number: Multiply the average density by the total area to estimate the total number of protesters. This method provides a rough estimate and works best when the crowd density is relatively uniform across the area. Additionally, advanced software tools and algorithms can enhance the accuracy of these estimates by automating parts of the process and analyzing patterns more precisely.
It’s not perfect, but prevalent.

There’s also the major distinction of those who support something (passively, ideologically) and stay at home, versus those who actively, militantly hit the streets.
With Iran in 1979, some say it was a “significant minority” ranging from 10-40%, others peg it at much lower, 5%. The 10-40% ranges translate to 3.7M to 14.8M, which seems unrealistically high (but I was six months when the revolution occurred, chilling in diapers while sipping on milk). But say “only” 5% people supported the 1979 revolution, that means 1,850,000 people. History is rarely changed by the majority; rather, it’s a vocal, militant and aggressive group that takes action. 

In 1979, after initial skirmishes, the Shah did not crush the dissent, he fled, and in that vacuum the Mullahs seized power. Some say he wanted to avoid bloodshed, others suggest Western powers post-Guadeloupe conference urged him to put down the Artesh (aka Military) weapons – either way, the outcome was the same. Read a more complete look into Iran throughout the 20th century and the Pahlavi legacy, or a general FAQ on Iran.

What Does This All Mean?

Stats and surveys are seldom 100% accurate, but they provide pieces to a puzzle. Iran had a constitutional revolution in 1906 which limited the Qajar’s dynasty’s power, which ended in 1925. Iran has had dynasties last longer than many empires. While the Pahlavi dynasty ruled in such a constitutional monarchy, even pro-Shah sources like Iranica concede that his rule included parts of absolute monarchy & royal dictatorships, though that was a reflection of the cocktail of internal and external factors and influences: “The Shah, who began his career as a mere figurehead and was harshly scrutinized by local powers and super-powers, emerged as an absolute monarch determined to proceed in his development plans.”

Ultimately, the Pahlavis were a net positive for Iran that modernized, industrialized, secularized the nation. There’s always a regression to the mean, so all of that change & reform created enemies – namely clerics and socialists – who joined forces to topple the Shah, whose rising confidence also raised concerns amongst Western powers who had since the fall of the Persian empire projected their influence over Iran: indeed, Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Turks, Mongols, Russians, British, and Americans have all swayed influence. Psychology (oghdeh) and sociology (taarof) played a part in how Iran let foreigners rule over it; and history now seems to be repeating itself as greed and wrath create internal strife.

Building the Monte Carlo Simulation

If one were to set aside emotion and bias to seek to objectively paint a picture of what this all means, let’s look at 3 scenarios first:
1) status quo (regime),
2) a republic that is more secular, and possibly separate from religion altogether, and
3) a monarchy, be it absolute in nature or constitutional
and then break down what is the root of said support
a) ideological/religious
b) nationalist (wanting what’s best for the Iran first and foremost)
c) economic.

Iran psychology and sociology is disproportionately obsessed with money. Any conversation on Iran politics is in fact a discussion on the economic incentive and alignment that explains why a person or party acts a certain way. This should not be surprising, since the leader of Iran the business that now happens to d/b/a (do business as) the Islamic Republic of Iran has always been a well-remunerated person. Cyrus the Great was the world’s wealthiest individual, and subsequent foreigners who ruled over Iran – first Alexander the Great and then Genghis Khan – continued that trend, until technology made entrepreneurs & business owners the wealthiest. Ironically, the alleged kleptocracy of the Shah (overblown, but not immaterial & to his credit addressed candidly by the crown prince) has been dwarfed by that of the current regime, i.e. according to Reuters, the supreme leader oversees a financial empire valued at $85 billion. Thus, it’s perfectly fair to assume that what motivates the regime – as 99.9% of humans on earth as they navigate the sins & virtues in life – and its opposition is money, and who gets to control it. Of course, human rights are paramount. Right now, much of the nation’s resources de facto support proxies in Lebanon, Palestine, Yemen, and so on, much to the chagrin of Iranians, who struggle with inflation, low discretionary incomes etc. It’s not that Iran doesn’t have any good aspects to it, but it’s understandable that a country that controls 10% of natural resources should be doing better. Regime supporters cite sanctions, which is valid, but anyone with intellectual honesty should ask why sanctions exist in the first place. Iran and the West have had a tit-for-that, eye-for-an-eye-we’re-all-blind dynamic that fails to acknowledge the whole history, but that’s for another article.

What Percentage of Iranians Support the Regime?

Recently, we have seen certain indicators that suggest where support for the regime actually is. The regime said that 41% voted in the 2024 legislative elections, though anecdotally, in certain areas and cities, the turnout may have been 5%. That 5% is the low end of “guesstimates” of regime support, the high end being 25%. If you take that 5-25% as a very wide range (i.e. a higher confidence interval and lower margin of error), given the above mentioned survey data, support of 15-20% amongst Iranians inside Iran is a more realistic range.

For purposes of discussion, let’s say 20% – or close to 1/5 Iranians – support the regime, either due to ideological purposes, nationalist grounds, or economic alignment/incentive. During President Raissi’s funeral, you saw large turnout of mourners, some of whom were undoubtedly encouraged and swayed by the regime, but objectively, it’s hard to think everyone was there because they were strong armed. These images frustrated those opposed to the regime, who is admittedly decent at media & communications (the supreme leader has stated that media wins hearts and wins, so it’s not surprising that the regime devotes more attention to this than I initially would have guessed).

Breaking Down Support Inside Iran

Predicting future outcomes in Iran becomes even more daunting given the asymmetrical power balance. Put bluntly, one side has all the weapons, money and infrastructure, the other has none of it. To the right you see the breakdown (sub-total) based on the reason for the support, and to the left you see the sub-totals. Then below, you simply see that these mean in absolute terms.

Thus, using existing surveys from Gamaan, ERF.i, etc. and using some basic assumptions and logic (who is armed vs who isn’t), then you see that even if a small percentage support the regime, you’re still talking about 20 million people (backed by the IRGC) in a country of 90 million.

Using the framework of a Monte Carlo simulation, you have to include history, sociology, psychology, anthropology to come up with the likelihood – or probability – of scenarios. When the exiled crown prince Reza Pahlavi (whose appeal is understandable to those who oppose the regime and has made even the supreme leader allude to his family’s reign) talks of “maximum pressure on the regime & maximum support for the Iranian people,” it sounds like something out of an MBA business case study. To take any concept and push it into reality, you have to understand the how/when/where. If I had to contextualize it for a class I would be teaching, I would do it as such:

The crown prince himself has himself cited a) strikes (to grind the economy to a halt) and b) defections (revolutions don’t need unanimity or even a majority, but they do need strength in numbers) from IRGC personnel. But where there appears to be a bit of a breakdown between him and his followers is the “amnesties” that he is alluding to versus the desire for reprisals amongst his supporters. Again, the MAGA crowd is even more hard core and intense than Trump, so this dynamic of a leader and his supporters not being in lock-step may not be out of the norm.

Reality Check: The Establishment is Not Going to Simply Disappear

Let’s speculate for a second and suppose that one morning, the supreme leader wakes up and tells his followers and supporters that they must leave Iran. Overnight, the Mullahs are gone. Does the IRGC follow them? Where do they go? Why would they not merely seize power? But let’s also suspend logic and presume the IRGC leaders leave as well, does that mean the exiled crown prince can emulate Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, get on American Airlines and land in Tehran? He himself reacted to that by saying “I’m more valuable to the people of Iran alive.” The reality is even in a power vacuum, the path to the return of a monarchy – let alone the crown prince – is fraught with landmines, insulating the regime.

After all, when the Shah fled, it took down the entire apparatus and infrastructure of the monarchy. The Shah was quoted in saying “if I go, Iran will fall into ruins, and if Iran falls, the Middle East follows. And if the Middle East is in ruins, great terror will reign.” That vacuum created an easy path for the clerics to claim power, who by their own admission just a few years before did not expect to be in charge. The “unholy alliance” between socialists and islamists was initially seen as a transitional path to whatever would follow the monarchy, but Ayatollah Khomeini outsmarted others by leveraging the networks that mosques gave him. He then killed the socialists and others who posed any risk to his power.

The IRGC’s Considerable Power

It’s unlikely that the Supreme Leader tells all clerics to give up power, even less unlikely that the IRGC voluntarily gives up power. But if for whatever reason the current supreme leader Ali Khamenei decides to retire & (for discussion purposes) his son Mojtaba says “no, this isn’t for me,” it’s hard to imagine the entire Islamic regime crumbling. Inasmuch as you have a handful to a dozen politicians seek to run in the presidential elections to replace the deceased President Raissi, it’s impossible to think no religious leader will step in and seek to maintain the status quo. Of course, Iran is unique in that the Mullahs have the power, but the IRGC maintains and protects it. So indeed, another option is a military style coup or power struggle where the IRGC puts its weight behind a supreme leader in exchange for more power. That, to me, is more likely than most other things involving a revolution in the near term just given the firepower it wields, with an annual budget of over $7B in 2020.

WTF is a Crowned Republic anyway?

As I researched all of this more, I came across this concept of a “crowned republic,” which at first sounded like an oxymoron & generated by ChatGPT. Given Iranians’ growing distaste for republics, that one seems hard to imagine happening, but in light of Iran’s current institutions being framed around a republic, again in a parallel world this seems less chaotic to those who may favor a return of a Shah but fear a total breakdown of society, risk of civil war, infighting etc. and the uncertainty that an eventual referendum brings… especially as foreign forces keep alluding to separatists in Kurdish parts of Iran and Baluchistan, even though these are pretty non-existent within those groups.

MEK & the Clueless American Wild Card

Iranians who oppose the regime are oftentimes heard mentioning an eventual referendum “after the regime falls.” Lost in this is that realistically, that power vacuum will likely give even the most unlikely of belligerents – i.e. the MEK – the ability to seize power, considering it’s organized, armed, and thanks to lobby money, has the perceived (paid) support of influential American politicians like Mike Pence and Mike Pompeo, even if internally in Iran, the MEK lacks credibility and support amongst Iranians. What I am saying is not that MEK has any real shot of ruling over time, but in the chaos of a regime falling or transitional period to an eventual referendum, outside foreign forces in Washington DC may back the MEK unknowingly which the Iranians will view as replacing one unsavoury reality for an even less appetizing option. The MEK’s history involves the killing of Iranians, siding with arch-enemy Iraq, etc., but when they publish catchy top 10 lists on their future vision of Iran, it’s not impossible for people like Donald Trump to nod along when the Pence’s and Pompeo’s of the world give them even a smittance of credibility. Again, America does not care about Iran or Iranians, it views Iran as a problem child so it will always pick the lesser of many evils and so on. Now that said, the founder of the MEK Massoud Rajavi is said to be dead since the US took over Iraq (where MEK had set up camp in), and his successor and spouse Maryam Rajavi is struggling with health issues herself. If she passes away, it’s hard to entertain any notion that MEK’s slim already non-existent odds evaporate even more.

Monarchy: Constitutional vs Absolute

Finally, while there are some older monarchists who are royalists who only support the Pahlavis and may even favour an absolute style of monarchy, I do not think that’s a realistic outcome given Iranians’ preferences, the reality of 2020s & that even the crown prince himself has been wary to show any desire or interest manage the day-to-day affairs of the Interior the way an absolute monarch would. So whether he is a global ambassador of sorts or a constitutional monarch, he would need parliamentary leaders, ministers etc. all of which Iran already has, but whom his supporters view as tainted. This all makes regime change harder.

Understanding Iran

While the crown prince urges for unity amongst all who support territorial integrity of Iran (even though I must say it’s quite shocking and alarming at how much Israeli media push this narrative), there’s a stunning lack of unity amongst those in the opposition who are obsessed with taking down one another. For example, while activists like Hamed Esmaeilion and Masih Alinejad are cited in Western media as “opposition leaders,” I think a more appropriate description for them are activists and advocates who strive for a role in a post-regime world as ministers, members of parliament, etc. Again, from an operational sense and change management perspective, if Iranians who oppose the regime don’t trust anyone involved with said regime, who runs the country? I have not been in Iran in 1984, am not political in any way, have no ties to anyone inside or outside the nation, but it behooves me that anyone thinks such a massive country with huge population can just somehow implode and not be set back 100 years.

I do not know Mr. Esmaeilion, Ms. Alinejad; nor do I follow their positions on views, but the criticism and backlash they face (with a vile amount of sexist overtones in Ms. Alinejad’s case) captures the Iranian sociology and psychology which oftentimes is rooted in “who is paid how much by whom to say/do what” and a lack of belief that anyone can rule (the way we think that in the West). Anyone who is masochist (or nationalist) enough to put up their hands to lead is savagely attacked and accused of being a blood dealer. To the regime, such a lack of unity just strengthens their hand.

For these reasons, while no one can doubt that Iranians have grown disillusioned with a theocratic republic (which has tainted the republic form of government) and the crown prince is the only person who is a credible and trusted individual by Iranians opposed to the regime, the mere strength that Iran commands through its support from Russia and China & the fact that unlike the Shah in 1979 the current regime would fight tooth and nail to stay in power, here’s how the Monte Carlo simulation looks like if you look at probabilities. This does not mean that something is impossible, just that it is improbable unless something major changes.

Now granted, not all of these are mutually exclusive, and a few may occur over time:

  • Mojtaba Khamenei becomes supreme leader, but it leads to a power struggle between members of the clerical establishment, and eventually, the IRGC… which all lead to erosion of unity amongst the regime which then leads to a revolution of some kind in the future.
  • Even the most unlikely of scenarios – that somehow MEK convinces the Republicans to back them “temporarily” in the event of a regime falling apart – does not mean they would stay in power for long because Iranians en masse could very well take to the streets to kick them out and then eventually choose for either a constitutional monarchy, crowned republic or a secular republic in a referendum.
  • Ultimately, while the Islamic Republic of Iran has been in power for 45 years, most of Iran’s history consists of people/dynasties ruling for much, much longer.

While the following isn’t popular, I believe that technology & demographics have always played the lion’s share in evolutionary and revolutionary changes in society and throughout history. What that means in practical terms for Iran remains to be seen, and no one knows, because in a cohort of 90 million people, anything can happen.