The key characteristics of revolutions are the presence of people’s frustration, the goal and motivation to overthrow the existing regime, and the observance of a political crisis. Furthermore, the unity of different public groups is often noticed, and these groups of activists can have international support. While referring to these characteristics, it is possible to identify the area that can be discussed as being on the verge of the revolution. In 2019, it has been argued that 40 years after the Islamic Revolution, particular revolutionary movements can develop in Iran again. On the one hand, some people point to a political crisis in the country that prevents Iran from building positive relations with the Western world. As a result, some Western-oriented groups have international support, and they can receive assistance in overthrowing the current regime in the country. Their potential power is in young well-educated individuals who have access to different sources of information to assess the advantages and disadvantages of the regime in their country.
On the other hand, such elements of a revolution as the mass’s frustration and the clear intention of certain groups to overthrow the regime are rather absent. In order to speak about the possible development of a revolution in Iran in the nearest future, the presence of problems in the political, economic, and social spheres in the country needs to be clearly detected. It is possible to agree that some categories of the population are dissatisfied with the achievements of the Islamic Revolution that can be observed today, but it is rather difficult to state whether they are ready to oppose the existing regime. Nevertheless, more and more people in Iran have become interested in the possibilities of social and political changes in order to achieve certain progress for the nation.
Observing certain positive and negative changes in other Arab states, including Egypt, Libya, or Syria, the citizens of Iran can find themselves analyzing the advantages and disadvantages of starting a new revolutionary movement. The risks of public unrest can be discussed as rather high, but the likelihood of transforming the unrest into a revolution cannot be viewed as high. Protests observed in Iran during past years can be regarded as indicators of the public’s frustration, but no active steps are currently observed to lead the country to a massive revolt. From one perspective, there are some key elements of revolutions that can be associated with current tendencies in Iranian society. From the other perspective, these movements lack certain important elements of developing revolutions to be discussed as risky.