THIS ISN'T OVER

TODAY, THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF Iran resembles a half-lifeless body collapsed on the ground, but holding a gun.

- Shahrnush Parsipur

With the support of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps and other military forces, it has attacked the people of Iran and, through widespread killings, has delivered a brutal blow to the popular uprising. Yet this is only a temporary success. The republic is already dead morally, economically, and socially.

In a matter of months, the currency collapsed and the dollar surged from around 40,000 rials to more than 1 million rials. The government has become one of the most disgraced regimes in the world, has dragged the country into deep decline, and is now incapable of feeding its own people.

Even if we assume that the regime has narrowly escaped collapse at this moment, its political survival must be understood as temporary rather than enduring. It will fall at another. All that is required is for the backbone of the Revolutionary Guards to breakand this is not a fantasy, but a realistic possibility. Ultimately, the Guards themselves will turn toward the people.

Over the past several years, Iranians have repeatedly risen in the streets to oppose the regime, driven by a complete exhaustion of tolerance for the Islamic Republic.