Iran's 'trajectory' is another revolution — but the hijab protesters need leaders to topple the Islamic regime, Middle East experts say

• Protests, sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini, have spread across Iran. They feature "death to the dictator" chants.
• Iran's "trajectory" is another revolution, an expert told Insider, but this won't happen any time soon.
• The protest movement lacks the organization needed to topple the regime, Iran experts say.

The rapidly spreading protests in Iran, sparked by the suspicious death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in Tehran last Friday, are showing no sign of subsiding.

More than 80 cities and towns have been gripped by civil unrest in the past eight days, per BBC News, with police stations torched and women burning their headscarves in displays of resistance. Amnesty International said that at least 30 people, including four children, have died amid the Iranian crackdown on the protests.

The unrest, according to several media outlets, is the worst Iran has seen in several years.

Experts on Iran told Insider that the deadly protests show the population's will for another revolution, which last happened in 1979, but protesters face significant hurdles in accomplishing such a feat.

What are the protests about?

At the surface level, the protests are about the death of a woman who died suspiciously after being arrested by Iran's morality police for allegedly not wearing a hijab properly.

Amini died on Friday, four days after witnesses accused police officers of forcing her into a van and beating her in Tehran, immediately sparking protests in Tehran and her hometown. The protests spread across the country, and the Iranian regime has responded by using police and internet censorship to stifle dissent.

However, the reality is that the civil unrest is symptomatic of a more profound discontent that has been boiling over in Iran for several years, said Hadi Ghaemi, executive director of the Center for Human Rights in Iran, in a conversation with Insider.

"The protests are in response to the death of Mahsa Amini, but the demands being put forward by protesters are for broader social and political change and freedoms," Ghaemi said.

One of those demands is to address gendered discrimination in Iran, Ghaemi added, noting that the burning of hijabs, shaving of heads, and the number of women turning up at protests show that women are fed up with their position in Iranian society.

"Literally half of the country feels discriminated against and wants to put an end to it, and the government violence imposed by the hijab restrictions, particularly in the last few months, has really made women of Iran reach a boiling point," Ghaemi said.

There's also a demand that the government better represent its population, focusing on bread-and-butter issues instead of foreign policy and sustaining its political power, Ghaemi explained.

"The Iranian government and state, and the ruling elite, have decoupled themselves completely from society and the needs of the people," Ghaemi said. 

There is widespread corruption, an economy reeling from sanctions, and political suppression. It has led to many Iranians "coming to the conclusion that the Islamic Republic in its current form is not serving any of their interests," Ghaemi said.

Unable to take to the ballot box meaningfully as the unelected Guardian Council disqualifies candidates in elections it deems insufficiently loyal, angry protesters have had to take to the streets instead. 

"The Supreme Leader, especially, is very much the target of that anger," he continued. "The fact that one man can rule over 85m people with an iron fist... people want to change that."

Iran is on the "trajectory" of a revolution, says one expert

Over the past week, protesters have chanted "death to the dictator," referring to Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, and have burned and defaced images of him, per France 24. 

But despite the anger displayed towards Khamenei, who has been Iran's supreme leader since 1989, he has publicly ignored the ongoing civil unrest. According to Iran International, a Persian language television station, he failed to mention Amini or the protests in a speech to military commanders on Wednesday.

"You can see he lives in a different universe," said Alex Vatanka, director of the Iran program at the Middle East Institute, in a conversation with Insider.

Vatanka, who authored "The Battle of the Ayatollahs in Iran: The United States, Foreign Policy and Political Rivalry Since 1979," said that many protesters are demonstrating a will to get rid of Khamenei.

"The anger is there, it's real, and it wants radical change," he said. "And the anger, at this point, does not believe this regime can change itself or reform itself, so it's asking for the removal of the system."

Iran, as it stands, is on the "trajectory" of a revolution, said Vatanka. "I don't use the word 'revolution' easily," he added. But there is a significant obstacle: the movement's lack of organization.

"The opposition is extremely angry, but it's also extremely fragmented, and that's a problem," Vatanka said. "It's leaderless. How many revolutions could we point to that didn't have a singular group of leaders?"

Iran last underwent a revolution in 1979, which saw the Pahlavi dynasty fall and the Islamic Republic rise. The figurehead of the revolution, Ayatollah Khomenei, was the nation's supreme leader until his death in 1989.

"Khomenei was offering to mobilize and keep a revolutionary group of people together that, in turn, mobilized the population," said Vatanka. "The population today is almost acting on its own."

Ghaemi agreed, telling Insider that the protests are "highly horizontal and grassroots" and lack the structure — and leadership — to inspire significant political upheaval.

"There is no leadership organizing it, and there is no individual or institutions in the way that in 1978 Khomeini had the political opposition inside the country inflamed," he said. "This time, we really don't have organized political opposition in the country; It's become a battle between the will of the people asking for change and the political elite."

Both experts agreed that a revolution is possible but not imminent. In the meantime, however, they said the protests show no sign of dying down.

And Vatanka mused, "If history teaches us anything, it's that you can maybe delay a revolution, but it will come back, and it will happen again and again."