The Iranian Studies Unit at the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies hosted a public lecture by Mahjoob Zweiri, Professor in Contemporary Politics and History of the Middle East. Titled “The New Birth of the Islamic Republic of Iran", the lecture explored the Islamic Republic's evolution through various phases of state-building, adaptation, and crisis management. The lecture argued that the Islamic Republic has repeatedly moved “from one stage to another," driven by three main factors: spiritual puritanism, survivability, and the desire to continue, in which he described as “three births".
Zweiri outlined what he termed the Islamic Republic's “first birth," beginning shortly after the 1979 Islamic Revolution with “jihad sazandegi" (the “jihad of construction"). This developmental project was aimed at extending the revolution's reach to Iran's peripheries and “marginalized" communities, while consolidating clerical control of state institutions. He described how the post-revolutionary period saw increased government consolidation, the Islamization of society and institutions, including hijab enforcement through constitutional mechanisms and the Islamization of universities and social sciences, as well as a re-narration of foreign policy from “exporting revolution" to positioning Iran as defender of the oppressed. He also noted major demographic shifts, including population growth in Tehran following the revolution, and argued that the Iran-Iraq War put a halt to the revolution's early alliance between clerics and leftist intellectuals in favor of the clerical rule.
The lecture moved on to frame 2010 to 2018 as a pivotal phase shaped by the Arab Spring of 2011, which Zweiri described as a “shock" that pushed Tehran to recalibrate regionally and contributed to its heavier involvement in Syria, including what he called its first major military intervention there since the Iran-Iraq War. He went on to argue that the US' unilateral withdrawal from the nuclear deal in May 2018 posited a turning point, after which the Islamic Republic entered what he termed a “second birth," emphasizing generational renewal, “purification" which Zweiri said is “dividing people to who are with the regime [and] who are not with the regime" as well as an “economy of resistance" to adapt to prolonged sanctions.
Alluding to a third phase, Zweiri phrased his analysis in a conditional and future-oriented manner, dependent on the outcome of negotiations with the US: “Is this going to lead to a war erupting in the region or is it going to lead to an agreement and therefore is this going to lead to the third birth of the Republic?" He argued that this “third phase" would emerge either from war or from an agreement.
