The Iranian Studies Unit at the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies hosted Rouzbeh Parsi, an Adjunct Senior Lecturer at Lund University, Sweden, on 6 October 2025 for a lecture titled “Did All That Was Solid Melt into Air? The Islamic Republic at an Impasse”. The lecture explored Iran’s current political trajectory through the lenses of legitimacy, authority, and expediency. It pondered the impasse facing the Islamic Republic of Iran within the broader context of Iran contending with modernity for more than a century.

Laying the framework of his talk, Rouzbeh highlighted Marx and Engels’ thesis that modernity dissolves old bonds, arguing that Iranian statecraft has long revolved around God, the state, and the people, with the Islamic Republic trying to reconcile the competing logics of divine authority and popular legitimacy. Iran, he said “is trying to marry religious legitimacy with the very modern popular notion of republican legitimacy. So, both the popular vote to decide but also at the same time the claim that there is a divine legitimacy that underpins the whole thing; and as an experiment it has survived longer than most people would expect.” This merge has resulted in what he called “slow response rate”: a preference for consensus and control which slows down adaptation and minimizes politics to “muddling through.” Rouzbeh noted that “the Iranian state is very slow at taking in and revising its decisions because there are so many groups that have to be satisfied about any change of direction. And so, we return to the idea of pragmatism and muddling through”. Over time, he claimed, this approach has watered down both the social authority of religion and public confidence in state direction.

In his lecture, Rouzbeh drew a contrast between the founder of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s decisive leadership with Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s more cautious approach. Khomeini made defining choices, such as asserting state authority over clerical pluralism in 1987 and accepting the Iran–Iraq ceasefire in 1988 while ordering mass executions which contributed to consolidating his power, however it deepened moral and political rifts. Khamenei, in contrast, has ruled through control without a clear vision, while also empowering harder conservative forces. Rouzbeh went on to observe that Khamenei’s decision to suppress domestic mobilization, particularly the events of 2009, has deepened the schism between a post-revolutionary society and a state that offers only tactical retreats, such as oscillations in hijab enforcement, rather than sustainable and durable outcomes.

In conclusion, Rouzbeh argued that the Islamic Republic’s paralysis stems from an entrenched unwillingness to take political risks, particularly in the areas of reform, compromise, or empowering the public.