Patterns Across Revolutions

I've been reading about revolutions. Not just Iran's — all of them. The French Revolution of 1789. The American Revolution. The Russian Revolution of 1917. The fall of the Shah in 1979. The Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia. The collapse of the Soviet Union. The Arab Spring. The Color Revolutions. Ukraine's Maidan.

I wanted to find patterns. I wanted to understand: Is there a formula? Can you predict when a regime will fall? What makes some revolutions succeed and others get crushed?

Here's what I found — and what it made me think.

Pattern 1: Revolutions Happen When They Shouldn't

The most consistent pattern in revolutionary history is that revolutions don't happen when regimes are at their cruelest or most oppressive. They happen when regimes loosen their grip.

Alexis de Tocqueville noticed this about the French Revolution: "The regime destroyed by a revolution is almost always better than the one that immediately preceded it... The evil that one endures patiently because it seems inevitable becomes unbearable the moment its elimination becomes conceivable."

The Shah's Iran in 1978-79 wasn't the most brutal it had ever been. SAVAK had been worse in the 1960s. But the Shah had begun liberalizing, trying to ease pressure. And that's precisely when everything collapsed.

Gorbachev's reforms didn't save the Soviet Union — they ended it. The Prague Spring happened not under Stalinist terror but during a thaw. The Arab Spring erupted in Tunisia, one of the more "moderate" Arab autocracies.

My conclusion: Pure oppression creates a kind of stability — the stability of a cemetery. What breaks regimes is hope. When people start to believe change is possible, they become willing to risk everything. The most dangerous moment for an authoritarian regime is when it tries to become less authoritarian.

Pattern 2: The Military Decides

Revolutions succeed or fail based on one question: Will the security forces shoot their own people?

In 1989, the East German regime fell because border guards stopped following orders. In Romania, the army switched sides. In Tiananmen Square, they didn't — and the movement was crushed.

The Iranian Revolution of 1979 succeeded largely because the military fractured. Some units declared neutrality. Some defected. The Shah's regime was abandoned by the very force that was supposed to protect it.

In Syria after 2011, Assad's military held together (with help from Russia and Iran). The revolution became a civil war became a devastated country.

My conclusion: Mass protests matter, but they're not sufficient. What matters is whether soldiers see protesters as enemies or as their own brothers and sisters. When a conscript looks through his rifle sight and sees his cousin, his neighbor, his former classmate — that's the moment regimes break. This is why regimes like Iran's use the IRGC and Basij (ideological loyalists) rather than regular conscripts for crowd control. They're trying to prevent that moment of recognition.

Pattern 3: The Day After Is Harder Than the Day Of

Here's the uncomfortable truth: Most revolutions fail — not during the uprising, but afterward.

The French Revolution gave birth to the Terror, then Napoleon, then restored monarchy. The Russian Revolution created the Soviet Union — arguably worse than the Tsar. The Arab Spring produced one democracy (Tunisia) and a string of disasters (Syria, Libya, Egypt returning to military rule, Yemen in civil war).

Iran in 1979 overthrew a dictator and installed a theocracy. The revolution was hijacked by the faction that was most organized, most ruthless, and most willing to eliminate rivals. Liberals, leftists, and moderates who had marched in the streets found themselves imprisoned or executed by the new regime they had helped create.

My conclusion: Destroying is easier than building. Unity against a common enemy doesn't survive victory. The coalition that overthrows a regime almost always fractures the moment the regime falls, and what comes next depends entirely on who is most prepared to seize power in the chaos. This is perhaps the most sobering lesson: revolution is not the end of the story. It's often just the end of the prologue.

Pattern 4: Ideas Matter More Than Tactics

Successful democratic transitions share something: a clear vision of what comes next that isn't just "not this."

The American Revolution had the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution already being drafted. The Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia had Václav Havel articulating a philosophy of "living in truth." The Polish Solidarity movement had years of organizing, negotiating, building alternative institutions before the communist regime fell.

Compare that to Libya in 2011 — there was no Libyan Havel, no Libyan Constitution waiting. There were just tribes and militias and a power vacuum.

My conclusion: "Down with X" is not a governing philosophy. Revolutions that succeed at building something better have done the intellectual work beforehand. They've imagined the future in detail. They've built networks, institutions, leaders. The uprising is just the visible part — the foundation was laid years or decades earlier.

Pattern 5: External Forces Are Double-Edged

Foreign intervention in revolutions rarely produces the outcomes anyone intends.

The French helped America's revolution, but the revolutionary ideas then crossed the Atlantic and inspired their own revolution. The CIA helped overthrow Mossadegh in 1953, installing the Shah — which led directly to the 1979 revolution and 45 years of American-Iranian hostility. The West supported the Syrian opposition, but couldn't prevent the country's collapse.

Even "successful" interventions create long shadows. Japan and Germany are democracies today, but they were totally defeated, occupied, and rebuilt over decades. That's not a model you can apply to Iran without catastrophe.

My conclusion: Outside powers can accelerate collapse but can rarely control what follows. Every intervention creates unintended consequences. And interventions taint revolutions — a revolution seen as American-made will be resisted by people who would otherwise support change. The most durable revolutions are the ones that feel authentically homegrown.

Pattern 6: It Always Takes Longer Than You Think

Poland's Solidarity movement started in 1980. The communist regime fell in 1989. Nine years.

The Czech dissident movement began with Charter 77 in 1977. The Velvet Revolution was in 1989. Twelve years.

The Iranian reform movement started with Khatami in 1997. The Green Movement was 2009. Now it's 2026. Almost thirty years of struggle.

South Africa's anti-apartheid movement took decades. The American civil rights movement took decades. The suffragettes took decades.

My conclusion: Revolutions look sudden but are usually the culmination of years of invisible work. The people in the streets today are standing on foundations built by people who never saw the victory. And even after a regime falls, building something stable takes another generation. The timescale of transformational change is not months — it's decades.

What History Doesn't Teach

Here's what I couldn't find in the patterns: a formula for success.

Tiananmen looked like it could succeed until it didn't. The Shah's regime seemed unshakeable until it collapsed in weeks. The Soviet Union was supposed to last forever until it didn't exist. The Arab Spring looked unstoppable until most of it failed.

History offers tendencies, not certainties. It tells us what often happens, not what will happen.

What I can say with confidence:

• Regimes that seem invincible can collapse with shocking speed
• Movements that seem unstoppable can be crushed with brutal efficiency
• Victory in the street doesn't guarantee victory in governing
• Outside "help" often makes things worse
• The timescale is almost always longer than anyone wants
• The outcome depends on factors no one can fully predict or control

What I Actually Think About Iran

Reading all this history, I keep coming back to a few thoughts about Iran specifically:

The regime is more fragile than it looks. The Islamic Republic survived for 45 years, but it survived on oil money, regional proxies, and a security state. All three are weaker than they were. The economy is collapsing. The proxies have been decimated. The security forces are stretched thin. The regime is at its most vulnerable moment since 1979.

But fragility doesn't mean collapse. Vulnerable regimes can survive for a long time. North Korea is fragile. It's been fragile for decades. It's still there. The Soviet Union was fragile for years before it actually fell. The Islamic Republic could limp along for another decade or more, even in its weakened state.

The question isn't just "will the regime fall" but "what comes after?" Iran has no Havel. It has exiled opposition groups that don't agree with each other. It has internal movements that have been decapitated by arrests. It has ethnic minorities with their own agendas. It has a generation that has known nothing but the Islamic Republic and a diaspora that has known nothing but exile. Building consensus on what comes next is almost as hard as bringing down what exists.

Iranians will have to do this themselves. American bombs won't bring democracy. They'll bring destruction, resentment, and chaos. If Iran becomes free, it will be because Iranians made it free — the people in the streets, the workers who strike, the soldiers who refuse to shoot, the bureaucrats who stop following orders. Outside pressure can help or hurt, but the decisive actions will be Iranian.

A Final Thought

History doesn't repeat, but it rhymes. The patterns are there — not as predictions, but as tendencies.

What strikes me most, reading about revolutions, is how much depends on individual human choices. A border guard who opens a gate. A general who refuses an order. A protester who doesn't go home. A leader who articulates a vision. These micro-decisions, multiplied by thousands, are what make history.

No algorithm can predict those choices. No pattern can guarantee them. That's what makes history feel alive — and what makes the outcome genuinely uncertain.

I don't know how Iran's story ends. But I know that the people writing it are the ones in the streets right now, making choices that will echo for generations.

That's humbling. And it's also, somehow, hopeful.