Every time a government falls or is very weak, the tribes and ethnic minorities rebel and try to separate. Each newly established government—Reza Shah, Mohammed Reza Shah, the Islamic Republic—had to send its armed forces and conquer the rebels (usually starting in the southwest and proceeding clockwise). The Persian urbanites and villagers had reason to fear the tribes, which were enthusiastic predatory raiders for goods, livestock, and slaves. And, let us not forget, the tribes have been political actors from time to time: the occupation of Shiraz by the Qashqa’i was part of the process that brought Mossadegh down.

The inner ring of Farsi speakers was fragmented vertically: Political appointees and other absentee landlords squeezed the peasant majority, who commonly received 20 percent of the crop for their labor, and invested little in improvement of the factors of production.

Like most pre-industrial states, Persia/Iran has been held together by military force. Only religion has been capable of unifying fairly broadly, but even this has proved ephemeral. As Charles Lindholm has argued, in the Islamic Middle East, there is no legitimate basis for rulership, other than religion; but then religion, once in government, becomes de-sacralized and corrupt, and loses legitimacy.

This has already happened in Iran. Religion no longer carries political legitimacy. Many political actors who literally took on clerical garb have long since laid it aside. The populace, certainly the urban and tribal, has struggled to avoid religious restrictions and has begun to consciously re-construct non-religious identities. The Sunnis reemphasize the Sunni-Shi’a divide and tribesmen their tribal roots; the urbanites, certainly the young, draw on the internet and clandestine mass media to incorporate elements of modern and Western culture. Some have gone so far as to reject Islam, now refusing to greet with Salaam aleikom, but instead offer the pre-Islamic Persian terms for hello and goodbye: darood and bedrood.

With all of this in mind, how does one advance the possibility of regime change? Into which fissures does one insert the lever? Would a new potential leadership be important? Undoubtedly; Persians put great weight on strong leaders. In addition to the chronically discontented tribes and ethnics, would the Farsi-speaking majority have to be attracted? Most likely. To which addresses should outsiders send funds? I only give those out under contract.

Philip Carl Salzman is a member of MESH.