“The Islamic Revolution and the establishment of the Islamic Republic can be understood as outcomes of the April 1979 referendum. … Khomeini, along with other clerical authorities who aligned with him, was cognizant that prevailing domestic and international political exigencies necessitated the adoption of a discursive framework invoking terms such as ‘republic,’ ‘referendum,’ and even ‘revolution.’”
“Participants in the anti-monarchical revolution—the so-called ‘’57 generation’—cannot, and ought not, be held accountable for the subsequent emergence of the Islamic Revolution and the institutionalization of the Islamic Republic. This is particularly so given that the Islamic Revolution subordinated popular sovereignty and individual freedoms to the doctrine of velayat-e faqih (Guardianship of the Jurist) and, in doing so, constituted a major impediment to the anti-monarchical revolution’s trajectory toward the establishment of a republic grounded in secularism and democracy.”
Mehrdad Vahabi
