The Regime Has Already Been Changed

Iranians' Mass Adoption of Western Pop Culture Is Subverting the Islamic Republic

Anti-hijab protest in Tehran, 2023.

Proponents of war with Iran tell us the Islamic Republic is a monster in waiting. They insist that the mullahs in Tehran will soon unleash nuclear fire, as Ted Cruz recently declared, “in Tel Aviv or New York or Los Angeles.” The war hawks say the Iranian “regime” is a totalitarian nightmare, where women are imprisoned in hijabs, gays are hurled from rooftops, and the Guidance Patrol enforces sharia law at the end of a truncheon. The war against Iran, we are told, will not only save Israel and the United States from nuclear destruction but will also liberate the Iranian people from their oppression.

But while the Israeli Air Force fires missiles into Iranian cities and President Trump weighs whether to engage the U.S. military directly in the conflict, a very different regime-change revolution in Iran has long been underway—one far more subversive than any airstrike. It comes not from tanks or troops but from satellite dishes, pirated sitcoms, and contraband rap tracks. For more than three decades, Western popular culture has been steadily eroding the Islamic Republic from within. Fewer and fewer of Iran’s youth, who make up over half the country’s population, march to the chants of the ayatollahs. They are more likely to dance to Beyoncé than pray toward Mecca.

If Iran’s regime falls, it won’t be from war—it’ll be from Wi-Fi and VPNs.