You Can’t Have a Revolution Without Revolution: Navigating Polycrisis and Political Change in Iran

This article examines the war involving Iran through the lens of polycrisis and revolutionary theory, arguing that externally driven attempts at regime change risk deepening interconnected crises rather than producing meaningful political transformation. The article situates the conflict within a broader regional and global polycrisis, highlighting how war, energy disruptions, food insecurity, economic instability, displacement, and environmental degradation interact and reinforce one another across systems. At the same time, it emphasizes that grassroots protest movements in Iran represent authentic forms of revolutionary resistance, even if the structural conditions for regime collapse remain absent. Ultimately, the article argues that sustainable political transformation must emerge from the agency and aspirations of the Iranian people rather than from external geopolitical intervention.