The Shadow before the Fall

The Shadow before the Fall

A letter of Iran’s looming transformation

 

by

Leda Green

 

In these days of quiet tension and loud distractions, I find myself looking at Iran not through the lens of media headlines or military alerts but through a deeper intuition. Something is shifting. And yet, something feels deeply off—like a game, carefully choreographed, is being played behind the people’s backs.

We are not only witnessing the slow unravelling of a regime but also the deliberate pacing of its collapse.

The Islamic Republic of Iran, long known for its brutal repression, ideological rigidity, and sharp anti-Western rhetoric, stands on the edge of a precipice. Internally fractured, economically suffocating, and spiritually hollow, its foundations are no longer as unshakable as they once seemed.

But collapse is not always sudden. Sometimes, power doesn’t fall—it decays.

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The Mask Is Cracking

The death of President Ebrahim Raisi in 2024 momentarily shook the system, but it did not break it. The real power, of course, never sat in the presidency—it rests with Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and the Revolutionary Guard.

But Khamenei is aging. And the shadow of succession now looms over every corridor of the Iranian state.

Inside, Iran is bleeding. Its youth—vibrant, connected, fearless—are disillusioned with a theocracy that neither represents their faith nor their future. Women, who have led some of the boldest protests since Mahsa Amini’s death, continue to defy the forced veiling and violent policing of their bodies and voices.

Ethnic minorities suffer quietly. Artists, thinkers, and journalists disappear or are silenced. Yet what we see from the outside are only echoes. The world has, until recently, turned its gaze elsewhere.

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The Global Game

Here is the unsettling truth: The slow death of Iran’s dictatorship serves certain geopolitical interests.

The United States wants to contain Iran, not collapse it—lest a power vacuum destabilize the region or send oil prices soaring. Israel seeks to weaken Iran’s military proxies but avoids direct engagement that could explode into regional war. China and Russia use Iran as a chess piece—strategic, useful, but ultimately disposable.

Everyone speaks of democracy. But no one wants the unpredictable chaos that true freedom brings.

And so the regime lingers. Artificially propped up. Technologically monitored. Quietly manipulated. The people remain prisoners in a game not of their choosing.

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A Regime Without Soul

There is something deeply spiritual about what is unfolding.

The Iranian regime no longer rules through belief. It governs through force, fear, and façade. It does not inspire—it controls. It does not uplift—it suffocates.

When a system loses the faith of its own people—when it becomes an empty shell of slogans and guns—its fall is only a matter of time.

What remains unclear is what comes next.

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A Call to Witness

This is not just a political moment. It is a moral one.

The world must prepare not just for the fall of a regime but for the birth of something new. That means supporting Iranian civil society, listening to the women, the youth, the poets, and the silent revolutionaries, and resisting the temptation to shape Iran’s future from the outside—again.

The next great shift in the Middle East may not come from war. It may come from within. Quietly. Inevitably. From a people who have suffered long enough.

Let us not be caught surprised when it happens. Let us not pretend we didn’t see the signs. Let us not stay silent when they need us most.

Because history will not only ask what happened in Iran.

It will ask: Who was paying attention?

—
Leda Green
A voice from between the borders, listening where silence grows.