Vahid Ayan is an Iranian-Canadian engineer based in Redcliff, Alberta. He lived in Iran for 30 years before going abroad for his studies and later immigrating to Canada.In the years preceding Iran’s 1979 revolution, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi multiple times issued a warning that extended well beyond the fate of his own government. Iran, he argued, was not merely another Middle Eastern state struggling with internal dissent. It was a strategic anchor. If Iran collapsed, the region would destabilize — and the consequences would eventually reverberate across the globe..'HELP END THE REGIME': Thousands in Vancouver rally to support Iranian people's fight for freedom.At the time, Western governments largely dismissed this warning as self-interested rhetoric from an authoritarian ruler facing mounting opposition. Former US president Richard Nixon, speaking publicly on the Shah’s death in 1980, echoed this idea — underscoring that the Shah had played a vital role in regional stability and that his loss was consequential for the Middle East’s future.Nearly half a century later, the world is still grappling with the aftermath of Iran’s collapse — and with the regional and global disorder that followed.An "Unholy Alliance" that changed historyOne of the Shah’s most controversial claims concerned what he described as an "Unholy Alliance" between Marxist revolutionaries and Islamist movements. On the surface, the partnership seemed implausible. Marxism rejected religion outright, while political Islam viewed Marxism as atheistic and corrosive. Yet revolutions are rarely driven by ideological consistency; they are driven by shared enemies and short-term objectives.In revolutionary Iran, these factions found common cause in dismantling a modernizing, secular, pro-Western state. Marxist groups supplied revolutionary theory, organizational discipline, and international connections. Islamist networks mobilized mass legitimacy through mosques, clerical authority, and religious symbolism. Together, they succeeded in toppling the monarchy.The alliance was never meant to endure. Once power was secured, the Islamist faction — under Ruhollah Khomeini — moved quickly to eliminate its former partners. Marxist organizations were suppressed, imprisoned, or executed. The Shah had predicted this outcome as well: cooperation first, consolidation later..The warning the West failed to hearMore consequential than the Shah’s observations about revolutionary alliances was his broader geopolitical argument. As early as the mid-1970s, he warned that Iran’s collapse would create a vacuum that radical ideologies would rush to fill — exporting instability well beyond its borders.Western policymakers, shaped by Cold War assumptions and fatigue with strongman allies, underestimated the political power of Islamist movements. Political Islam was widely viewed as backwards, local, and temporary. Marxism remained the primary perceived global threat. The idea that an Islamist revolutionary state could become a long-term driver of regional and international instability was not taken seriously.History suggests this was a grave miscalculation.From revolution to regional disorderFollowing the establishment of the Islamic Republic, Iran adopted an explicit strategy of exporting revolutionary ideology. Through proxy warfare, ideological patronage, and asymmetric influence, Tehran extended its reach across the Middle East — supporting groups such as Hezbollah, Hamas and the Houthis, while embedding itself in multiple regional conflicts..'AZ VANCOUVER TA TEHRAN': Thousands stand with Iranians in fight to topple Islamic regime.The broader ecosystem of militant extremism — including organizations such as the Islamic State — did not emerge in isolation. It developed within an environment marked by state collapse, ideological radicalization, and perpetual proxy warfare. While responsibility for each conflict varies, the post-1979 regional order undeniably lowered the barriers for extremist movements to flourish.The consequences were not confined to the Middle East. Chronic instability produced mass displacement, refugee crises, and transnational terrorism. Attacks such as those of September 11 demonstrated that ideological extremism born in fractured states could reach deep into Western societies.This was precisely the global spillover the Shah had warned about.A new Iranian generation — and a clear rejection of extremismWhat distinguishes today’s Iranian uprising from previous cycles of unrest is not only its scale, but its ideological clarity. For the first time in modern Iranian history, a broad cross-section of society is explicitly rejecting all political factions associated with the country’s post-1979 collapse.Protest slogans emerging from inside Iran consistently denounce what many Iranians describe as a corrupt triumvirate: the ruling clerical establishment, revolutionary Islamist groups, and militant leftist movements — including the People's Mujahedin Organization of Iran (MEK) and Marxist-Leninist organizations that helped shape the revolution. These groups are widely viewed not as alternatives to the current regime, but as co-authors of national ruin.This rejection is significant. It reflects a widespread understanding that Iran’s crisis was not caused by a single faction alone, but by the convergence of Islamist, Marxist, and revolutionary ideologies that dismantled institutions, severed Iran from the world, and replaced governance with permanent confrontation.Unlike earlier reformist movements, such as the Green Movement, today’s Iranians are not calling for incremental change rooted in ideology. They are rejecting the Islamic regime in all its forms and affiliations..A moment the world should not misreadNearly five decades ago, the Shah warned that Iran’s collapse would destabilize the Middle East and ultimately affect the wider world. That warning was ignored — and the cost can be measured in wars, displacement, and global insecurity.Today, history presents a second moment.The new Iranian uprising is neither sectarian nor ideological. It is civic, national, and corrective. It rejects clerical authoritarianism, militant Islamism, revolutionary Marxism, and exile movements rooted in violence alike. Its central demand is stability: a normal state, accountable governance, and constructive engagement with the world..Hundreds gather at US consulate in Vancouver asking Trump to take action against Iran's Islamic regime.That clarity is reflected in the slogans heard repeatedly on Iran’s streets. Protesters chant “Reza Shah, may your soul be happy,” not as nostalgia, but as a shorthand for order, national sovereignty, and a functioning state.They declare, “We are a great nation, We reclaim Iran,” signalling unity rather than ideology. Perhaps most telling is the refrain “This is the final battle, Pahlavi will return," underscoring a rejection of the entire revolutionary framework established in 1979.Iranians recognize that their country lost half a century to radical ideologies. Their aspiration now is not to reform the Islamic regime of the ayatollahs, but to end it — and to restore continuity by bringing back Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, reconnecting Iran to the principles of statehood that once made it a stabilizing force in the region.Their goal is not only to reclaim Iran, but to help end a cycle of regional disorder that has impacted far more than the Middle East alone.This time, the world should listen.Vahid Ayan is an Iranian-Canadian engineer based in Redcliff, Alberta. He lived in Iran for 30 years before going abroad for his studies and later immigrating to Canada.
