On April 1, following overwhelming support in a national referendum, Khomeini declared Iran an Islamic republic. Elements within the clergy promptly moved to exclude their former left-wing, nationalist, and intellectual allies from any positions of power in the new regime, and a return to conservative social values was enforced. The Family Protection Act (1967; significantly amended in 1975), which provided further guarantees and rights to women in marriage, was declared void, and mosque-based revolutionary bands known as komītehs (Persian: “committees”) patrolled the streets enforcing Islamic codes of dress and behavior and dispatching impromptu justice to perceived enemies of the revolution. Throughout most of 1979 the Revolutionary Guards—then an informal religious militia formed by Khomeini to forestall another CIA-backed coup as in the days of Mosaddegh—engaged in similar activity, aimed at intimidating and repressing political groups not under the control of the ruling Revolutionary Council and its sister Islamic Republican Party, both clerical organizations loyal to Khomeini. The violence and brutality often exceeded that which had taken place under the shah.
The militias and the clerics they supported made every effort to suppress Western cultural influence, and, facing persecution and violence, many of the Western-educated elite fled the country. This anti-Western sentiment eventually manifested itself in the November 1979 seizure of 66 hostages at the U.S. embassy by a group of Iranian protesters demanding the extradition of the shah, who at that time was undergoing medical treatment in the United States (see Iran hostage crisis). Through the embassy takeover, Khomeini’s supporters could claim to be as “anti-imperialist” as the political left. This ultimately gave them the ability to suppress most of the regime’s left-wing and moderate opponents.
The Assembly of Experts (Majles-e Khobregān), overwhelmingly dominated by clergy, put a new constitution to referendum the following month, and it was overwhelmingly approved. The new constitution created a religious government based on Khomeini’s vision of velāyat-e faqīh (Persian: “governance of the jurist”) and gave sweeping powers to the rahbar, or leader; the first rahbar was Khomeini himself. Centrists, such as provisional Prime Minister Mehdi Bazargan and the republic’s first president, Abolhasan Bani-Sadr, who opposed holding the hostages, were steadily forced from power by conservatives within the government who questioned their revolutionary zeal.
The Islamic republic
The form of government that emerged from the 1979 Iranian Revolution is a theocracy, led by clergy of the Twelver Shiʿah sect of Islam. The consolidation of Iran’s Islamic republic took place over several years and in response to instability from both domestic challengers as well as foreign adversaries, particularly in the Iran-Iraq War (1980–88). It is a unitary state where power became centralized in the office of the supreme leader (rahbar).
Iran’s government includes a democratic component with an elected parliament (Majles) that is responsible for legislation and the state budget. Political parties are strictly regulated and play little part in the political process. Politicians are identified, sometimes loosely, by ideological leaning. Principlists (or conservatives) profess dedication to the principles of the Islamic revolution, including the need to safeguard Iranians from corrupting and foreign influences. Reformists seek to liberalize the political system and take a more cooperative approach toward foreign affairs. Politicians who do not fit neatly into either camp are often called “centrists” or “moderates.” The Islamic republic is a presidential system with a directly elected president that exercises executive authority. Until 1989 most executive powers were vested in a prime minister, but the post was appointed by the president and merely approved by the parliament in the form of a semi-presidential system. In 1989 the post was abolished. Iran’s conventional armed forces are administered by the president’s minister of defense.
Elections and elected officials are limited by clerical oversight, which aims to assure compliance with Islamic precepts. The Council of Guardians vets legislation and candidates for public office, including for parliamentary elections, presidential elections, and elections for the Assembly of Experts that chooses the supreme leader. The council consists of 12 Islamic jurists, half of whom are appointed by the supreme leader and the other half by the parliament upon nomination by the judiciary, whose chief justice is appointed by the supreme leader and must be a cleric certified to practice ijtihād (original interpretation of Islamic law). Disputes between elected representatives (the parliament) and the representatives of the clerical class (the Council of Guardians) are mediated by the Committee to Determine the Expediency of the Islamic Order (or Expediency Council), whose members are appointed by the supreme leader.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) answers directly to the supreme leader. Apart from becoming the paramount branch of the military during the Iran-Iraq War, the IRGC became entrenched in Iran’s economy beginning in the 1990s and in the political echelons beginning in the 2000s. By the 2020s the dominance of the IRGC in the political system was reflected in the suppression of the 2022–23 Woman, Life, Freedom movement, the 2026 Iran protests, and the political movements of the regime during the 2026 Iran war.