By Saul Sadka
Only about 48% of Iran’s population is ethnically Persian. The remaining 52% is made up of minorities who often harbour deep resentment toward the Persian-dominated regime.
June 23, 2025 11:28
In recent years, Israel has carried out a stunning array of operations deep within Iranian territory. Nuclear scientists have been assassinated in broad daylight; top IRGC commanders met sudden and unexplained ends; advanced weapons facilities mysteriously exploded; regime apparatchiks were riddled with bullets from remote-controlled guns and truckloads of nuclear archives vanished from downtown Tehran.
But in the last couple of weeks, the Jewish state has taken this covert campaign to a new level. Israel's decapitation strikes have left what the Islamic Revolution spent nearly fifty years building in sudden and stunned disarray.
How is it that a country more than a thousand kilometres away can operate so freely within one of the most tightly surveilled, repressive regimes in the Middle East – where any captured agent faces certain torture and death?
The answer lies in a single, profound truth: Iran is far more fragmented than it appears.
There are many fault lines in Iranian society – ethnic, religious, ideological – which a clever enemy can exploit. Russia uses such divisions in the West to destabilise democracies by amplifying extremes. But for Israel, these fractures serve another purpose: they open doors. They create internal allies. They offer vectors for entry, infiltration and even cooperation from within.
At first glance, Iran presents itself as a unified theocratic powerhouse. In reality, it’s a fractured state, holding together a volatile patchwork of discontented ethnic and religious groups under the banner of a decaying revolutionary ideology.
Map of Iran and its demographic composition.[Missing Credit]
Only about 48% of Iran’s population is ethnically Persian. The remaining 52% is made up of minorities – Azeris, Kurds, Arabs, Balochs, Lurs, Turkmen, and others – many of whom harbour deep resentment toward the Persian-dominated regime. These groups maintain strong cross-border ties with neighbouring populations, making them natural allies for foreign intelligence agencies and enemies of Tehran.
The Azeris, in particular, comprise roughly 30% of the population and are concentrated near the northern border with Azerbaijan – a country to which the Azeris are ethnically linked, while Azerbaijan is strategically aligned with Israel. The border, like those connecting Kurds to Iraq and Syria or Balochs to Pakistan, remains porous despite the regime’s best efforts. These routes offer logistical lifelines to dissident movements and intelligence services alike.
The Balochs and Kurds are currently the most actively revanchist, each with armed groups that have publicly pledged support for Israel’s recent strikes. The Azeris are a more complex case. Supreme Leader Khamenei himself is half-Azeri, but many Azeris aspire to unite with their kin in Azerbaijan, a possibility that becomes likelier if Tehran’s grip loosens. It’s worth noting that what is now Azerbaijan was part of Iran until a series of 19th-century wars saw it ceded to Russia.
Iran's geography also aids infiltration: its vast mountainous borders are impossible to seal hermetically. Most people living in the border regions feel more loyal to their trans-border tribe or ethnicity than to the Islamic Republic. Iran’s enemies are not merely at the gates – they are inside the gates, often embedded in the regime’s own security services.
Religious disillusionment presents another existential problem for the regime. Surveys estimate that 45% of Iranians identify as secular, agnostic, or atheist – an extraordinary number for a supposed Islamic republic. Another 8% identify with Zoroastrianism, the ancient Persian religion – a label often used as protest, similar to a secular Brit identifying as a Druid to reject Christianity.
Only about 32% of the population claims to follow the ruling Shiite doctrine, and even among them, many are nominal believers with little interest in the regime’s apocalyptic theology. State-mandated religion, it turns out, alienates rather than unites. The third generation of Iranians educated under the mullahs is being raised to resent their nominal faith.
The Revolutionary Guard, the regime’s backbone, has become a retirement club for ageing, overweight men in their 60s and 70s. These are the original 1979 revolutionaries, clinging to relevance even as many of their peers died in the recent Israeli strikes. Their photos dominate state media, but they inspire no loyalty among Iran’s disaffected youth. Iran’s birthrate is collapsing. Emigration is rampant. The regime is ageing out, with no younger generation willing to take the torch.
Tensions between the regular army and the IRGC are well-known – another seam for Israel to exploit. It doesn’t help that Iran has impoverished its population in the service of millenarian dreams of Israel’s destruction. Poor soldiers and police are cheaper to bribe. And blackmail is always an option, especially in a regime where homosexuality is punishable by death.
The strategic consequences are immense. Iran cannot field a proper conventional army; it dare not train and arm the general population. Instead, it relies on a narrow “Palace Guard” of loyalists in the IRGC and paramilitary units to stave off domestic revolt.
Externally, Iran has built a deterrence strategy based on asymmetric warfare: missiles, drones, and proxy groups like Hezbollah, the Houthis, and various Iraqi militias. These are not signs of strength but symptoms of weakness – attempts to export instability to prevent it from erupting at home. "Palestine" serves as the glue for domestic cohesion, a shared cause with Israel as a pantomime villain. Ironically, this also provides a clear target for defectors and dissidents to rally around in opposition.
The cost has been catastrophic. Once-functional states like Syria, Iraq and Yemen have been hollowed out to serve as buffers for Tehran. These policies may have bought time, but at immense human and economic cost.
This context explains how Israeli intelligence can operate with such freedom. It explains why Iran, despite its bluster, lacks a real army and clings to missiles and militias. It explains why a supposed regional power needed help from foreign countries to find its own downed presidential helicopter in 2024 – a potent symbol of dysfunction.
The regime still rules, but it no longer governs. Its days are numbered – not just because of Israel or America, but because the centre cannot hold. As history shows, even the greatest empires can collapse overnight. And the Islamic Republic of Iran is certainly not one of history’s greatest empires.
In trying to destroy the Jewish state, Iran hollowed itself out, became impoverished, isolated, and helpless. It ground itself into the dirt out of maniacal, genocidal religious fervour.
Saul Sadka is a geopolitical analyst and author of “The Intertextual Tanakh.” On X: @Saul_Sadka
