This post is a response to multiple comments about the durability of the present Iranian government. Contrary to what some of my readers have said, the history of Iran is less one of stability than of change. Without turning this post into a thesis on Iranian history, Iran’s history is of one government replacing another. Individual dynasties and empires have ruled Iran for periods of slightly less than 500 years to slightly less than 50 years. Iranian regimes often appear stable for long periods but collapse suddenly and completely. Sometimes these changes of government were due to internal forces; in others governments were removed by external invaders.
The present Khomeinist government replaced the Pahlavi dynasty a little less than fifty years ago.
Over the last 2,500 years Iran has been ruled by Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Persians, Seljuk Turks, Mongols, Persians again. Afghans, and finally, Persians again from 1789 to the present, first the Qajar dynasty, then the Pahlavi.
The Persians themselves were migrants to the plateau, arriving in the second millennium BCE and displacing earlier populations. In that respect Iran is no different from anywhere else: over long enough time horizons, everyone is from somewhere else.
