Restoring the National Agency of Iran’s Citizens for a Revolutionary Transition to a Secular Democratic Republic

Iran stands at one of the most consequential moments in its modern history. The Woman, Life, Freedom movement—and its continuation in everyday resistance to compulsory hijab and other symbols of the Islamic Republic’s authority—has revealed Iranians’ determination to make a historic and civilizational break with authoritarianism and ideological rule. It also expresses a deep demand for revolutionary renewal of the country’s political and social structures. At the same time, regional developments, including the twelve-day war and heightened military and political tensions, together with international isolation and accelerating economic and institutional collapse, have made the Islamic Republic’s power structure increasingly fragile. Their psychological and symbolic weight has also reinforced a paralyzing belief among Iranians that the country’s future is being redefined without the will or agency of its people.

Under these conditions, the foremost responsibility of patriotic, independent, democratic civic and political forces is to restore the agency of the Iranian people; rebuild public confidence in the possibility of change; offer a credible vision for a new and durable order; and place the organized, institutionalized national will at the center of Iranian politics. The Woman, Life, Freedom movement demonstrated that a transition to a new Iran is both a historical necessity and an expression of the national will to save the country.

The central challenge is to renew the diminished social energy of Iran’s recent movements around a national determination to make a revolutionary transition to a secular democratic system—one grounded in human rights, pluralism, and equality, capable of ending recurring crises and opening the way to national renewal. Sepehr Azadi Iran believes such a transition requires civic, political, and intellectual action to reinforce one another around a clear, coherent, and strategic public discourse: one rooted in lived experience and accumulated demands, yet capable of defining a future beyond exhausted, ineffective, and authoritarian institutions.

In this framework, a secular democratic republic is not merely a substitute form of government. It is a historical, strategic, and structural answer to the persistent deadlocks and accumulated crises of the authoritarian, ideological order that has endured since the Constitutional Revolution. Sepehr believes this republican alternative can be realized only if it becomes the prevailing discourse in public life, among political forces, and in society’s language and political imagination.

A transition to such an order is impossible without broad intellectual and social mobilization, restored collective trust, and purposeful organization of forces seeking change. This process requires sustained public discourse, connected networks of civic and political opposition actors, and strategies that allow spontaneous initiatives and organized movements to reinforce one another.

Restoring national agency means creating the conditions in which people can define and lead the transition through their own experience, knowledge, and will. This cannot be achieved through self-appointed leaders or illusions of foreign intervention, but through democratic, participatory, and accountable structures and movements within Iranians’ national struggle against the Islamic Republic. Democratic forces must develop mechanisms that strengthen collective action, critical dialogue, and civil resistance, enabling a popular, realistic, and ethical alternative to emerge. Alongside political action, the document also regards broader campaigns for professional and social demands as an important means of reviving civic agency.

We therefore emphasize an approach that moves beyond sectarian, identity-based, and backward-looking divisions and can bring Iran’s diverse, polyphonic, and sometimes conflicting social forces together around a shared national project: saving Iran from collapse and building a future founded on freedom, equality, social justice, and human dignity.