Iran’s “Burned Generation” and the Unraveling of Theocratic Rule

As Iran grapples with a collapsing currency and recurring waves of deadly street protests, a growing share of public anger is being driven by what analysts describe as a “burned generation”—a cohort whose most productive years were consumed by revolution, war, and sanctions, and whose disillusionment is now reshaping the country's political landscape.

In an interview with The Storm Media, Liu Yanting(劉燕婷), chief international news commentator at the Hong Kong–based outlet HK01, argues that Iran's current turmoil reflects more than short-term economic distress or external pressure. Instead, she sees the Islamic Republic entering what she calls a “Soviet-style twilight,” marked by the gradual exhaustion of an ideology that can no longer persuade the generation expected to inherit it.

Liu uses the term “burned generation” to describe Iranians born between the mid-1960s and early 1980s, whose lives were shaped by three successive historical shocks. Their childhoods coincided with the upheaval of the 1979 Islamic Revolution and the outbreak of the Iran–Iraq War, which forced many into trenches and bomb shelters. Their youth was absorbed by state mobilization and prolonged conflict. Their middle age, meanwhile, has been defined by economic stagnation and the realization that the system failed to deliver the dignity and prosperity it once promised.

These experiences, Liu stresses, form a distinct sociological category rather than a rhetorical label. Members of this generation witnessed Iran's transformation from a relatively Western-oriented society into a tightly controlled theocratic state, followed by decades of sanctions, capital flight, and social restriction. The cumulative effect has been a profound sense of loss—not only of material opportunity, but of a future they once believed was theirs.

​According to Liu, the immediate trigger for Iran's latest unrest lies in the country's deepening economic crisis. Western sanctions, reimposed after the United States withdrew from the nuclear agreement in 2018, sharply constrained Iran's oil exports and state revenues. With fiscal space shrinking, the government increasingly relied on monetary expansion to cover deficits, accelerating inflation and driving the rial to historic lows.

These macroeconomic pressures, Liu notes, are felt most acutely in daily life: rising prices, shortages, and declining purchasing power. Over time, economic grievance has become inseparable from political anger, with protesters increasingly holding the state responsible not only for mismanagement at home but for costly commitments abroad. 

Public frustration has also focused on Iran's long-standing regional strategy. Tehran's support for armed groups in Gaza, Lebanon, and Yemen—collectively framed as the “Axis of Resistance”—was once justified as a means of securing strategic depth and deterring external threats. Today, Liu observes, many Iranians see the same policy as a drain on national resources with few tangible benefits.

Protest slogans rejecting involvement in Gaza or Lebanon reflect this shift in public sentiment. Yet Liu emphasizes that the Axis of Resistance also lies at the heart of a strategic contradiction. While these proxy forces complicate efforts to reach a durable nuclear agreement and secure sanctions relief, they simultaneously deter direct U.S. military action by threatening American assets across the region. This dual function allows Iranian leaders to defend a hardline posture even as it perpetuates economic isolation.

As a result, Liu argues, a fundamental rethink of Iran's regional posture remains unlikely, despite mounting domestic pressure.

Beyond economics and foreign policy, Liu identifies a deeper problem: the steady erosion of ideological appeal. Since 1979, Iran's leadership has promoted the doctrine of “Guardianship of the Jurist,” combining religious authority with narratives of anti-imperialism and resistance to the West. Decades on, these themes resonate far less with younger Iranians, who increasingly access global culture through the internet and foreign media.

Drawing on her own visits to Iran, Liu recalls conversations with young people who envied basic personal freedoms—music, nightlife, social expression—that vanished from public life after the revolution. For many, state television and official rhetoric have become irrelevant, while each major protest wave since 2019 has rapidly escalated into demands for systemic change rather than isolated reform.

Liu is careful not to predict sudden regime collapse. Iran, she notes, retains substantial coercive and mobilization capacities, and the state is unlikely to fall overnight. Still, she sees parallels with the late Soviet experience, where ideological exhaustion preceded institutional breakdown. In both cases, economic decline mattered, but the loss of belief proved equally corrosive.

What is weakening, Liu argues, is not the state's ability to suppress dissent, but its capacity to persuade a generation that the system offers a viable future. Whether Iran's leaders can adapt—by reducing external confrontation, easing sanctions pressure, and improving living standards—will determine how long the current order can endure.

For now, the anger of the burned generation continues to simmer, reflecting a society in which the promises that once sustained the theocratic project no longer command loyalty.