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Forty years after the 1979 revolution, Islamism is exhausting itself as a legitimizing force for the Islamic Republic of Iran. Studies sponsored by the Iranian government show that resentment toward the state’s religious symbols is at an all-time high.
According to the research arm of the Iranian parliament, around 70 percent of Iranian women do not strictly follow the official diktats for wearing a veil. Anticlerical sentiments have turned violent. Regardless of their ties to the government, clerics are routinely attacked and stabbed in the streets by angry anti-regime individuals.
Iran is responding by cautiously downplaying Islamism and emphasizing nationalism and foreign threats to win over disgruntled citizens. Iran’s leaders acknowledged the societal shift away from Islamism by making unprecedented references to nationalism and showing their determination to incorporate patriotic sentiments into the state ideology during the 40th anniversary celebrations of the revolution in February.
Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has repeatedly appealed to Iranians to back the government, even if they do not endorse its Islamist ideology, for the sake of their country and for their own security.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/03/opinion/iran-trump-sanctions.html