To be sure, the betting is that the current uprising in Iran is more likely to end in a Tiananmen Square moment than the end of the Islamic Republic and the rise of a free Iran. The regime is quite capable of unleashing tanks and machine guns on their own people and start killing them until no more uprising exists. The Chinese communists slaughtered 10,000 people in Beijing to keep their grip on power. The mullahs, who, after all, believe that they are following the will of Allah, are capable of killing as many to keep calling the shots.

However, what if the best outcome happens?

Enough people with guns switch sides to tip the balance. Blood will still flow in the streets of Iranian cities, but it ends with the mullahs dangling at the ends of ropes from their own minarets and Prince Reza Pahlavi returning to his homeland to become a constitutional monarchy and preside over a freely elected parliament. Then, a number of interesting things occur.

Terrorists will suddenly be without a source of funding

Terrorist groups such as Hezbollah would find themselves without an essential source of funding if a secular government were to arise in Iran. The new Iranian government would not be interested in providing the mother’s milk of mayhem. Iranian Revolutionary Guards would not be involved in military adventures in Syria and Iraq, trying to reestablish the Persian Empire.

The traditional Iranian-Israeli alliance that flourished under the rule of the Shah would be reestablished. The Arab states, which had been gravitating toward Israel for fear of their mutual enemy, would start to pull away and see to their own interests. Or the Gulf States could compete for the favors of the one country in the region with the High Tech knowledge to help wean them from an oil and gas based economy.

Iran becomes more prosperous

With the corruption and overseas ambitions of the mullahs swept away and foreign investment pouring in, Iran will experience an economic boom. The country has a very educated workforce and a diaspora of people who fled in the wake of the Islamic Revolution who will be eager to invest in the land of their birth.

Iran, in short order, will start developing high tech industries that will rival those of Israel and India. Iran has a well-developed commercial culture that goes back centuries. Unleashed from the stifling suppression of the theocracy, that culture will flourish. Iran will become a good trading partner to other countries in the region, as well as Europe, Asia, and the United States. The slogan could be "make money, not war." Not a bad way to organize a new country, that.
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