The Moment of Transformation, When the Lights Go Out in the “Bazaar”!

The crisis in Tehran is no longer a matter of conflict between “reformists” and “hardliners”; rather, it is the collapse of the politico-economic model of the Iranian Islamic state, the model that kept the regime alive for four decades, and which has now entered a stage of senescence.

Like all totalitarian systems created by humans, and despite all the ideological clamor, the Iranian Revolution passed through three phases: the ideological phase; then the phase of political bureaucracy that seeped into the very sap of the ideological fabric; and finally the revolution became private property of power centers among the bureaucratic and military elites—elites that no longer struggle over the path to heaven and human salvation, but over the billions of dollars they accumulate and control. What remains of doctrinal legitimacy, eternal messages, and authoritarianism is nothing more than a hanger on which to manage crisis and economic impasse.

For long centuries, the din of porters and traders in the “Grand Bazaar of Tehran” composed the soundtrack of Iranian politics. Today, however, a heavy and unsettling silence hangs over the bazaar—a silence that does not reflect customary calm, but rather the anticipation that precedes the storm.

Since the 1979 Revolution, the bazaar in Iran’s traditional markets formed the backbone of the social contract. Today, its gates are half-closed, watching the astonishing collapse of the toman. Numbers are no longer mere financial indicators; they have become a declaration of death for the social contract that bound the bazaar to the religious and military institutions for decades.

In physics, there exists a measure of disorder known as entropy. This concept has recently been applied in political economy as an analytical tool, producing complex metrics of “political-economic entropy.”

As we enter January 2026, the Islamic Republic stands on the brink of “maximum economic entropy.” The scene in Tehran transcends traditional narratives of “hardliners” and “reformists” and instead witnesses a rare historical moment in which the state’s capacity to control entropy is receding—not solely due to external pressure, but because of an internal collapse in the functional efficiency of the regime’s politico-economic model. This has dramatically accelerated the erosion of doctrinal legitimacy following the convergence of the “Twelve-Day War” with “Snapback” sanctions. The entropy trap manifests first in financial chaos that has moved far beyond even the terrifying official inflation figures.

At an exchange rate of 1.45 million rials per dollar, the decline was no longer cyclical; it became a moment in which sovereign trust was torn apart, liquid foreign-currency reserves collapsed, and the Iranian economy entered a state of deep entropy and structural chaos—where prices lose their function as market indicators and transform into indicators of existential fear.

In desperation, Pezeshkian attempted to restore financial balance through “shock therapy” via a three-tier fuel pricing system. Yet within an economy hemorrhaging credibility, the decision acted as fuel on fire. Prices surged sharply, turning the middle and poor classes—already crushed by daily hardship—into the fuel of a hunger uprising. The government prints money to cover deficits; its value erodes; prices rise to compensate; more currency is printed in a hellish spiral reminiscent of Germany during the Weimar Republic in 1923, but with a Middle Eastern ideological flavor and a nuclear backdrop.

More dangerous than the numbers is the accompanying sociological transformation.

Historically, the “mosque-bazaar” alliance was the rock upon which the ambitions of the Shah in the 1970s, then Saddam, and later the United States were shattered. The turbans ruled and issued fatwas; the bazaar profited and provided networks of financing and logistical support.

This time, protests did not erupt from universities, but from the heart of the bazaar itself. The regime is no longer the protector of the bazaar; it has become the direct cause of its ruin.

As in Damascus in 2011—when the conservative merchant who closed his shop every Friday for prayers at the Umayyad Mosque became a protester chanting against the regime—it has become clear that the alliance is dead, having lost its most loyal social base.

This is a moment of organic separation that cannot be repaired by speeches about “resistance” or “steadfastness.”

Nor is this all. Strategists in Tehran continue to wager on an alternative “geopolitical network.” From the Shanghai Organization to “BRICS,” the new system was supposed to be an economic and political lifeline. They quickly discovered the naivety of this bet.

Despite the end of the era of unipolar American dominance, we now live in an age of the “geopolitical lattice,” where international relations are not solid blocs, not East versus West, but a complex network of overlapping interests—where the calculations of “big friends” are governed by precise profit-and-loss equations.

After the activation of the “trigger mechanism,” Beijing did not risk its relations with the West or its energy markets, nor did it challenge Security Council resolutions. On the contrary, Chinese banks were the first to freeze Iranian corporate accounts, while Russia offered nothing more than verbal support.

Then the picture of entropy was completed after the “Twelve-Day War.” After decades in which Tehran relied on “asymmetric deterrence”—militias and missiles—Iranian deterrence lines collapsed, as did strategies designed to keep wars away from Iranian territory—strategies into which Tehran had invested billions.

A terrifying vacuum has thus emerged beneath the current regime model in Tehran, leaving Iranian leadership facing a “Samson option”: either submission to the demands of the street and the international community, or a descent into suicidal escalation.

The options available to Tehran are narrowing at an astonishing pace. Attempts at internal reform have so far proven futile, because the regime has lost the flexibility needed to absorb shocks. The bet on external salvation has crashed against the wall of great-power national interests.

This leaves us with two scenarios: either a forced transformation from within the elite itself (a form of “white coup” to save what can be saved), or a chaotic and comprehensive collapse that may redraw the map of the Middle East.

As the bazaar closes its shops early out of fear of nightly protests, current dynamics indicate that Iran is not merely passing through another “crisis” that can be managed, but is undergoing a “phase transition” in political-economic physics. In the Iranian political marketplace, the Iranian people—and a large segment of the traditional elite—are moving toward liquidating their stalls in the “revolution project.”

The question that remains is: how will this occur, and what will be its cost to the Iranian homeland within a global geo-strategic network battered by sweeping storms? There is a harsh yet simple historical political-economic lesson: no ideology, no matter how solid, can withstand the law of “entropy” for long when the price of a loaf of bread becomes greater than the value of the coin used to buy it. In Iran, physics has finally allied with economics to deliver their final verdict.

And the worst moment for a totalitarian system is when it begins to reform itself. https://www.annahar.com/articles/annahar-writers/271285/إنتروبيا-طهران-يحين-التحول-عندما-تنطفئ-الأضوا-في-البازار