Four decades after Iran’s 1979 revolution, public trust in the Islamic Republic is in free fall, with nearly 90% of citizens favoring democratic reform and growing numbers rejecting the clerical system of Velayat-e Faqih as illegitimate.

In Iran today, a growing number of citizens are turning their backs on the Islamic Republic—not out of apathy, but from a deepening sense of disillusionment. More than four decades after Ayatollah Khomeini established a government based on religious rule, public trust in the clerical establishment and its doctrine of Velayat-e Faqih—the “Guardianship of the Jurist”—is crumbling.

Recent surveys paint a striking picture: nearly nine in ten Iranians want a democratic political system, and fewer........

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