Chapter 2 zooms in on the domestic politics of Iran, with particular emphasis on the personalities and institutions that have characterised the political scene, from Khomeini, Shariati and Rouhani to the IRGC, the parliament and the Assembly of Experts. It dissects the ideas behind the revolution of 1979, and shows how the Islamic Republic is recurrently contested because there is an ongoing drive to reform the system – a pluralistic momentum that clearly explains the patterns of state–society interactions in the past decades.The musical piece framing this chapter speaks to those themes: the tropes of struggle, sacrifice, revolution, change, utopia, are central to Reza Rooygari’s iconic song 'Iran Iran (Ragbar-e Mosalsalha)' which inspired a whole generation of revolutionaries in Iran, but which was also appropriated by the post-revolutionary generation to question orthodox interpretations of the Islamic Republic. The chapter gives a full account of the dynamic of contemporary Iranian domestic politics.