In history, authoritarian systems usually fall twice: first psychologically, when fear breaks; then politically, when the men with guns hesitate. Iran’s recent shocks look less like a single crisis than a classic collapse sequence unfolding at speed. The decisive moment in a regime’s collapse is often not the formal end, but the tipping point before it: the moment when the state’s aura of inevitability breaks. Borders may still be guarded, television may still broadcast, officials may still issue decrees. But something more important has changed. The system no longer functions with confidence. That pattern runs through modern history. Regimes die...