I was attending college in the late 70s when the Iranian revolution was in progress. Iranian students at my campus were plastering "Down with the Shah" posters all over the place. One drunk friend made a specific point of taking down one of those posters and placing it inside a urinal on campus and then using it the urinal.

The point is, Iranians had a comfortable western style culture in that period and overthrew the Shah (because he was a US puppet) and embraced a "dett to tee US" ayatollah who imposed strict Muslim doctrine. They preferred religious strictness over freedom.

Iran will probably spiral out of control if the clerics are eliminated. Those countries in that region can't tolerate or deal with democracy, and the US will get its hands on Iran and make it far worse, as we do every other country we want to "improve".