‘No regime lasts forever’: What the Berlin Wall taught Harger about Iran
Jan 12, 2026, 9:35 AM | Updated: 3:41 pm
I keep two chunks of concrete in a box on a shelf in my house. Gray, rough, and about the size of a golf ball. They look unremarkable, but they’re anything but.
I got them as a Christmas gift in 1989. I was 14 years old. You could buy pieces of the Berlin Wall at the Bon Marché that year.
The wall came down in November 1989. By Christmas, you could buy a piece of it at the Alderwood Mall. Six weeks from unthinkable to gift wrap.
A wall that divided a city, a country, a continent. A wall people died trying to cross. If you’d told me even a year earlier that I’d own a piece of it, I wouldn’t have believed you. Nobody would have. We never dreamed we’d see it fall, let alone hold a piece of it. And then one day, we could.
I’ve kept them on a shelf ever since. Because they’re a reminder.
That regime seemed unbreakable. The East German government. The Soviet system behind it. For 40 years, it looked permanent. Then one night in November, the people just started tearing it apart with hammers and bare hands. The guards didn’t stop them, and the unthinkable happened.
I think about that wall when I watch what’s happening in Iran right now.
Two weeks of protests, the biggest challenge to the regime in years. Hundreds dead in the crackdown and thousands arrested. The government has shut down the internet, trying to hide what’s happening. But the videos keep leaking. Security forces are firing on crowds. Bodies in the streets.
We’ve seen uprisings in Iran before. They’ve been crushed before. The regime survived. So I’m cautious, tyrants can be remarkably resilient. The people in those streets are risking everything, and there’s no guarantee they will win.
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History tells a different story
I also know this: no regime lasts forever. No movement that feels unstoppable actually is. History humbles everyone eventually. The powerful who think they’ve won permanently are always, always wrong. It’s just a matter of time.
The Berlin Wall stood for 28 years. The people who built it thought it would stand forever. One night, it didn’t.
The Soviet Union looked invincible, until it wasn’t.
Every era that feels permanent is just a season. The forces that seem overwhelming today become footnotes tomorrow.
I picked up one of those chunks of concrete this morning. Turned it over in my hands and thought about the people in Iran risking their lives in the streets right now. And thought about what history teaches us, over and over again.
What feels inevitable rarely is, and what feels permanent never is.
I hope the people of Iran get their 1989 moment. I hope they’re holding pieces of something in their hands someday, showing their grandchildren and saying: This is what we tore down.
The question is whether this is the time.
I don’t know, but I’m watching, and I’m hoping.
Charlie Harger is the host of “Seattle’s Morning News” on KIRO Newsradio. You can read more of his stories and commentaries here. Follow Charlie on X and email him here.
