Are you suggesting that Iran is a free and open culture? Do you live there now?
I don't live there but still have relatives there, know people who grew up there and see what's going on online.
I knew someone who hesitated travelling to Iran because he thought it would be full of islamists, and I told him not to confuse the people and the government.
But what ends up happening, as you know (and can attest to far better than I can), in those kinds of situations, is a country can very easily lose the bulk of its smart and progressive people, and the only ones who remain behind are those who accept the incoming regime or don't have the means to flee. Iran isn't the only place its happened, that's also an old story.
I would say that applies more, say, to Afghanistan, that never had the time to rebuild itself and have proper infrastructure. Public universities in Iran have a very very high level, and are frequented in majority by women.
My father became a writer after exile. His philosophical novels attack every religion, which means the government, indirectly. Then my sister met an Iranian girl in London who, when she discovered who her father was, cried in joy and said more than almost of the students in her philosophy department at her university were fans of his books. Books that are banned. And can be hard to read for people who are even slightly religious.
I also met this guy, an ingeneer student, who said all his friends loved Bukowski, and he was trying to write translations himself.
Admitedly, I am talking of young people who reached higher education in big cities. But from what I can also see online, from what I hear from people and relatives, there is a real thirst for freedom among the yunger generation, and a growing hatred towards the religious order among everyone.
At the bus stop an egyptian anaesthetist said to me,"I'm so sorry that is not what Islam is about" I just said to him - yes it is.
Going there taught me very fast and first hand the risk the fundamentalists pose (of any religion) the repression of people and in particular - women.
Ironically, the Saudi are considered as barbaric by most muslims in the world -if yu discount the salafists, which are seen as a horrific threat even to Muslims.
I can see where this Egyptian is coming from: my mother and her brothers grew up there. People back then in the 50's were religious, but not fanatical. Women would wear miniskirt at universities, and had more rights than women in France. He was not lying.