Tehran, Iran ? As a student 25 years ago, Mohsen Mirdamadi helped launch a revolution that he said went awry. As a student today, Massoud Dehghan said he yearns to steer that revolution back on course.

Each is eyeing with reservations today’s silver jubilee of the Islamic revolution, which overthrew the shah of Iran, a U.S. ally, and installed a fundamentalist theocracy. Each is uninspired by the millions of festive lights and banners draped across this capital city that congratulate citizens on the “25th spring” of their deliverance from despotism. With the economy lagging and the movement for greater political and social freedoms stalled, many Iranians like Mirdamadi, 48, and Dehghan, 21, say they don’t feel much like celebrating.

How to improve the Islamic Republic without destroying it perplexes Mirdamadi, a senior member of Iran’s parliament. He said ultimate power over the country’s affairs was now wielded by a handful of unelected clerics who remind him of the late shah whom he helped oust in 1979.

“None of us in the revolution believed Iran would ever have an autocratic regime again. Yet here we are,” said Mirdamadi, one of the student leaders of the takeover of the U.S. Embassy, where 52 U.S. citizens were held hostage for 444 days.

Dehghan, a devout Muslim and student leader at Mirdamadi’s alma mater, Amir Kabir University, said he was less interested in who leads the country than in getting leaders to improve civil liberties and offer people better lives.

Pictures and slogans of the ayatollahs strengthen Dehghan’s resolve to oppose them and pursue political and social freedoms such as those sought by Mirdamadi 25 years ago during the reign of Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi. The shah’s disdain for ordinary Iranians and attempts to strip Islam from the culture helped drive the revolution.

Dehghan organizes frequent pro-democracy sit-ins and rallies for students and gives voice to the forbidden demand for a constitutional referendum to pare back the power of religious authorities. He risks imprisonment in hopes of turning Iran into a better place for his generation.

Yet few Iranians say they regret being part of the Islamic Middle East’s first real attempt at popular rule.

“In the past, the main decisions about Iran were made by foreigners outside the country,” said Mohsen Kadivar, a reformist cleric and former adviser to President Mohammad Khatami. “Now the decisions are made by the Iranians themselves. Some of these decisions might be wrong, but at least they are being made by Iranians.”