Iran is no stranger to street protests, but several factors surrounding the current unrest make it very serious.
Monday marks the ninth day since the demonstrations broke out, but even four or five days were enough for President Trump to issue a direct warning to Iranian leaders about the treatment of the protesters, saying that the United States was “locked and loaded”. Then came the US special forces operation targeting Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela, followed by the second warning on Sunday.
Such direct and potential threats from a sitting President of the United States, issued while the protests are still ongoing, are highly unusual and could embolden the protesters and encourage unrest to spread further.
Iranian police and security forces have already responded violently almost from the start, and reports from human rights groups claim that more than 20 people have already been killed. Now all eyes are on Trump’s possible move.
The protests, which began peacefully on Sunday 28 December, were initially spurred by public anger over rising inflation and the sharp devaluation of the local currency against the US dollar which is now around 80% higher than a year ago.
Iran’s economy is in deep trouble, with little prospect for growth this year or next. Official annual inflation is around 42%, food inflation exceeds 70%, and some basic goods have reportedly increased in price by more than 110%.
A vulnerable position
International sanctions led by the United States have played a major role in worsening economic conditions, but they are not the whole story.
High-profile corruption cases in Iranian courts involving senior officials and their families have fueled public anger and the belief that parts of the ruling elite are exploiting the crisis.
Many ordinary Iranians believe that certain officials and their relatives benefit directly from the sanctions through special arrangements that allow them to control imports and exports, move oil revenues abroad, and profit from money laundering networks.
Even government officials believe that what are locally called “Sanctions Profiteers” are more to blame than the sanctions themselves.
The protests started on the economy but also became political [EPA]
Traders in Tehran’s Grand Bazaar were among the first groups to protest openly, closing their shops in response to daily currency fluctuations and taking to the streets to demand government intervention to stabilize markets.
The demonstrations soon spread beyond the bazaar to other segments of society. The economic slogans soon became political, with calls for the removal of the entire Islamic Republic itself.
Students joined the protests, followed by small businesses in other cities and towns and other ordinary Iranians. Within days, chants against Iran’s supreme leader again became a central feature of the demonstrations.
The last time Iran experienced unrest on a comparable national scale was about four years ago, when the death of Mahsa Amini, a young woman in the custody of the morality police sparked the most widespread anti-government protests since the founding of the Islamic Republic in 1979.
Those demonstrations, which later became known as the “Moviment Mahsa” or “Woman, Life, Liberty”, shook the foundations of the state but were eventually suppressed by force and mass arrests.
Although the current protests spread quickly and persisted for days, they have not yet reached the scale or intensity of the 2022 demonstrations.
Journalists in Iran are under great pressure, and independent international news organizations are either not allowed to report from inside the country or, if they are allowed, face severe restrictions on their movements.
As a result, much of what is known comes from social media and people on the streets sharing what they see and recording. This makes verification increasingly difficult, especially since social media can also provide fertile ground for fabrications, unfounded claims, and distorted realities, a challenge further intensified by the rise of AI.
Against this background, many observers believe that the current situation may have more serious consequences from 2022. Iran’s government is widely seen as being at its weakest point in decades, facing simultaneous pressure from domestic turmoil and a dramatically changed regional environment.
A series of setbacks
The 12-day war in the summer of 2025 between Iran and Israel marked a turning point. The conflict culminated in direct US involvement, including airstrikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.
Iran’s missiles and other military sites were heavily damaged in the war with Israel [Reuters]
The war has severely damaged Iran’s defense capability, nuclear infrastructure, and various military and industrial sites.
At the same time, Iran’s wider regional position has worsened. The fall of Bashar al-Assad in Syria has deprived Tehran of a key ally, while Israeli-backed attacks on Hezbollah in Lebanon have eliminated much of the group’s senior leadership.
More recently, US operations in Venezuela and the kidnapping of Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, have further reduced Iran’s options abroad.
These developments reshaped the regional and international environment for Tehran. Iran now has fewer allies to rely on in regional conflicts and fewer means to move oil revenues abroad.
This is particularly significant given Iran’s heavy involvement in Venezuela’s oil sector alongside Russia, and its reliance on complex financial arrangements linked to markets believed to be in China.
Disruption of these networks has increased Iran’s economic vulnerability at a time of growing internal pressure.
Against this background, Iran’s aging supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, appears to be facing one of the most uncertain moments of his rule.
More than three decades of careful planning to build regional proxy forces, sanctions evasion mechanisms, and nuclear infrastructure have been undermined or destroyed in a relatively short period of time.
With Trump back in the White House and Benjamin Netanyahu in power in Israel, there seems to be no clear diplomatic or strategic path out of the current crisis without a high price.
For years, Khamenei and his inner circle have justified massive spending on regional allies and the nuclear program as necessary investments in Iran’s long-term security and technological advancement.
Today, that argument seems increasingly hollow. As pressure builds both at home and abroad, home security, once presented as the ultimate payoff of those policies, seems more distant than ever.