Are the days of the Iranian regime numbered?

Islamic Republic exposed

Small protests by Tehran’s small-business owners broke out on 28th December, then rapidly spread and intensified across the country over the following days. Initially driven by anger over the rial’s devaluation and soaring inflation, the demonstrations quickly expanded into an openly anti-regime movement, drawing in students as well as residents of smaller towns and rural areas.

This is the most serious escalation since 2022 civil unrest triggered by the death of Mahsa Amini, who died after being assaulted by Iran’s morality police for wearing an „improper” hijab. Those protests — widely regarded as the most extensive and destabilizing in the Islamic Republic’s history — were met with severe repression and left more than 500 people dead.

As in 2022, Iran’s security forces are reverting to their familiar playbook, including tear gas, live fire, and mass arrests, killing dozens of protesters. This time, however, the regime appears much more exposed, both at home and abroad. June’s US–Israeli strikes inflicted significant damage on Iran’s nuclear infrastructure while also eliminating key military officials. The Iranian-led „Axis of Resistance” has likewise been degraded by US–Israeli operations against Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis, as well as the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria.

On Iran’s streets, the mood is far more radical than in 2022. Then, many demanded liberalisation; now, they are calling for regime change. „Woman, Life, Freedom” still resonates, but chants like „Death to the dictator” and „Long live the Shah” are increasingly heard.

With economic malaise unlikely to ease, the regime may be facing its gravest challenge since its inception. Will it collapse?

The regime's moral and economic failure

Today’s economic outrage joins the spirit of cultural revolt from 2022. Iranians now have both ideological and material reasons to resist, creating unusually fertile socio-economic conditions for change.

Over the years, many Iranians have embraced what Menahem Merhavy, writing in Foreign Policy in December, calls a „new moral order.” It rejects the regime’s ideals of revolutionary sacrifice and religious obedience, elevating instead dignity, bodily autonomy, and truth-telling. It has been forged through lived experience: killings, repression, and daily constraints compounded by the ruling elite’s detachment. 

Moral defiance plays out not only in Iranians« beliefs, but in everyday acts. Unveiled women in major cities, spontaneous performances of protest songs, parents of victims speaking out, and dwindling attendance at official rituals all point to an unsettling reality for the regime: it is losing moral authority, even as it retains coercive power.

As a result, the values on which the regime was erected are increasingly incompatible with those held by most Iranians. At the same time, it can no longer offer economic compensation in return for depriving its citizens of rights and opportunities. With both pillars eroding, there is less and less the regime can point to in order to sustain and justify the existing social contract.

In such moments, authoritarian regimes often fall back on a familiar scapegoat: foreign interference. „In my opinion, we are in a full-fledged war with America, Israel, and Europe,” Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian said just days before the protests erupted. „Here, they are besieging us from every aspect, they are putting us in difficulty and constraint, creating problems — in terms of livelihood, culturally, politically, and security-wise — while raising society’s expectations,” he added. 

It is, in essence, a narrative strikingly similar to that advanced by Russia. Casting the country as a besieged „sacred” fortress encircled by hostile and decadent forces is meant to rally the public around the flag. It draws on anti-imperialist and anti-Western sentiments while diverting attention from the real sources of citizens« hardship. But will an increasingly disillusioned Iranian public still buy it?

Uncertain endgame

The crucial question is what the US and Israel will do this time. They have a clear interest in overthrowing the Iranian regime. Both are unpredictable and capable of intervening with force, as June’s bombardment of nuclear facilities showed. This uncertainty must now haunt the regime’s elites, who warned on 6 January that „intensifying threatening language and interventionist threats” could provoke Iran to take unspecified pre-emptive actions.

Equally important will be China’s actions, or lack thereof. For years, Beijing has helped prevent Iran’s economy from total collapse by buying around 90% of its sanctioned oil exports. Under the 25-year Cooperation Program signed in 2021, China is expected to invest $300–$400 billion in Iran’s oil, gas, and petrochemical sectors in exchange for discounted supplies. Now, it could extend additional financial lifelines to keep Tehran afloat, while making it even more dependent. Yet any such support would likely be limited so as not to disrupt Beijing’s regional balancing act, particularly at the expense of its ties with Saudi Arabia.

By contrast, the Islamic Republic cannot count on another strategic ally, Russia. Entangled in its war in Ukraine and strained for resources, the Kremlin is in no position to provide Iran with significant military or financial aid. Paradoxically, this inability comes just as Russia has already lost a second regional pillar— Assad’s Syria —and the loss of Iran would likely mean the end of Russian influence in the Middle East as we know it.

Yet even if the ground seems more fertile than ever, the regime’s decades-old resilience should not be underestimated. Tehran has weathered repeated waves of unrest before. The security and intelligence apparatus remains firmly on its side, while the opposition lacks cohesion. A familiar mix of repression, limited concessions, and selective economic relief measures may still prove enough to sap the protests« momentum.

What, then, is the optimal policy for states that seek regime change in Tehran? Israel, the United States, Saudi Arabia, and Europe should recognise the limits of their leverage — above all, the risks of large-scale military intervention. They can help Iranians topple the regime, but they cannot do it for them; any externally imposed outcome would almost certainly prove unsustainable.

Thus, applying maximum pressure through tighter sanctions — while avoiding direct military intervention — appears, for now, the most plausible course of action. This would require simultaneously deterring China from providing economic lifelines, by raising the economic and diplomatic costs for Beijing. In this regard, sanctioning Chinese companies involved in Iranian oil imports, particularly if coupled with pressure from Saudi Arabia, could help dissuade China. 

Deliberately accelerating economic collapse could fuel further unrest and, at some point, threaten the regime’s survival. Yet a cornered leadership might respond with unprecedented brutality, encompassing mass killings, widespread destruction, and even the risk of civil war. Would that scenario justify assassinating Iranian leaders, as Republican Senator Lindsey Graham has implied? And is there any tipping point at which direct intervention would be likely to succeed, or even become necessary to avert mass bloodshed?

These questions must be asked, even if the current wave of protests subsides. The underlying dynamics are clear: if today’s socio-economic trends persist, another eruption is only a matter of time. In that case, the Islamic Republic’s fall becomes less a question of whether than of when — and, crucially, how. States that would welcome such an outcome should therefore prepare accordingly: for the instability it could unleash, for multiple contingency scenarios, and for the „day after” question of what comes next.