So this round of protests began on the 28th of December, driven mostly by an increasingly dreadful economic position. This mostly comes from their deteriorating currency, with the Iranian rial hitting its lowest ever level against the US dollar, hovering around 1,400,000 rial to 1 US dollar at the time of writing. Inflation has also been crippling, with some estimates showing it hitting upwards of 50%.
This is important because Iran imports a lot of its essential goods, such as cooking oil and wheat. A worsening currency makes it more expensive for merchants to import these, raising the prices of basic goods for ordinary people. Five years of drought has only worsened the crisis and left the country even more dependent on imported goods.
As a result, many Iranians were already struggling to feed themselves before the latest deterioration in the rial, with local reports suggesting that half of the people there were consuming less than 2,100 calories a day due to financial pressures.
In protest, shopkeepers took to the streets in Tehran, and this is what has gradually been spreading across the country, first to other markets and universities, and now even to impoverished towns across all 31 Iranian provinces, seemingly encompassing all corners of society.
Now protests aren’t uncommon in Iran, with outbreaks also seen in 2019, 2021 and 2022, but those were all eventually shut down by Iranian security forces, often quite brutally. This time around feels different, for reasons I will come to, but first let’s look at how the economic situation got so bad.
Why Has The Currency Depreciated So Much
The main factor has been sanctions on the Iranian state, which have been in place by the UN, US, EU and UK for years. These have been multi-polar, ranging from support for terrorist organisations like Hezbollah and Hamas to human rights abuses, including the suppression of political dissent.
But the main reason that Iran has seen such crippling sanctions has been because of its nuclear programme. The country has historically insisted that its nuclear programme is purely for non-military uses, such as energy, but the development of ever more advanced centrifuges has led many to believe that the programme is a precursor to the production of Iranian nuclear weapons.
These sanctions were one way of discouraging nuclear development, although by no means the only option explored. One notable example is the 2010 Stuxnet cyberattack, which slowly increased the speed of the centrifuges just enough, often enough, to damage them over time, ultimately destroying roughly a fifth of Iran’s nuclear centrifuges.
Some sanctions were lifted in 2015, after a deal with the US, UK, France, Russia, China and Germany - a rare show of cooperation across the UN Security Council (+ Germany) - in return for limits on Iran's nuclear programme. Iran largely complied with these requirements until the deal fell apart in 2018 when the US withdrew under the first Trump administration.
New talks with the US were held last year, but failed to get to any kind of deal. On the 12th of April, President Trump gave the Iranian Supreme Leader two months to reach an agreement, which passed without any deal being agreed.
10 days after this deadline expired, the US launched air strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities, as part of the 12-day Iran-Israel war, destroying a lot of their nuclear enrichment facilities, but also made it a lot harder for the UN nuclear watchdog to check how much uranium Iran was enriching and where, not least after Iran stopped cooperating with the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency. This led to even more sanctions being imposed by the UN in September, worsening the economic situation.
This is all exacerbated by the oil situation, where prices have been falling since 2022. Whilst Iran sits on huge oil reserves, sanctions have meant that it can’t be sold to most countries, with most of it ultimately going to Chinese refiners at an even further discount and often below the price the Iranian state needs to break even.
To try and manage the issues this causes the rial, the Iranian government has multiple exchange rates, aiming to subsidise essential imports. In practice, it causes an inherent disparity between the official and the market rate, which then means importers don’t bother importing goods and just sell off the subsidised foreign currency at market rate instead, leading to widespread corruption that further undermines the economy and the rial.
How Has The Iranian Government Responded To The Protests
With widespread violence by the security forces in an attempt to shut down the protests across the country, leading to over 500 deaths and over 10,000 people arrested.
The Iranian President initially offered to listen to people to find a solution, offering a $7 per month payment to help with the cost of living. However, given an average monthly household cost of $200, this didn’t have a meaningful influence and he has since vowed not to let rioters destabilise the country.
At the same time, the Supreme Leader said the Iranian Islamic Republic came to power through the blood of several hundred people, and that it won’t back down in face of these protests.
The internet has also been turned off by the government, with most of the country now offline, in an attempt to disrupt communications and make it harder to organise protests. Starlink also seems to be getting jammed, with some success.
The exception to this seems to be some whitelisted sites, which suggests the regime may be able to maintain the blackout for longer than it has in the past.
Looking externally, the country has also responded to suggestions of US intervention, promising retribution on Israel, the US military, and commercial infrastructure in the region.
Critically, the regime continues to enjoy the support of the military, including the influential Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, who have been deployed across the country.
What Makes These Protests Different From Others
1. They Keep Getting Bigger
Over roughly six months, at least 551 protestors were killed in the 2022 Mahsa Amini protests, with over 19,000 estimated to have been arrested.
This time, in little over two weeks, over 500 people have already been reported to have been killed and over 10,000 people already arrested, according to the latest available data from Reuters. The regime is pushing down, hard.
Hospitals have told the BBC that they’re being overwhelmed with dead or injured patients, the morgues are full, and the little footage that’s been leaking out of the country (given the internet blackout) has been showing cities in flames as the masses take to the streets.
On some measures, this makes these the largest protests since the 1979 Iranian Revolution that led to the overthrow of the Shah and the imposition of the current government.
2. Who’s Protesting
Previous protests have also largely been contained to the cities, but these have erupted all over the 31 provinces of the country, including the far more remote parts.
Reports on the ground suggest that the protestors represent all corners of Iranian society, including the elderly, which is particularly indicative of the societal discontent throughout the nation.
It’s also symbolic that these protests were started by shopkeepers, who also initiated the protests that led to the 1979 Revolution.
They’re a particularly unique group that are able to organise effectively due to their pre-existing networks. This means that they can come together and agree to shut their shops, which they can afford to do, being business owners, giving the protests a stronger core than seems to previously have been the case.
Their bazaars are also the core of the Iranian economy, and so if their strike holds and the shops remain closed, it risks triggering an economic doomloop where the shopkeepers striking weaken the economy, encouraging them to continue striking, further weakening the economy, etc etc.
If it extends to oil workers, as it did in 1979, it’s difficult to see a way back for the regime.
3. The Shah in Exile
Previous protests have also been largely leaderless. This is mostly still the case for now, but there have been increasing calls for the return of Reza Pahlavi. His father was the last Iranian Shah, who was supported by Western allies but ultimately deposed in the 1979 Revolution.
He has previously detached himself from protests, saying “change has to come from within”, but has increasingly grown more assertive since the US and Israeli air strikes last year, declaring that he’d be prepared to lead a transitional government if the Iranian Islamic Republic collapsed.
Since then, he has outlined a 100-day plan for what his administration would do, and in recent days, has said that he has begun to make plans to return to the country for the first time since he was 17 - which is when he left, pre-Revolution, to train as a fighter pilot in the US.
Whilst his name has been a feature of the protests so far, it’s difficult to understand how widespread his support in Iran actually is. It’s not the same as the unifying voice of the first Ayatollah Khomeini during the 1979 Revolution, but it does give the protest movement a sense of leadership, however weak, that it has previously lacked.
If his support continues to build, it could prove to be monumental.
4. The Prospect of Foreign Intervention
Events in Iran aren’t happening in a bubble, and there are many who’d like to see an end to the Iranian Islamic Republic.
It was only last year that Iran fought a 12-day war with Israel, who will be keeping a close eye on the health of the regime and looking for advantageous opportunities.
Iran has lost a number of allies recently, with the militia groups it backs, Hezbollah and Hamas, worn down by the Israeli military, and the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s government in December 2024. Some unconfirmed reports suggest that the Ayatollah is also making similar plans to flee to Moscow if the situation continues to deteriorate.
It’s difficult to see further Russian support though, especially given its own focus on Ukraine. However, Russia has also lost a lot of allies recently (Syria, Venezuela) and Iran did build Russia the Shahed drones that have been causing so much devastation in Ukraine, so I wouldn’t rule it out entirely.
These protests also come at a time when the US is quite content to use its military might to achieve political outcomes, emboldened by recent events in Venezuela. It has threatened a whole host of countries recently, from Latin America to Greenland, and Iran is no exception - in fact, I’d go so far as to say that it’s where this all bravado began, with the US strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities last year.
President Trump has previously said that the US was “locked and loaded” if Iran used lethal force against demonstrators. Hundreds of protesters have since died, but no US action has been forthcoming as yet, although as at the time of writing, the President is said to be considering strike options. There have also been reports that Delta Force teams have relocated to the Middle East in recent days, but I’ve been unable to verify these.
I would be surprised if we don’t see any US intervention, likely supported by Israel, at all. Trump has done it before, and the opportunity to help topple the Iranian Islamic Republic may prove too tempting to resist.
This is the weakest the regime has been since the 1979 Revolution, and it’s difficult to see a path to de-escalation.
There are fewer and fewer things the government can do to retain control, but a collapse won’t be pretty.
Before it comes, they'll clamp down with as much force on protesters as they can, leading to widespread violence across the country.
The military retains a significant arsenal of ballistic missiles that could hit targets across the Middle East in a parting salvo. Iran also sits in the middle of a geopolitical hotspot, with the risk of any instability spreading to Turkey, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, as well as the wider Middle East.
Historical interventions from the UK and the US still cause deep-rooted mistrust of foreign intervention for most Iranians, not just supporters of the regime, and so their involvement is likely to be unwelcome and may even rally support for the regime.
Without clear leadership (as yet) in the opposition and with any number of actors waiting to take advantage of the ruins, the country would likely suffer from the day-after problem and descend into the widespread chaos after the regime fell.
This would be one of the worst possible outcomes.
RH
I had to write this one twice after the Mail app on my iPad failed to auto-save. A lesson to draft in Notes, always.
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