Mass Protests in Iran: GIGA Researchers Provide Context

What triggered the current protests?

Hamid Talebian: The initial eruption of this round of protests followed a familiar pattern, closely resembling events of 2017–2019. Each year, around the time the government submits the national budget to parliament (usually between late December and mid-January), speculation surfaces about the likelihood of renewed unrest. For years, the Iranian government has struggled to generate sufficient state revenues, and (due to a combination of endogenous and exogenous factors) has faced persistent budget deficits, rising inflation, surging prices, and the steady devaluation of the national currency. The actual causes and mechanisms behind the mentioned factors have long been the subject of heated debate. What matters here is timing, with developments coinciding with the submission of one of the most controversial budget proposals of recent years.

This moment can explain the initial trigger behind, on 31 December, protests breaking out, namely as sparked by bazaar merchants in Tehran – a core constituency of the ruling factions. On the same day, Masoud Pezeshkian’s government submitted its budget plan to parliament. Bazaar merchants reacted by shutting down their businesses and protesting against rising inflation, and particularly the skyrocketing foreign exchange rate. The government’s subsequent announcement of its intention to remove the subsidised exchange rate, effectively fixing the market rate at the cost of devaluation of the local currency, only added fuel to the fire. Such a policy would be especially antagonising for small-business owners, including those in import-dependent sectors such as electronics, leading to rapidly shrinking profit margins and heavy economic losses. More critically, it could further crush the purchasing power of Iran’s lower classes.

This wave of dissent soon spread, however, to other socio-economic strata, coming to encompass disaffected individuals in major urban centres and peripheral regions alike, and once again becoming entangled with the Islamic Republic’s ongoing legitimacy crisis. Protests thus escalated as long-standing economic and political grievances, ones accumulating over decades as regards the establishment, became added to the mix. Initial attempts by the government and the Supreme Leader to contain the unrest, discursively separating out bazaar merchants having “legitimate demands” from what they labelled “violent rioters” and “terrorists,” appear to have largely failed. Ultimately, the depth of this animosity – combined with entrenched socio-economic cleavages and widespread resentment – has culminated in massive anti-establishment protests against the Islamic Republic raging day after day, with many viewing them as unprecedented in scale since 2009’s Green Movement.

How does this protest wave differ from previous ones?

Hamid Talebian: I offer two observations, with the caution that any assessment remains highly speculative given the severe restrictions on information flows.

First, the level and intensity of violence – most notably the heavy-handed repression resorted to by the Islamic Republic’s security apparatus – as well as the rapid escalation occurring appear unprecedented. This is already evident despite the near-total communications blackout imposed on 8 January by the government. Human rights organisations have reported hundreds of civilian deaths, including a number of mere bystanders. HRANA estimates that 133 members of the security forces have also been killed, whereas state media, as of 12 January, has acknowledged only 50 deaths among police and security personnel, including several high-ranking officers. Even if the state’s lower figure is taken to be true, the scale of the crackdown and the resort to lethal force remain striking. By comparison, during the 2022 Women, Life, Freedom uprisings, among the security forces the casualty figure reportedly remained below 60 dead despite three months of sustained protest. Going further back to the 2019 Aban protests, fatalities among security forces did not exceed six in total.

Second, the diaspora opposition remains deeply fragmented but is becoming rapidly polarised.   Unlike in 2022, when initiatives such as the Georgetown coalition briefly emerged and managed to mobilise several diasporic constituencies before quickly faltering, similar joint efforts now appear largely out of reach. At the same time, Reza Pahlavi, the son of Iran’s ousted monarch, has once again moved to the centre of political debate, particularly as chants in favour of a return to monarchy have been reported from within Iran. For the first time, he has explicitly called for protests (on the nights of 8 and 9 January) and simultaneously appealed for US intervention to “assist in overthrowing the regime.” Despite his growing popularity in recent years, it is hard to see him emerging as a mobilising figure even within the diaspora let alone among the opposition inside Iran itself. The movement’s politics increasingly register with right-wing, ultra-nationalist ideologues. This may attract segments of Iranian society who have shifted towards the far right, but it also antagonises many and limits the possibilities for coalition-building greatly. Both are necessary conditions for constructing a truly popular front.

What role do the military and security forces play in suppressing protests? Could they be involved in the potential overthrowing of the government?

Diba Mirzaei: Iran’s military and security institutions are central to suppressing protests and preserving regime stability, as both previous and current iterations of public dissent show. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the Basij militia, and intelligence and law-enforcement bodies form an integrated repression apparatus accountable to the Supreme Leader. Their activities include surveillance, mass arrests, intimidation, and even lethal force.

The IRGC occupies a particularly strategic position as both a security and political-economic actor, giving it strong incentives to do what it can to maintain the existing order. The Basij provides local enforcement capacity, enabling rapid containment of protest movements. Together, these forces prevent demonstrations from escalating into elite-level challenges.

To date, no significant or sustained fractures have emerged within the IRGC, Basij, or conventional military. This cohesion remains one of the regime’s strongest sources of resilience. Consequently, a security apparatus-led overthrow of the government is unlikely in the absence of a major elite split, leadership crisis, or loss of legitimacy among Iran’s top commanders. For policymakers, this suggests that popular protests alone are unlikely to produce real political change, unless accompanied by internal fissures within the security establishment. Political transformation in Iran is therefore more likely to depend on elite realignments than on mass mobilisation in isolation.

How dangerous are the protests for Iran’s authoritarian government? Do these events have the potential to topple the regime or trigger meaningful political reform?

Diba Mirzaei: The current protest movement is widely regarded, as noted, as the largest since the 2009 Green Movement. What makes this wave particularly threatening for the regime is its coincidence with unprecedented external vulnerability. With its “axis of resistance” significantly weakened and its defensive capabilities severely degraded following the war with Israel last June, the Islamic Republic is confronted with an existential challenge not seen since the Iran–Iraq War of the 1980s.

Although it seems that the regime has temporarily reasserted control over the streets (albeit at an extremely high cost to human life), this should be understood as a tactical pause rather than a restoration of stability per se. The intervals between protest cycles are shortening, suggesting that renewed mobilisation is likely. Absent credible solutions to Iran’s deep economic, social, and political crises, the regime cannot assume durable security.

At the same time, protests alone are unlikely to bring about regime collapse. Stability will also depend on external and elite-level dynamics. Key uncertainties include whether Israel or the United States will conduct further military strikes, the scope and targets of such operations, and whether political elites would be directly affected. Closely linked hereto is the unresolved succession question surrounding Ayatollah Khamenei. Finally, maintaining the integrity of the security apparatus remains decisive. The depth of any internal fissions, the scale of potential defections, and the political orientation of those forces performing a volte face – whether towards popular alignment or power consolidation – would critically shape any transition scenario.

How are current geopolitical developments in the region influencing the protests?

Hamid Talebian: Post–7 October 2023 regional dynamics in the Middle East are certainly impacting the current moment. Even prior to the latest protest wave, the prospects of another round of confrontation between Iran and Israel / the US loomed large. Since the ceasefire reached following the Twelve-Day War of June 2025, a partial consensus has emerged in scholarly and policy circles: renewed bouts of confrontation are ultimately inevitable, particularly when taking into account Israel’s failure to achieve several of its stated objectives and its apparent underestimation of the Islamic Republic’s counteroffensive capabilities.

Against this backdrop, the likelihood of military intervention in Iran under the pretext of “supporting the protesters” is certainly not to be dismissed, especially as US and Israeli officials have repeatedly issued explicit threats to that effect. The regional repercussions of renewed military aggression would be cumulative and highly unpredictable, as the recent history of the region amply demonstrates. Domestically, however, such a scenario would be even more devastating, especially for protesters on the ground who would hereby become further exposed to increased crackdowns under wartime circumstances. Further, the Islamic Republic’s ruling class appear, as do also the Revolutionary Guards, to perceive the current protests as deeply entangled with external Israeli interference, framing them as “an extension and continuation of the Twelve-Day War.” Narratives of foreign meddling have long been deployed by the security apparatus to justify repression. In the current phase of the protest movement, however, this perception has become intertwined with a heightened sense of an exogenous existential threat that is likely to further intensify the quelling of dissent, particularly in the event of direct foreign military aggression.

To what extent are international sanctions contributing to the economic crisis besetting Iran and thus influencing the current protests?

Houssein Al Malla: International sanctions have contributed to Iran’s economic crisis in a cumulative and structural way rather than as a short-term shock. Roughly 18 years now of overlapping European Union, United Nations, and US sanctions regimes have undermined oil revenues, restricted access to global financial markets, and deterred sustained foreign investment and technology transfer. Over time, this has weakened the economy’s productive base, reduced fiscal flexibility, and entrenched inflation and currency instability. These conditions have made the economy highly vulnerable to shocks and limited the government’s ability to stabilise prices or protect household purchasing power.

Iran has invested extensively in sanctions circumvention, relying on informal trade channels, alternative payment mechanisms, and regional partnerships. While these strategies have mitigated some of the pressure the country lives under, they have come at a heavy price. Circumvention raises transaction costs, distorts market incentives, and concentrates economic rents among politically connected actors, thereby widening inequality. Periods of partial sanctions relief provided temporary breathing space but did not reverse deeper structural damage, especially once those punitive measures were reimposed and uncertainty over long-term reintegration hence continued to linger.

What distinguishes the current moment, then, is the gradual exhaustion of these coping mechanisms. Iran’s traditional economic partners and regional allies are themselves economically constrained and thus less able to buffer it from external pressure. As a result, sanctions today weigh more heavily than in earlier phases, not because they are fundamentally new but due to the fact that the economy’s adaptive capacity has been steadily eroded. This prolonged economic weakening has translated into acute pressure on the country’s traders and households, creating the socio-economic conditions under which protest becomes both increasingly likely and more politically charged.

How is the international community reacting to the government's violent crackdown on protesters? What can external intervention achieve?

Houssein Al Malla: International reactions to the Iranian government’s violent crackdown combine human rights condemnation with strategic signalling, as shaped by recognition of the limited external leverage available. Multilateral institutions and Western governments have denounced the use of lethal force, mass arrests, and communication blackouts as violations of human rights obligations. Several states have also explicitly threatened additional targeted sanctions against individuals and institutions directly involved in said repression, while stopping short of mentioning broad sectoral measures. This reflects an effort to raise the costs of violence without exacerbating civilian hardship in a country that already operates under extensive sanctions.

State-level responses nevertheless diverge in tone and intensity. The US, under President Donald Trump, has adopted a markedly escalatory stance, publicly warning that Washington could take strong action if Iranian security forces continue killing protesters. These threats are paired with signals of openness to negotiations, reflecting a deliberate strategy of combining coercive pressure with diplomatic ambiguity. Trump’s rhetoric implicitly recalls earlier US approaches in cases such as Venezuela, underscoring that military options are at least being discussed even if they remain highly contentious.

Other states have taken a more cautious approach, emphasising restraint, de-escalation, and regional stability, and warning against external military intervention. Geopolitical divisions among major powers continue to limit the prospects for unified multilateral action beyond condemnation and targeted measures. In this context, political intervention from the outside may influence the environment in which repression unfolds but not ultimately determine outcomes. Targeted sanctions and diplomatic pressure can raise the marginal costs of violence, challenge information blackouts, and preserve pathways for future accountability. More coercive signalling may increase regime uncertainty in the short term, but it also carries significant risks of escalation and a nationalistic backlash – thus not reliably translating into guaranteed domestic political change. The trajectory of repression and protest remains, in the final reckoning, primarily shaped by internal political dynamics operating within a context of prolonged economic and institutional weakening.