In Iran, protests follow a familiar rhythm. They rise, they spread, they are crushed. What is unsettling about current demonstrations is not their scale alone but the sense that the old pattern may be breaking down.TL;DR: Driving the newsIran’s latest wave of nationwide protests, which began in late December 2025, is not simply another chapter in the Islamic Republic’s long cycle of unrest. What distinguishes this moment is not just scale or slogans, but the trigger: a total breakdown of economic credibility that has turned daily life into an exercise in futility and pushed once-cautious social groups into open revolt.The immediate spark was the collapse of the Iranian rial to roughly 1.4 million per US dollar, a historic low that coincided with inflation climbing past 50%, food prices surging more than 70% year-on-year, and wages losing value almost overnight. Protests began not on university campuses or around social restrictions, but in Tehran’s Grand Bazaar – the symbolic and practical heart of Iran’s economy – before spreading rapidly to all 31 provinces.Why it matters
- This uprising strikes at the economic foundations of consent, not just the regime’s ideological legitimacy.
- Iran’s leadership has survived repeated legitimacy shocks – from the 2009 Green Movement to the 2019 fuel protests to the 2022–23 “Woman, Life, Freedom” uprising – by combining repression, selective concessions and fear. But many analysts cited by Foreign Policy, the Economist, and others argue that those tools work best when the economy, however battered, still functions.
- This time, money itself has stopped making sense.
- When shopkeepers cannot price goods, importers cannot plan, and wages evaporate before payday, the state loses its ability to arbitrate daily life. As Alex Vatanka of the Middle East Institute told Reuters, “The collapse is not just of the rial, but of trust.” In Iran’s political history, that is a dangerous place for any government to be.
Zoom in: What’s genuinely new about this protest wave1) The trigger is economic collapse, not a single outrageThe 2022 protests followed the death of Mahsa Amini and centered on dignity, bodily autonomy and generational rebellion. Those grievances remain unresolved, but the 2025–26 protests erupted because commerce itself broke down. The Times of Israel described the moment bluntly: Iranians revolted when they realized that “money no longer works.”That distinction matters. Moral outrage can be compartmentalized or delayed. Economic paralysis cannot.2) The social coalition is broader – earlierAccording to Foreign Policy, the current protests have already mobilized bazaar merchants, students, urban professionals, laborers, women and ethnic minorities in their opening phase. In 2022, protests initially clustered in major cities and among youth. This time, smaller towns and economically marginalized areas joined quickly, reflecting how deeply inflation and currency collapse have penetrated Iranian society.3) The center of gravity has shifted toward regime changeWhile “Woman, Life, Freedom” remains symbolically powerful, slogans heard across Tehran, Isfahan, Mashhad and beyond increasingly call for the end of the Islamic Republic itself. Reuters and AP documented chants praising the former monarchy and calling for the return of Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi – rhetoric that once would have guaranteed swift execution.The shift does not signal consensus on what should replace the system. It does signal exhaustion with reform as an option.Between the lines: Why Iran isn’t Syria – and why that may be worseComparisons to Syria surface whenever Middle Eastern protests escalate. But Michael Rubin of the Middle East Forum argues that Iran’s trajectory could be more chaotic, not less.Syria’s civil war eventually hardened along ethnic and sectarian lines, creating de facto safe zones. Assad’s Alawite base retreated to Latakia. Kurds controlled the northeast. Rebel groups carved out enclaves elsewhere. Iran has no such geographic or sectarian escape valves.The Islamic Republic is multi-ethnic, its ruling elite draws from multiple communities, and even Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei himself is Azerbaijani. If the center collapses, there is no obvious periphery to absorb the shock.Rubin also highlights a structural risk: fragmentation within the security forces. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is not monolithic. Some members joined for economic security; others are ideologues shaped from childhood. If central authority weakens, different units could compete rather than coordinate. As Rubin writes, “It is unlikely that either the Guard Corps or the Iranian Army is unified enough to appoint an influential leader.”That dynamic raises the specter not of a clean transition, but of elite infighting and nationwide instability.
I have let them know that if they start killing people, which they tend to do during their riots — they have lots of riots — if they do it, we are going to hit them very hard
Donald Trump during an interview with conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt
What they are sayingIran’s leadership is reaching for familiar language – and finding it less effective.Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has acknowledged economic grievances, echoing his approach during the 2022 protests when he said Mahsa Amini’s death “deeply broke my heart.” In his latest remarks, he again recognized public suffering before pivoting to claims of Western “soft war.”“What turned the tide of the protests was former Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi’s calls for Iranians to take to the streets at 8pm on Thursday and Friday,” Holly Dagres, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, told AP. “Per social media posts, it became clear that Iranians had delivered and were taking the call seriously to protest in order to oust the Islamic Republic.”On the streets, that message is not landing. Protesters are increasingly linking domestic misery to Tehran’s regional ambitions. A 25-year-old woman in Lorestan told Reuters: “I just want to live a peaceful, normal life … Instead, they insist on a nuclear program and supporting armed groups.”From abroad, the rhetoric has grown sharper. US President Donald Trump warned that if Iranian authorities “start killing people,” Washington would respond forcefully, saying the US was “locked and loaded and ready to go.” Iranian officials now cite those statements as evidence of foreign interference – even as everyday Iranians struggle to buy food.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu commended the demonstrations, describing them as “a decisive moment in which the Iranian people take their futures into their hands”.The big picture: A legitimacy crisis with fewer shock absorbersThis protest wave unfolds as Iran’s external position is weaker than at any point in decades.
The latest protests diverge from the old pattern in two ways. One is that the bankruptcy of the regime (both literal and figurative) is in full view. Iran has endured a year of economic collapse, war and environmental crisis; its leaders have no solutions for these woes. The other difference is the prospect of foreign intervention, by either Israel or America. After the American raid to seize Nicolás Maduro from Venezuela on January 3rd, many Iranians wondered if their country might be next in Donald Trump’s crosshairs.
An article in the Economist
In 2022, Tehran could still point to its regional influence and nuclear leverage as buffers against internal dissent. In 2025–26, those buffers have eroded. Bashar al-Assad is no longer in power in Syria. Israeli and US strikes in 2025 badly damaged Iran’s nuclear infrastructure. Proxies from Gaza to Lebanon have been degraded too.At home, the regime’s time-tested formula – repression paired with tactical concessions – is losing traction. Analysts cited by Reuters say crackdowns still instill fear, but no longer restore confidence. Cosmetic changes, such as reshuffling economic officials or promising dialogue, ring hollow to a population that understands where real power lies.As the Economist observed, what sets this moment apart is that “the bankruptcy of the regime (both literal and figurative) is in full view.” Add the unprecedented talk of possible foreign intervention, and uncertainty multiplies.What’s next
- In the short term, Tehran is likely to intensify repression.
- But Iran’s protests are different this time because they are rooted in economic collapse, not a single injustice – and because they arrive when the regime is poorer, weaker abroad, and facing a population that increasingly sees no path forward within the system.
- History offers little comfort. Illegitimate regimes do not always fall, and when they do, they rarely fall cleanly. North Korea was once assumed to be a “zombie state.” It survived. Syria collapsed into catastrophe.
- Iran now sits uncomfortably between those outcomes. The protests have shattered what remained of the regime’s moral and economic credibility. Yet the opposition remains fragmented, the security forces armed, and the stakes for insiders existential.
- As Reuters quoted one analyst, “Change now looks inevitable; regime collapse is possible but not guaranteed.”
(With inputs from agencies)
