This is the beginning of the end for the Islamic Republic

For decades, the default response of Iran’s ayatollahs when confronted with anti-government protests has been to respond with brutal force. 

This was how they succeeded in crushing the 2009 Green Revolution, which resulted in thousands of Iranian demonstrators being killed and tortured; this ended the most serious popular revolt the Islamic Republic had faced since the 1979 Iranian revolution

.More recently similar tactics were applied after nationwide protests erupted in 2022, after a 22-year-old Kurdish-Iranian woman died in police custody after she was arrested for the relatively innocuous offence of not wearing a hijab. Hundreds of people lost their lives – including a number of children – as the Iranian authorities moved quickly to end the dissent.

And, judging by the regime’s response to the latest outbreak of anti-government protests, the ayatollahs are attempting to use the same tactics to reassert their authority, with reports already emerging of several fatalities across the country.

The crucial difference is that, this time, the regime’s ability to defend itself has been seriously compromised by the inherent weakness of the position it finds itself in.

Having been humiliated during last summer’s 12-day war with Israel, which resulted in the destruction of key elements of its nuclear and military infrastructure, the regime’s plight has been compounded by the dramatic economic collapse that has taken place since hostilities ended.

With inflation already running at 50 per cent, and the country suffering from widespread youth unemployment, the dramatic fall in the value of the rial – the national currency – has effectively placed the Iranian economy on life support.

With the government struggling to cope with the impact of punitive sanctions imposed over Iran’s nuclear activities, the forty per cent drop in the rial’s value since the war with Israel has left many traders and businessmen facing bankruptcy.

It is hardly surprising, therefore, that the initial protests began in Tehran’s Grand Bazaar, where the once prosperous middle-class bazaaris, the well-connected trading families who are the life-blood of the Iranian economy, joined forces with disaffected students to voice their anger at the regime’s economic incompetence.

With the country still suffering from widespread drought, which many Iranians believe is the result of years of underinvestment in critical infrastructure, the ayatollahs inability to provide even the most basic living standards for their citizens has created nationwide unrest.

Iranians are also outraged at the vast sums the regime has wasted financing numerous terrorist groups in the Middle East, such as Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas and Gaza, instead of addressing the needs of the Iranian people.

The mounting fury at the country’s plight has led to numerous chants by the protesters calling for regime change and an end to Iran’s involvement in disastrous – and costly – overseas adventures. Chants of “death to the dictator” and “death to Khamenei” have been accompanied by cries of “Not Gaza, Not Lebanon, may my life be sacrificed for Iran.” In other parts of the country, there have even been chants praising the former Shah – with spectators at a football match in Isfahan chanting, “Reza Shah, may your soul rest in peace.”

Ominously for the ayatollahs, signs are also emerging that cracks are appearing in the regime’s edifice, with the country’s reform-minded president, Masoud Pezeshkian, arguing that the government would be well-advised to listen to the protesters demands.

Pezeshkian has subsequently instructed the government to listen to the “legitimate demands” of protesters, with government officials saying that “a mechanism for dialogue” would be set up to have talks with leaders of the protest movement.

“The livelihood of the people is my daily concern,” Pezeshkian wrote in a post on X.

The president’s more moderate stance certainly stands in stark contrast to the uncompromising approach that is usually adopted by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, and his supporters in the Revolutionary Guard, when confronted with large displays of public dissent.

In a theocratic dictatorship like Iran, it only needs one faction to break ranks before the entire structure comes crashing down.

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