The events in Iran Tuesday, on the 10th day of widening protests that began over the economy, showcase the severity of the dual challenges now facing the Islamic Republic after 47 years in power – and how it might react to the pressure.
As the value of the Iranian currency fell to a record low, security forces used tear gas to disperse a sit-in at the Grand Bazaar in Tehran. It is just one incident in a wave of protests that have erupted in 26 of Iran’s 31 provinces and reportedly left 36 people dead.
Triggered by Iran’s failing economy, the protests quickly turned against the regime, with street chants calling for “death to the dictator” and the removal of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Why We Wrote This
Iran’s leaders are juggling chronic economic malaise – caused by years of mismanagement, corruption, and U.S.-led sanctions – with a growing expectation of military conflict with Israel or, following President Donald Trump’s threats, the United States.
Yet also on Tuesday, Iran’s Defense Council spelled out a new and unprecedented policy of preemptive military action against Tehran’s external adversaries if Iran observed military preparations for an attack by archfoes Israel and the United States.
The council – formed in the aftermath of the 12-day Israel-Iran war last June, which was capped by U.S. strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities – issued the statement after U.S. President Donald Trump renewed a warning Sunday that Iran would “get hit very hard” if protesters were killed. Mr. Trump had posted on social media Friday that the U.S. is “locked and loaded and ready to go.”
“This has been the Islamic Republic’s nightmare all along, all these years, and now it’s actually happening,” says Hamidreza Azizi, an Iran expert at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs in Berlin. Iran’s leadership has “effectively been fighting a war on two fronts,” he explains.
“In past decades, Iran has been through war with Iraq for eight years, and it has been through different waves of protests … but it has never had both at the same time,” he says. “That has been part of Iran’s strategic thinking and calculations, to prevent a war on two fronts simultaneously.”
“Growing concern” in Tehran
The result is that Iran’s leadership is being forced to juggle chronic economic malaise – caused by years of mismanagement, corruption, and U.S.-led sanctions, which Iranian President Massoud Pezeshkian says he cannot solve – with a growing expectation of fresh military conflict.
And while the Defense Council statement may be a bid to restore some deterrence with Israel, it also signals “growing concern” in Tehran, says Mr. Azizi. “This is significant, because we have never had a preemptive strategy or doctrine of the Iranian armed forces. They have always emphasized the second [response] strike and defense.”
That concern has been heightened by unrest on the streets.
“The protests themselves, at this time, are not something existential,” says Mr. Azizi. “But it is the potential that they create – as [Iran’s leaders] see it – for external actors, for adversaries, to come in that makes the situation different.”
Previous waves of protests, about democracy or economic grievances, have often spread nationwide and turned antiregime, such as the 2009 Green Movement and 2022 “Women, life, freedom” protests. They lasted for months, with death tolls in the hundreds from fierce crackdowns.
For now, Iran’s leaders are signaling a cautious approach to the current dissent.
During past protest waves, Ayatollah Khamenei often painted all those on the streets as “terrorists” who could be crushed indiscriminately. Yet on Saturday, in his first official response to the current unrest, he took care to differentiate between those on the streets with “legitimate demands” about the economy – who he said should be listened to – and those “rioters” bent on violence, who should be “put in their place.”
President Pezeshkian echoed the supreme leader’s distinction Wednesday when he ordered Iran’s security forces not to crack down on economic protesters.
Previous U.S. leaders have often been reluctant to openly support protesters, to deny Iranian leaders the ability to blame foreign interference. Mr. Trump’s vow Friday to “rescue” Iran’s protesters took on added significance a day later, when U.S. Special Forces seized Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro in Caracas.
Few in Iran forget Mr. Trump’s post in June: “We know exactly where the so-called ‘Supreme Leader’ is hiding,” he wrote, adding that Ayatollah Khamenei was an “easy target.”
No “foreign boots”
Israel, likewise, has made no secret of its expectation of launching new military strikes against Iran, primarily aimed at Iran’s large remaining missile arsenal. During the June war, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sent a message to the Iranian public. “The time has come for you to unite around your flag and your historic legacy by standing up for your freedom from an evil and oppressive regime.”
Mr. Netanyahu said Sunday that Israel stands “in solidarity” at a “moment in which the Iranian people are taking their fate into their own hands.”
Yet for one Iranian protester contacted in Tehran, who gave the name Taha and says he was “lucky not to get caught so far,” such messaging is unwelcome interference.
“Iran’s sovereignty is my red line. I don’t want any foreign boots in my country,” says Taha, a language teacher.
“We [Iranians] are able to make change. If that change comes through reform, it’s more than welcome, but it’s very unlikely under the current system,” he concedes. “This may take blood, unfortunately. That is still better than being run by a Western power.”
“We can clearly say that the biggest favor that the U.S. and the Israelis could do to the Islamic Republic is to own the street action,” says an Iranian analyst with close access to policy circles, who asked not to be further identified.
Majid Asgaripour/West Asia News Agency/Reuters
What makes him “nervous,” he says, is misinterpretation of protest events in Iran, where for three decades each past episode of street anger has sparked claims of imminent regime collapse.
“Regardless of what happens on the street, what matters to a government like the one in Washington is the narrative you spin out of it and the pictures you see,” says the analyst. “A peaceful march of 20,000 people is less of a story to Trump than a dozen people attacking a police headquarters. The latter doesn’t have any political meaning for the future of Iran, but it is something spectacular in the eyes of Donald Trump.
“So if the Israelis, and those in favor of regime change, do their homework – and I am quite sure they do their homework – they will present everything that is coming out of Iran, regardless of how small the size, as that being the moment” to strike, for regime change.
“A shock moment”
That risk – coupled with the fresh-in-mind example of America’s forced removal of Mr. Maduro – prompted the Defense Council’s embrace of possible preemptive military action.
“This is the talk of the town. Whether that translates into action is obviously a different story,” says the Iranian analyst.
“But so many times, I have heard self-criticism in terms of, ‘Iran has been irrationally rational, disproportionately proportionate with its [military] responses,’” ever since Israel began targeting Iran’s regional militia allies, and then Iran itself, in the aftermath of Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack.
“So there is a high demand to change [Iranian] behavior, [and] this really is the one thing that could change the current trend and dynamics: a shock moment, something unexpected. Because Iran has become so predictable.”
Iran’s leadership would be open to a diplomatic off-ramp, but the demands on Iran have changed, say analysts. Early last year, Mr. Trump said Iran could not have a nuclear weapon – an ambition Iran insists it never held. But after Mr. Trump claimed in June that U.S strikes “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program, he said any effort to rebuild uranium enrichment capacity would also be destroyed.
“Now, all indicators are that the U.S. side wants more – especially on missiles – and this is not something that any government in Iran is going to even talk about, let alone do a deal” on, says Mr. Azizi in Berlin.
“With all that is happening, the Iranian leadership might get more risk-taking, and less risk-averse, than in the past,” adds Mr. Azizi. “That might mean a preemptive strike, if they really feel threatened, if they sense an immediate danger.”
