Protests in Iran have subsided. Tens of thousands of people were arrested. And those accused of supporting the riots have had their business assets seized and are being pursued on “terrorism” charges. For now, authorities are reasserting control.
But behind the surface calm, the same grievances that sparked the unrest still linger, and experts say Iran has little choice but to win sanctions relief and make tough compromises to rebuild its economy, or face further chaos, experts say. With its economy in decline, its network of regional alliances weakened and the threat of attack by the United States looming, Iran is at a crossroads.
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“This is not a stable status quo. It simply cannot be sustained,” said Ali Baez, director of the International Crisis Group’s Iran project. “We don’t expect this system to hit rock bottom tomorrow, but it is in a spiral and can only go down if we refuse to change.”
The latest demonstrations erupted in late December, when protests against currency collapse turned into nationwide chaos calling for the overthrow of Iran’s governing system, the Islamic Republic.
The authorities’ response sparked one of the most violent clashes since the country’s 1979 revolution.
Iranian state media said the protests killed 3,117 people, including 2,427 civilians and members of the security forces. US-based human rights activists say more than 4,500 people have been killed. Al Jazeera could not independently verify this figure.
economic crisis
Protests in the past few years, including riots sparked by a fuel price hike in 2019 and women-led demonstrations in 2022, have since been met with state subsidies and loosened social restrictions. But this time, options for addressing the predicament that prompted recent demonstrations are limited.
Decades of international sanctions, mismanagement and corruption have caused the value of the Iranian rial to plummet and oil revenues to decline. Inflation reached more than 42% last year, according to data from the International Monetary Fund. By comparison, the ratio was 6.8 in 2016, a year after Iran and world powers signed a deal to curb Iran’s nuclear activities in exchange for sanctions relief. US President Donald Trump withdrew from the agreement in 2018, during his first term in office, and reimposed sanctions.
On top of that, Iran suffers from power outages and chronic water shortages, making life increasingly difficult for the average citizen.
To get some relief from sanctions, Iran would need to negotiate a deal with the Trump administration. But that would require Khamenei to make concessions on the core of Iran’s foreign policy: its nuclear program, ballistic missiles and support for its network of allies across the region.
These are key elements of Iran’s “forward defense” strategy, a military doctrine aimed at preventing fighting from reaching Iranian territory. Changes to any of these elements would result in major changes to the security architecture that Khamenei has built. The supreme leader has shown openness to partially curbing the country’s nuclear program, but concessions on missiles and the so-called Axis of Resistance have been non-negotiable.
Mohammad Ali Shabani, an Iranian analyst and editor of the news site Amwaj Media, said of these three factors, “It is unclear whether Iran is prepared to formally accept restrictions.” “President Trump has threatened to resume its bombing campaign if Iran resumes enrichment, so Khamenei appears to be paralyzed in decision-making,” he added.
President Trump has said he wants Iran to completely dismantle its nuclear infrastructure, but Iran has ruled out that option, insisting its enrichment program is for civilian purposes.
In terms of support for non-state actors in the region, Iran is working to rebuild its network after the war with Israel last June, said Harileza Azizi, a visiting fellow at the German Institute for International Security Affairs.
In recent years, Israel has destroyed weapons depots and beheaded the leadership of Lebanon’s Hezbollah, Iran’s strongest ally in the region. Iraq’s non-state actors became more involved in the country’s political system and therefore more cautious, leading to the collapse of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria. And finally, it was the first time that Iran itself was directly attacked by Israel and faced a full-scale attack from a major regional enemy.
After that war, a heated debate ensued in Iran about the actual benefits of cooperating with non-state actors, Azizi said. The prevailing argument was that Iran’s soil suffered only after its regional allies were weakened, not before.
“So the policy is 1769250837 We need to step up and try to revive that network,” Azizi said.
He said the focus has shifted to working with smaller groups in Iraq, finding new ways to transfer weapons to Hezbollah and increasing its reliance on Yemen’s Houthis. It is too early to assess whether the protests and threat of US attack have changed that calculus, and information is limited, but official channels indicate there has been no correction.
Is change inevitable?
Talks between Iran and the US are not off the table. At the height of the protests, tensions escalated after President Trump hinted that he would attack Iran because of its brutal crackdown. But he toned down his comments after Gulf Arab states urged him to refrain from attacking Iran, fearing it would plunge the region into chaos.
On Thursday, President Trump suggested that channels between Washington and Tehran were open. “Iran wants dialogue and we will have dialogue,” he said in a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
But his comments come as the United States moves military assets to the Middle East, likely in an attempt to tie Iran to a stronger deal. “We have a large fleet heading in that direction and we probably won’t need to use them,” President Trump said Friday.
Still, if Iran ultimately makes significant concessions, it may be difficult to restore a sense of security and legitimacy. For many years, the implicit social contract between the Iranian people and the Iranian regime has been based on guaranteeing security at the expense of social and political freedoms. But that pillar of legitimacy was shattered by last year’s war with Israel, which killed at least 610 people in Iran in 12 days.
“The social contract between state and society has been in decline for decades in Iran, and the provision of security is now also in question due to the disruption of basic services over the past year due to the electricity and water crisis,” Shabani said. “To ensure its survival, the Islamic Republic faces the broader challenge of having to explain what it can offer its people and why it must survive.”
Azizi said a shift in the political system from clerical to military leadership has already begun, as the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, an elite force established after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, grows to become the most powerful economic and political actor in the country.
“After Khamenei’s death or removal, we will not see the Islamic Republic as we know it,” Azizi said.
“Whether that will give more impetus to people taking to the streets to initiate regime change, or whether it will lead to a Soviet-style regime change scenario in which the security establishment re-emerges in a different form, is an open question, but change is inevitable.”
