This comes as the White House convened meetings to examine additional offensive options against Iran, including intensifying economic pressure on the government, carrying out cyber operations, and stoking overt protests with the aim of toppling the regime. Within this escalatory context, President Trump signalled his readiness to support anti-government demonstrators in Iran, declaring that the era of negotiations with Tehran had come to an end. Iran, for its part, accuses the United States and Israel of exploiting the protests to fuel escalation against it, viewing these moves as an extension of the so-called “Twelve-Day War.” Tehran insists it is fully prepared to deter any attack on the country’s sovereignty or stability.
Washington, meanwhile, favours engineering a transformation of Iran’s political system through means short of direct military intervention, which it continues to treat as a last resort. Sceptics of a direct strike argue that such restraint is intended to avoid a repeat of the public rifts that preceded the US bombing of Iranian nuclear sites last June, an episode that deepened divisions among Trump’s own supporters over the wisdom of wading into yet another Middle Eastern conflict and over what his “America First” slogan truly entails. This helps explain Washington’s efforts to undermine the Iranian system without becoming entangled in a full-scale military war. On Monday, Trump imposed 25 per cent tariffs on countries that maintain trade relations with Iran, presenting economic coercion as a way to sidestep a broader military confrontation.
This approach unfolds amid a more sober awareness across the region of the dangers inherent in US policy toward Iran, whether through an outright military strike against the Iranian state or attempts to engineer regime change by inflaming protests. Gulf states, in particular, are working to bolster the option of negotiations between Tehran and Washington. Their concern is that the collapse of the Iranian government could trigger civil war, produce a failed state, or empower hardline factions. Given Iran’s substantial military capabilities, such outcomes could place the security of the entire region at risk, an assessment born out by past experiences, and one that has often unfolded without meaningful American or Israeli consideration for the interests of regional states or their populations.
Israel remains the principal, and arguably sole, beneficiary of such a war, and its most forceful advocate. Israeli pressure on the United States to confront Iran militarily is no longer discreet. The option of regime change has also gained real traction within the Israeli government, presented as an alternative path toward the same end. This objective goes beyond curbing Iran’s nuclear ambitions; it is aimed at crippling the Iranian state itself and degrading its military capabilities as a whole, in line with an openly articulated strategy to assert regional dominance across the Middle East.
At the same time, the protests unfolding in Iran today do not appear capable of toppling the political system, at least in the near term. That reality does little to dispel the spectre of a military confrontation with Iran under the prevailing American–Israeli outlook
The current wave of protests began in Tehran on 28th December 2025, sparked by public anger over the collapse of the rial and the deepening economic crisis, before spreading to other cities across the country. Iran is grappling with a clear economic breakdown, exacerbated by the most recent war and by the steady escalation of US-imposed economic sanctions that have been in place for years. The country’s economy remains heavily dependent on oil and gas, which account for roughly 80 per cent of its exports and about 30 per cent of national revenues, the very sector most aggressively targeted by the sanctions campaign. As a result, Iran’s GDP growth fell sharply, from 5.3 per cent in 2023 to just 0.6 per cent in 2025.
So far, these protests offer little indication that they could succeed in overturning Iran’s system of rule. Several factors reinforce this assessment, foremost among them the absence of a unifying public figure around whom protesters can rally, and the lack of a shared ideology or coherent strategy binding them together. This stands in sharp contrast to earlier moments of genuine political transformation in Iran, most notably the 1979 Islamic Revolution under the leadership of Ayatollah Khomeini. Today, there is no clear vision articulated by the protesters for a political order beyond the Islamic Republic. Nor do the various opposition currents, whether those backed by Washington, groups with Marxist leanings, or even the former shah’s heir, command broad popular support. On the contrary, many of these factions are viewed with suspicion and are often accused of betrayal rather than being embraced by the street.
The current protests are not an anomaly but part of a recurring protest cycle embedded in Iran’s political and social landscape. Iran has witnessed major protest waves in 1981, 1992, 1999, 2009, 2017, 2019, 2022, and most recently in 2026. Protest movements that emerged in the years following the triumph of the revolution point to the steady growth of dissent within Iranian society, at times taking on armed and violent forms in certain areas.
The principal driver behind these strikes and protests has consistently been inflation and economic decline, a dynamic that has become more acute in recent years largely due to Western sanctions. These protests are widely regarded as one of the clearest indicators of political instability within the Islamic Republic. Structurally, Iranian society is predisposed to protest, shaped by Shiite political culture and a deeply rooted revolutionary ethos. Protest itself is constitutionally protected under Article 27. Yet over the years, the government has managed these movements with relative success, often favouring containment over resolution, and relying primarily on security-based approaches rather than structural political solutions.
Trump’s calls on Iranian protesters to seize state institutions, pledging that “help is coming”, alongside direct threats of war against the Iranian government, reinforce this perception. On 6th January, Trump warned that the United States would “start shooting too” if the killing of Iranian demonstrators continued. Such statements have been widely read in Iran as confirmation that Washington’s declared objective, whether to sow internal discord among different segments of society or to wage a destructive war against the Islamic Republic, runs directly counter to Iranian interests, a conclusion shared by the overwhelming majority of the population.
Moreover, American and Israeli threats of war, particularly in the wake of the strikes that targeted Iran’s nuclear capabilities months ago, and Tehran’s decision not to escalate in response, have only sharpened public awareness of what many see as the true U.S.-Israeli agenda toward Iran: curbing it as a regional power and targeting its Shiite ideological foundation in particular. Against this backdrop, Iran’s leadership sought this week to reopen negotiations with Washington over the nuclear agreement. Trump, however, announced last Tuesday that he would not engage in any talks with them.
All of this must be weighed against the enduring capacities of the Iranian state itself. The government remains cohesive, firmly in control of the key levers of power, and capable of managing the core mechanics of the state. Authority is centralised across the security services, the judiciary, state media, and an institutionalised economy, alongside tight control over the internet and the channels through which communication and coordination take place within the country.
For these reasons, the Iranian system is likely to withstand the current wave of protests despite their escalation, unless meaningful fractures emerge from within the regime or among influential political elites with genuine popular credibility. Such a scenario remains unlikely for now, and largely implausible given the following factors.
Beyond the factors already noted, US actions against Venezuela, driven by an objective Trump has scarcely concealed, namely the desire to control its oil, have sounded alarm bells among Iranians. Few in Iran are willing to risk seeing their country’s energy resources stripped away under similar pretexts. This perception is further reinforced by the cautionary example of neighboring Iraq, where US-led intervention to overthrow the government, followed by occupation and the erosion of national sovereignty, plunged the country into a prolonged cycle of sectarian violence and instability, one from which Iraq has yet to fully recover, even more than two decades later. The weight of this last factor is especially evident in the positions taken by Iran’s Gulf neighbors, most notably Saudi Arabia, which has repeatedly warned of the dangers of the region sliding into war and chaos, outcomes that would threaten its own stability and jeopardise its long-term development projects.
It remains unlikely that the protests will bring down the Iranian system. Yet the prospect of a war with Iran cannot be ruled out, particularly in light of Israel’s determination. An Israeli military official recently described an attack on Iran as “inevitable” should the United States fail to secure an agreement that constrains Tehran’s ballistic missile program. That assessment reflects not only Israel’s leverage over American decision-making, but also the destabilizing trajectory of US foreign policy under Trump.
The growing warnings urging foreign nationals to leave Iran and neighboring countries point to heightened fears of an escalation toward war, even if they fall short of confirming that such a conflict is imminent. Those concerns are further underscored by the withdrawal of aircraft, naval assets, and special operations personnel from US Central Command, which oversees American forces in the Middle East, moves that suggest Pentagon unease over the possibility of an Iranian response to a potential US strike. Added to this are reports of internal Israeli preparations aimed at bracing for an Iranian counterattack following an initial blow. Against this backdrop, and after warning Washington against miscalculation, Iran threatened last Sunday to target Israel, as well as US military bases, facilities, and naval vessels across the region, should it come under American attack. These statements came as the protests entered their third week. Regional intelligence assessments increasingly warn that the prevailing climate of escalation and tension could, in itself, lead to war, even if US intentions stop short of a deliberate military assault, through a misjudgment, a cascade of reactions, or a secondary incident spiraling out of control. For now, however, there is no definitive indication that war is inevitable. Even if conflict aligns with Israeli interests and strategic preferences, the equation includes other actors for whom war is neither desirable nor advantageous, and whose interests lie in preventing it.
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