Nationwide protests in Iran sparked by the Islamic Republic’s ailing economy are putting recent pressure on its theocracy, which has responded with a deadly crackdown and shutting down the web.
Tehran remains to be reeling from a 12-day war launched by Israel in June that saw the USA bomb nuclear sites in Iran. Economic pressure, which has intensified since September when the United Nations reimposed sanctions on the country over its atomic program, has sent Iran’s rial currency right into a free fall, now trading at over 1.4 million to US$1.
Meanwhile, Iran’s self-described “Axis of Resistance” — a coalition of nations and militant groups backed by Tehran — has been decimated for the reason that start of the Israel-Hamas war in 2023.
U.S. President Donald Trump has warned that if Tehran “violently kills peaceful protesters” the U.S. “will come to their rescue” — a threat that has taken on recent meaning after American troops captured Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro, a longtime ally of Tehran.
“We’re watching it very closely,” Trump has warned. “In the event that they start killing people like they’ve up to now, I believe they’re going to get hit very hard by the USA.”
Here’s what to know in regards to the protests and the challenges facing Iran’s government.
Greater than 600 protests have taken place across all of Iran’s 31 provinces, the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency reported Tuesday. The death toll has reached at the very least 646, it said, with greater than 10,700 arrests. The group relies on an activist network inside Iran for its reporting and has been accurate in past unrest.
The Iranian government has not offered overall casualty figures for the demonstrations. The Associated Press has been unable to independently assess the toll, on condition that the web is blocked in Iran. Iranians could dial abroad with their mobile phones Tuesday after restrictions were lifted.
Understanding the dimensions of the protests has been difficult. Iranian state media has provided little information in regards to the demonstrations. Online videos offer only temporary, shaky glimpses of individuals within the streets or the sound of gunfire.
Journalists typically in Iran also face limits on reporting resembling requiring permission to travel across the country, in addition to the specter of harassment or arrest by authorities. The web shutdown has further complicated the situation.
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However the protests don’t seem like stopping, even after Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said “rioters should be put of their place.”
The collapse of the rial has led to a widening economic crisis in Iran. Prices are up on meat, rice and other staples of the Iranian dinner table. The nation has been scuffling with an annual inflation rate of some 40%.
In December, Iran introduced a brand new pricing tier for its nationally subsidized gasoline, raising the value of a few of the world’s least expensive gas and further pressuring the population. Tehran may seek steeper price increases in the longer term, as the federal government now will review prices every three months. Meanwhile, food prices are expected to spike after Iran’s Central Bank in recent days ended a preferential, subsidized dollar-rial exchange rate for all products except medicine and wheat.
The protests began in late December with merchants in Tehran before spreading. While initially focused on economic issues, protesters soon began chanting anti-government statements as well. Anger has been simmering through the years, particularly after the 2022 death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in police custody that triggered nationwide demonstrations.
Some have chanted in support of Iran’s exiled Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, who has called for protests.
Iran’s “Axis of Resistance,” which grew in prominence within the years after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq, is reeling.
Israel has crushed Hamas within the devastating war within the Gaza Strip. Hezbollah, the Shiite militant group in Lebanon, has seen its top leadership killed by Israel and has been struggling since. A lightning offensive in December 2024 overthrew Iran’s longtime stalwart ally and client in Syria, President Bashar Assad, after years of war there. Yemen’s Iranian-backed Houthi rebels even have been pounded by Israeli and U.S. airstrikes.
China meanwhile has remained a serious buyer of Iranian crude oil, but hasn’t provided overt military support. Neither has Russia, which has relied on Iranian drones in its war on Ukraine.
Iran has insisted for many years that its nuclear program is peaceful. Nonetheless, its officials have increasingly threatened to pursue a nuclear weapon. Before the U.S. attack in June, Iran had been enriching uranium to close weapons-grade levels, making it the one country on the earth and not using a nuclear weapons program to achieve this.
Tehran also increasingly in the reduction of its cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog, as tensions increased over its nuclear program in recent times. The IAEA’s director-general has warned that Iran could construct as many as 10 nuclear bombs should it resolve to weaponize its program.
U.S. intelligence agencies have assessed that Iran has yet to start a weapons program, but has “undertaken activities that higher position it to supply a nuclear device, if it chooses to achieve this.”
Iran recently said it was not enriching uranium at any site within the country, attempting to signal to the West that it stays open to potential negotiations over its atomic program to ease sanctions. But there have been no significant talks within the months for the reason that June war.
Iran many years ago was one among the USA’ top allies within the Mideast under Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who purchased American military weapons and allowed CIA technicians to run secret listening posts monitoring the neighboring Soviet Union. The CIA fomented a 1953 coup that cemented the shah’s rule.
But in January 1979, the shah fled Iran as mass demonstrations swelled against his rule. Then got here the Islamic Revolution led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, which created Iran’s theocratic government.
Later that 12 months, university students overran the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, searching for the shah’s extradition and sparking the 444-day hostage crisis that saw diplomatic relations between Iran and the U.S. severed.
Throughout the Iran-Iraq war of the Nineteen Eighties, the U.S. backed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. During that conflict, the U.S. launched a one-day assault that crippled Iran at sea as a part of the so-called “Tanker War,” and later shot down an Iranian business airliner that the U.S. military said it mistook for a warplane.
Iran and the U.S. have seesawed between enmity and grudging diplomacy within the years since. Relations peaked with the 2015 nuclear deal, which saw Iran greatly limit its program in exchange for the lifting of sanctions. But Trump unilaterally withdrew America from the accord in 2018, sparking tensions within the Mideast that intensified after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel.