The Unrest in Iran

National Review Online

Monday, January 05, 2026

 

What’s known as the Arab Spring was initially set off by the self-immolation of a Tunisian street vendor protesting against harassment by local officials. Authoritarian regimes are typically strong, but they can often be surprisingly brittle too. Having no easy way to deal with discontent other than by repression, they can prove vulnerable if some event or circumstance finally acts as a trigger to persuade an unhappy population to turn on its rulers. And the greater the degree of control exerted by a regime, the greater the responsibility it will be seen to bear when things go wrong.

 

In Iran, the economy has gone very wrong indeed. The current unrest began in Tehran with shopkeepers and bazaaris, the latter a merchant class traditionally supportive of the regime, closing their doors as a protest against a further collapse in Iran’s already collapsed currency, the rial. It has fallen by about 60 percent against the dollar since the war with Israel in June. Annual inflation was over 40 percent in December. Food inflation is approaching twice that. GDP is turning down, and public services are increasingly unreliable. Decades of corruption, mismanagement, and sanctions and the emigration, imprisonment, or murder of many of Iran’s best and brightest have all had their effect.

 

History would suggest that the protests would not be confined to the economy, and history would be right. There have been calls for regime change, greater freedom, and even (by some) for the return of the monarchy. They have been backed by a wave of demonstrations across much of the country, and it appears to be gathering in strength. So far, the unrest has yet to exceed that seen in 2022–23 after the death of Mahsa Amini, a young woman savagely beaten for “improperly” wearing a hijab. In the end, those protests petered out, their momentum broken by the regime’s violent response and by mass arrests, a melancholy story that has been repeated over the years.

 

Will the outcome be any different now? The best guess, unless the current spontaneous protests can cohere into something more organized, is no. The regime is responding with vaguely conciliatory admissions (how could it do otherwise?) that some of the complaints about the economy are valid. But it has not abandoned its time-tested repertoire of threats, talk of external enemies, and the use of force. Precise numbers are impossible to come by, but hundreds have already been arrested, dozens have been injured, and the death toll so far has either crossed double figures or is coming close to it. That ratchet will continue to turn: There are no signs of any cracks opening in Iran’s formidable internal security apparatus.

 

There is no chance, however, that a Trump White House will repeat the mistakes made by the Obama administration, which allowed hopes of a deal with the mullahs to lead it to rein in its support for the massive unrest that followed rigged Iranian elections in 2009. On the other hand, President Trump’s threat that the U.S. is “locked and loaded” and ready to come to the rescue in the event that the regime kills peaceful protesters is hard to credit. Iran is not Venezuela.

 

Nevertheless, the administration should continue to make it clear that its sympathies lie with the protesters. Moreover, while remaining mindful that Tehran is skilled at smearing its opponents as agents of foreign powers, it should supply what covert support it can to opposition elements while waiting to see what unfolds. And if circumstances warrant, it should press harder. There should be no question of relaxing sanctions. If this crisis offers any opportunities to disrupt Iran’s rebuilding of its nuclear program or its networks throughout the Middle East, they should be taken.

 

For now, there is not much we can do but hope. Not content with ruining the lives of its own people, Iran’s malevolent theocracy has spread misery far beyond its borders, and it has every intention of continuing to do so. It would be best if it were gone.