Iran at the Breaking Point: Protest Dynamics and Plausible Scenarios Ahead

Iran has entered one of the most consequential moments in its modern political history. What began in late December as protests driven by the collapse of the national currency and soaring inflation has rapidly transformed into a nationwide confrontation over political legitimacy, sovereignty, and the future of the state. The breadth, persistence, and radicalisation of the current demonstrations distinguish them sharply from previous waves of unrest. For the first time since 1979, large segments of Iranian society are openly articulating the end of the Islamic Republic not as a slogan of protest, but as a political inevitability.

The demonstrations have spread across dozens of cities and provinces, encompassing the capital, provincial centres, ethnic minority regions, and historically regime-aligned constituencies such as bazaar merchants. This geographical and social diffusion has undermined the authorities’ long-standing narrative that unrest is confined to marginal groups or externally manipulated actors. The protest movement reflects an accumulated exhaustion with intersecting crises: economic collapse, political repression, environmental degradation, corruption, and a pervasive sense of stolen futures. These pressures have converged into a collective judgement that the existing system is structurally incapable of renewal.

At the centre of the regime’s response stands Ali Khamenei, whose first public remarks following the largest protests reaffirmed a familiar and uncompromising posture. He offered no concession, no acknowledgment of political responsibility, and no signal of reform. Instead, he doubled down on a worldview forged during the Islamic Revolution and reinforced over four decades: that concession equals collapse. In this logic, the Shah’s downfall remains the ultimate cautionary tale. As a result, dialogue is framed as weakness, dissent as foreign sabotage, and repression as existential defence. This ideological rigidity explains why a growing number of Iranians have concluded that the Islamic Republic cannot be reformed from within.

The regime’s operational response has combined selective restraint with escalating coercion. In Tehran, where the symbolic and international costs of mass bloodshed are highest, security forces initially appeared unusually cautious, avoiding direct confrontation with enormous crowds. Outside the capital, however, repression has been swift and lethal. Verified reports from western and Kurdish-majority provinces describe live fire, mass arrests, and rising casualties. This asymmetry is not accidental; it reflects a calculated effort to manage visibility while suppressing momentum where scrutiny is lower.

A defining feature of the current crackdown has been the near-total communications blackout. Internet access, mobile networks, landlines, banking systems, and even satellite communications have been disrupted simultaneously. This represents a qualitative escalation in the regime’s use of “internet warfare,” aimed not only at disrupting protest coordination but also at isolating society psychologically and monopolising the narrative. Past experience suggests that such blackouts often coincide with intensified violence, heightening fears that repression may deepen further as information flows remain constrained.

External pressure has added a volatile layer to the regime’s calculations. Donald Trump has repeatedly warned that the United States would respond forcefully if Iranian authorities engage in mass killings of protesters. These statements, delivered against the backdrop of last year’s direct US-Israeli strikes on Iranian nuclear sites and the regional weakening of Tehran’s allies, have injected deterrence without clarity. The result has been strategic ambiguity: enough pressure to influence behaviour in high-visibility areas, but insufficient commitment to offer protesters a clear sense of protection or outcome. This ambiguity appears to have encouraged a strategy of delay by Tehran—buying time, exhausting demonstrators, and calibrating repression below thresholds that might provoke external intervention.

Within this fluid environment, the opposition landscape remains fragmented and largely leaderless by design. Decades of repression have eliminated institutional opposition inside the country, while exile politics have struggled to coalesce into a unified alternative. Yet legitimacy has unmistakably shifted to the streets. Protesters are no longer waiting for authorised representatives; they are asserting political agency directly.

It is in this vacuum that Reza Pahlavi has re-emerged as a highly visible and deeply polarising figure. Chants invoking his name reflect less a mass endorsement of monarchy than a symbolic rejection of the present system and a search for recognisable leadership. Pahlavi’s insistence that he does not seek coronation, but rather a transitional role leading to a referendum, underscores this ambiguity. At the same time, other figures—political prisoners, civil society activists, technocrats, and professionals—are widely viewed as potential contributors to a post-Islamic Republic order, should conditions allow them to act.

Against this backdrop, several broad scenarios are now being actively debated by analysts and actors alike. The first is an escalation of repression. In this trajectory, the regime concludes that force is the only remaining instrument of control, deploying the full weight of the security apparatus, including the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, to crush dissent. Such an outcome might restore surface order in the short term, but it would deepen the regime’s legitimacy crisis, intensify internal fractures, and store up the conditions for future upheaval.

A second scenario centres on internal consolidation around the security establishment. Faced with sustained unrest and an ageing supreme leader, the system could tilt further toward overt or de facto dominance by the Revolutionary Guards. This path could lead either to heightened confrontation with external powers or to a pragmatic bargain aimed at preserving elite survival through significant shifts in foreign and security policy. Either way, it would mark a fundamental transformation of the Islamic Republic’s character, even if its name endured.

A third possibility involves systemic mutation after the departure of Khamenei. Whether through succession or negotiated adjustment, new leadership figures might seek to stabilise the country through controlled change. Yet the texts consistently suggest that incremental reform within a theological framework fundamentally disconnected from society has exhausted its credibility. Any post-Khamenei continuity would therefore still represent an irreversible break from the past, not a return to equilibrium.

The fourth, and increasingly discussed, scenario moves beyond the Islamic Republic altogether. In this trajectory, political transition emerges outside the regime’s institutional framework, driven by sustained popular mobilisation and elite fragmentation. This path carries both opportunity and risk. Iran possesses resilient state institutions, deep human capital, and a powerful attachment to territorial integrity, all of which could facilitate a managed transition. At the same time, unresolved ethnic tensions, secessionist movements, economic collapse, and external interference pose serious dangers if the process becomes violent or chaotic.

What unites these scenarios is a shared recognition that Iran has crossed a threshold. The Islamic Republic may still command coercive power, but its foundational myths—protection from war, moral governance, revolutionary legitimacy—have been punctured by events over the past year. Missiles striking Iranian cities, economic freefall, and the spectacle of a leadership isolated from its own society have stripped away the aura of invincibility that once sustained the system.

The central risk now is not collapse per se, but an unmanaged transition shaped by fear, fragmentation, or external agendas rather than Iranian agency. For international actors, particularly those claiming to support the Iranian people, the challenge will be to balance pressure on the regime with a clear commitment to Iran’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. For Iranians themselves, the task ahead is unprecedented: to transform mass rejection into a credible political future.

Iran has entered a liminal moment once imagined but rarely believed possible. The outcome remains uncertain, but one conclusion is increasingly difficult to avoid. As a political project capable of commanding consent, the Islamic Republic has reached its end. The struggle that now unfolds is over what replaces it, and whether that transformation can occur without sacrificing the country’s cohesion, dignity, and future.