No one in the region or the world wants to see Iran fragment or disintegrate, not out of sympathy for the regime but because the collapse of a state as large as Iran would not be a containable domestic affair. It would be a geopolitical earthquake whose aftershocks would reverberate across the entire Middle East: from energy markets to border security, from trade routes to spheres of influence. The region is already exhausted by wars and cannot withstand another upheaval of this magnitude, indeed, the fragility of stability seen in late 2025 heightens anxieties over the Iranian situation.
Anxiety is not enough to contain the protests or address their causes. Merely fearing Iran’s collapse and betting on an end to the crisis through repression ignores a fundamental fact: something has changed in Iran. The authorities may not fall immediately, but the phase Iran has entered will leave a deep mark on the nature of governance and balances between the state and the street.
These protests are unlike those that had come before. Not only because they have spread across the country and intensified, but because they erupted at a sensitive moment for the regime. They coincide with the regime’s declining ability to exploit foreign arenas following the collapse of its network of proxies, and with its shrinking capacity to “export the crisis,” a tactic it had long used to channel domestic pressure into political and security mobilization.
The regime must now confront the domestic arena with tools that are less effective and more costly. The authorities have lost their aura of the eyes of its people after the US–Israeli strikes that hit its air defenses and inflicted serious damage on the nuclear project, fueling a sense that the “state of strength and capability” had failed to protect its security in the symbolic sense. This is no minor detail: regimes that build their legitimacy on “protection” pay double when their fragility is exposed.
The economy is the deadly choke point: suffocating living conditions and sanctions have deepened Iran’s isolation and stood in the way recovery, laying bare a truth the regime had long concealed: the only way passes through an understanding with Washington, a settlement that eases sanctions, revives the economy, and reconnects Iran to the global financial system. The crisis is structural, not contingent. Acknowledging this reality would mean making concessions that undermine the regime’s founding narrative around confrontation, its regional role, and its governance model.
What is most dangerous about the protests is their quality, not their size: they are breaking the regime’s taboos. The “Guardianship of the Jurist” has come under attack after its failures at home and abroad and revolutionary symbols and icons are being condemned. The protest in opposition to policies has become a challenge to the regime’s legitimacy. For the first time, the opposition in the diaspora has had a strong presence, particularly with the rise of Reza Pahlavi as the figurehead of the movement for some on the street.
These developments are unfolding under Donald Trump, who does not behave like the guarantor of the international order and prefers maximum pressure and rule-breaking over traditional diplomatic tools. This keeps options open. We could see direct or indirect intervention, or at least to an intensification of the siege aimed at extracting concessions and breaking the deadlock in negotiations that have not truly stopped, even if the framing has changed.
Whether foreign actors intervene or not, and whether the authorities succeed in containing the current wave or fail, one thing remains certain: Iran will not be the same after these protests. Different scenarios are possible, but the fragmentation of the state will not be allowed, which explains the US hesitation to intervene. A settlement driven by pillars of the regime who do not want to sacrifice gains they had accumulated over decades (and who understand that they must offer painful concessions to save themselves by easing sanctions, returning to the international community, and reaching understandings with the West) is most likely.
This may also entail a change in the composition of power in favor of a pragmatic faction which understands that the state cannot be saved by force alone. Such a path could be accompanied by a process of national reconciliation or a government of national unity including opposition figures or independents if domestic and foreign pressure continues to grow.
Neither immediate collapse nor rosy reform are likely. Rather, we will probably witness a long and painful transition. These protests are not isolated incidents; they signal that the era of governing by slogans is about to end and that Iran (with its size, history, and diversity) cannot afford a perpetual rupture with the world. The question is no longer whether the protests will end, but what kind of Iran will emerge from them and how it will redefine itself to a people who no longer fear the authorities, a changing world, and a region worn down by instability.
