Developments in Iran have been evolving rapidly since late December 2025, taking a dangerous direction that cannot be reduced to “livelihood grievances.”
The current wave of protests seems like a serious test for the political system, not only because the streets have filled but also because the very rules of the game have shifted profoundly. When the players on the domestic stage - the authorities, protesters, wavering elites, coercive apparatuses, and corruption networks - change, the dispute goes from being a debate over prices to a challenge of the state model as a whole.
Here, the significance of the location is greater than that of slogans. This time, Tehran’s Grand Bazaar lit the fuse. It is not merely a market but a node in the social contract underpinning the regime. The bazaar’s role has shifted from being a social “release valve” to becoming the very “stage of protest,” signaling that the economy is no longer a neutral arena, and that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corp’s dominance over trade and finance has pushed small and medium businesses to the margins and left them unable to withstand inflation and sanctions.
Thus, the conflict advances from the periphery to the core: the core of revenues, interest networks, and legitimacy.
Iran’s fragility is compounded by recent memories. The June 2025 war, as well as the subsequent US strikes targeting Iranian nuclear facilities, created a massive rupture. Not only did it undermine Iran’s deterrence; it also repudiated the regime’s triumphant national legitimizing narrative.
Domestically, it has become difficult to market Iran’s proxies as a successful investment when citizens see the state failing to protect the country with those proxies effectively finished.
Applying game theory, possessing deterrence is not enough; they must be credible in the eyes of others, both domestically and externally. The war broadly shed doubt about Iran’s "credibility and commitment".
Then came the media blackout, further complicating assessment. While the near-total internet shutdown disrupts popular coordination, it also amplifies rumors and prevents the formation of “shared common knowledge” that would allow for a peaceful exit from the crisis. In crises, a lack of information can be no less dangerous than excessive information, and a single major breach or image can flip survival expectations, turning obedience into hesitation, and hesitation into contagion.
Nonetheless, the regime still possesses a solid base underpinned by rents, ideology, and elite cohesion. Rent flows persist through oil revenues that line the pockets of the regime and the IRGC, but it is sanctioned rent whose capacity to buy loyalty has shrunk under the weight of sanctions, war damage, and currency collapse.
While ideology continues to mobilize the core of the regime’s base and justify repression, it is eroding as the economy and services, as well as national deterrence, decline. Elite cohesion, despite factional differences, appears durable for now, as Iranian elites prefer “organized repression” to chaotic collapse.
Here, the paradox of power comes into play: repression secures temporary control, but grievances that fuel implosion down the line. While protesters have latent power through strikes, revenue disruption, and the depletion of “loyalty capital,” they are weakened by poor organization and limited commitment in the absence of unified leadership and a credible vision for the day after, hindering those who are hesitant from taking to the streets.
The decisive factor remains the “agents” on the ground: the security services. The relationship between the leadership and field operatives is a classic “principal–agent” dynamic; the higher the personal cost (economically, in future prospects, and reputationally), the greater the likelihood of discontent. That is, the equilibrium does not typically collapse due to the sheer number of protesters alone but also because confidence of survival within the system erodes.
Experience shows that direct military intervention at the peak of protests serves the regime’s nationalist narratives, whereas soft tools - supporting communications, targeted sanctions, and multilateral pressure - allow protests to grow without granting the authorities the pretext of fighting the “enemy.” In the background, Russia plays the role of “regime stabilizer,” diplomatically and in terms of security, while keeping its options open in anticipation of sudden change.
Over the next 6 to 18 months, developments could follow one of four trajectories, and we can estimate the probability of each one: short-term containment with chronic instability (about 55 percent); a managed transition through elite splits, with difficult guarantees (about 25 percent); accelerated collapse amid broad defections from security apparatuses (about 10 percent); and the escalating internationalization of the crisis that entangled foreign actors (about 10 percent).
Accordingly, we can say that Iran is currently on a path of transformation in which time, not slogans, will be the most ruthless and decisive player.
