Understanding the protests in Iran—why this moment feels different from past uprisings, how the regime is responding, and the implications for global security—requires careful attention to the country’s domestic dynamics and broader strategic considerations.
The Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and the Institute of Politics at HKS recently held a panel discussion on Friday on these issues. Moderated by Ned Price, interim co-director of the IOP, the event featured Lina Khatib, visiting scholar at the Belfer Center’s Middle East Initiative; Phil Gordon, the Sydney Stein, Jr., Scholar at the Brookings Institution; Mike Singh, the managing director and Lane-Swig senior fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy; and Holly Dagres, the Libitzky Family senior fellow at The Washington Institute's Viterbi Program on Iran and U.S. Policy.
Below are excerpts from each panelist, lightly edited for length and clarity. The full discussion, Iran on the Brink? Examining U.S. Intentions and Regional Implications, is available online.
Holly Dagres: The bravery of Iranian youth
Human rights activists in Iran have documented 2,500 killed and over 22,000 arrested, but there’s credible documentation that says that number’s actually around 12,000 with CBS reporting that it could be as high as 20,000.
Before communication shut down, we saw extraordinary bravery caught on video and photos of Iranians. It’s bravery we’ve seen from them time and time again over the years.
On October 29th, there was this one Iranian man whose head was covered, and he sat on the ground with his jacket pulled over as security forces faced him. This visual went viral amongst Iranians. They compared it to “Tank Man” in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. But what many people didn’t see in the West, but I saw and posted on my own social media accounts, was that Iranians were trying to show solidarity with the protest, not just by taking the street, but online. They were using a song called “Preparation for War,” which was written for the Iran-Iraq war, in their own social media feeds. Some were using it as a subtle act of protest.
While these protests started in the bazaars, triggered by the collapse of the Iranian rial, they seemingly have been led by Iranian Gen Z youth between the ages of 14 and 29. What really makes them unique is that they’re part of a truly globalized generation. They were the first to be born with social media and the internet at their fingertips. They listen to Taylor Swift and K-pop.
I’ve heard a lot [about how much of the protests are being instigated by external forces]. It’s been really disappointing to hear. Some media outlets and academics comment that this is an Israel-U.S. backed uprising, that maybe these people are being paid by Western countries to go out in the streets. I think that’s insulting, and it denies the Iranian people agency. They have been out on the streets for years now in cyclical protests. If they had their way, they would have ousted the Islamic Republic years ago. I have met some of those former protestors who have had to flee the country to Europe or the United States. In the most recent uprising in 2022, protestors were systemically blinded, and apparently that’s happening right now. I’ve met some of these kids. They’re gym trainers, they’re students. They are ordinary Iranians just asking for freedom.
Phil Gordon: Options for the United States
President Trump has made his own task a little bit harder with his approach over the last couple of weeks. Two weeks ago, he was very clearly saying that if Iran shoots at and kills protestors, the United States will rescue them. And then just this week, he came forward again, calling on [the Iranian people] to take the institutions and keep protesting and saying that help is on the way.
It seems that threat to the regime didn’t work. They used violent force on the protesters, and the U.S. has yet to respond. To the degree that this actually inspired the people to rise up and try to take the institutions, then there’s a bit of U.S. responsibility for urging them on. It feels like George H.W. Bush in 1991 telling the Iraqi people to take things in their own hands.
I think the options [for the U.S.] are quite narrow now, especially in terms of the credibility of this president’s word, having gone out there and called on the people to rise up. Either he backs down, or you go ahead and use force. But that raises a real question of what you are trying to accomplish with that force. I would say right now that both of those options are still on the table.
I fear that those who would come out on top are not the peaceful protesters and democrats we would want to see, but the people with arms. I wrote a book about regime change in the Middle East and the broader Middle East. Whether it’s Afghanistan or Iraq or Libya or Syria, there is not a case where outside intervention led to a smooth democratic transition.
This regime is doomed and ultimately the people will replace it, but it usually takes longer than you would like. As weak as they are right now, they still have the guns and the determination to hold onto power as they showed us so tragically over the past week.
“The change in the domestic scene, military activity, the economic suffocation of Iran, and the lack of external support will lead us to a very different Middle East further down the line.”
Mike Singh: Keeping the focus on the Iranian people
We need to remember this is not a story about the United States. Every foreign policy issue right now seems as though it’s about the United States because we’re very loud and we’re very active. But this is really about the Iranian people. And it’s the continuation of what has been a long-running display of the Iranian people’s real disillusionment and dissatisfaction with their regime. What we’re seeing in Iran is very similar to what we have been seeing in Saudi Arabia, except you have a very different kind of government.
In Saudi Arabia, the government is looking to harness the interest of their younger population, and in Iran the government is trying to stifle that and repress it.
From the perspective of the West or the international community, the first thing to do is to take advice from Hippocrates and first do no harm. Don’t do anything that could interfere with the Iranian population’s ability to effect change in their own country.
There are some other options which the U.S. should be engaging in, and hopefully we are engaging in behind the scenes: Actual support to the protestors.
Can we, for example, help them to overcome the blockage of the internet by using communications tools and technology? Can we help them through financial means? Can we ensure that, for example, the diaspora can continue sending funds to protesters, especially those who are out of work or not able to get to their jobs because of what’s going on in the country? What can we do to directly support the protesters?
We’ve hamstrung ourselves in the past by worrying that this would somehow discredit the Iranian protestors, but I think the question is: Discredit them in the eyes of whom? The regime already calls them agents of the West. That’s just an excuse for inaction. There are options, yet none of them are decisive. The decisive action lies in the hands of the Iranian people, not in the hands of the United States or any other country.
Lina Khatib: Regional dynamics
I wrote in Time Magazine that the Iranian regime may be taking its last breaths and has no one to turn to, and the argument still holds. The Iranian regime is even weaker now than it was when I wrote that piece few months ago. I predict that it will eventually collapse because there is no way for a regime that has not changed its playbook to survive when the circumstances around it have shifted radically.
What we are seeing at play, unfortunately, is the extreme violence that the Iranian regime is inflicting on the Iranian people. This is the Iranian regime’s way of dealing with dissent, and to expect it to do something different would be fantasy.
We saw this at play when the uprising in Syria happened. Iran advised Bashar al-Assad, the president of Syria at the time, to crack down with violence just as Iran had done in 2009 when it cracked down on the Green movement. We now look at a very different Iran from 2011 or even just three years ago, before October 7, 2023. The Iran that we have today is ruled by a regime that has no outside friends. Russia and China, for example, did not replenish Iran’s air defense system after Israel attacked it. They have not jumped to Iran’s rescue economically. There is no other country that is going to help Iran militarily. Iran calls its allies, in the shape of its proxies, the “axis of resistance.”
This is a group of militias like Hezbollah in Lebanon and others that Iran had used to extend its influence in the region. They are all very weak right now and unable to rally to Iran’s rescue. Even if ordered to act, they will not be very effective. Iran is quite isolated when it comes to these so-called allies and partners, and this makes it very vulnerable.
When it comes to regional actors, we have seen what happened with Qatar, with both Israel and Iran attacking Qatari territory. The last thing Qatar wants—and it’s the same for other Arab Gulf countries—is to be caught in the crossfire. Their approach has been to distance themselves from what is going on and publicly issue messages that emphasize that they do not want to be involved in military action against Iran and that their preferred way is diplomacy.
After the horrific October 7 attack, I feel Israel will no longer put up with having this Iranian threat continue. I think the story right now has reached a pause.
We should not focus so much on what we are hearing in the public domain in terms of messaging. What we should really be waiting for is to see the next phase. The change in the domestic scene, military activity, the economic suffocation of Iran, and the lack of external support will lead us to a very different Middle East further down the line.
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Banner photo by Ameer Al-Mohammedawi/picture alliance via Getty Images