Iran in the Eye of the Storm: Domestic Protests and External Illusions

At a time when the world's attention is focused on the scenes of genocide in the Gaza Strip, Iran returns to the forefront of Western media narratives through the amplification of internal protests with economic roots, in a transparent attempt to confuse priorities and divert attention from the larger crime unfolding in Palestine.

While cities around the world are almost overflowing today with widespread waves of protest against what has happened and is happening in the Gaza Strip in a full-fledged war of genocide, the Western media machine, driven by American and Israeli political agendas, is working to shift the compass towards the Iranian interior, by amplifying the protests of an economic and social nature witnessed in some cities, and presenting them as a prelude to the collapse of the regime or the beginning of an imminent “revolution of change.”

There is nothing new in this scene; since the victory of its revolution in 1979, Iran has experienced repeated waves of protest, with varying motives and diverse causes, from student protests in the nineties, to demonstrations after the 2009 elections, then waves of high prices and unemployment in 2017 and 2019, leading to the social protests of 2022. In all those stations, the West bet on the scenario of internal explosion, and each time the bets failed, and the Iranian state remained cohesive, capable of absorbing shocks and readjusting its internal rhythm.

The current protests cannot be understood in isolation from the suffocating economic context that Iran has been experiencing for more than four decades, due to an American and Western economic sanctions regime that began in 1979, during which the Iranian economy was subjected to continuous pressure affecting the national currency, energy, banking, and foreign trade sectors, and restricting the state's ability to import and make financial transfers. This reality was directly reflected in the Iranian interior, in rising inflation and unemployment rates and a decline in the purchasing power of wide segments of society, which provided fertile ground for repeated economic and social protests. Nevertheless, despite the severity and prolonged nature of the sanctions, Iranian society has shown a remarkable ability to adapt and endure, while the state has succeeded in preventing these pressures from turning into a complete collapse or internal disintegration, which explains the repeated failure of Western bets on overthrowing the regime through the weapon of economics.

Despite the clarity of this context, the protests are being transformed into a “regime change project” with a familiar propaganda discourse, which is only invoked when the country concerned is outside of American obedience. The striking paradox is that the same scene is repeated in other countries without the same scenario being proposed; in the United States, major cities are witnessing massive demonstrations against policies supporting Benjamin Netanyahu's government in the war of annihilation in Gaza, as well as protests related to economic and social conditions, yet no one talks about the “fall of the American regime.” The same applies to Israel, where demonstrations against Netanyahu have not subsided due to corruption issues, security failures, and war crimes, without the option of overthrowing the regime being raised. Only when it comes to Iran, are the terms of collapse and chaos invoked.

Recent American history offers a profound lesson in the dangers of misreading Iran. In the late 1970s, during the crisis of the detention of American embassy staff in Tehran, the administration of President Jimmy Carter bet on military intervention to free the hostages in an operation intended to showcase American prestige, but it ended in a dismal failure in the Iranian desert, and became one of the most embarrassing pages in the history of American foreign policy, and directly contributed to the downfall of Carter himself. That experience confirmed that Iran has never been an easy arena for penetration or subjugation.

In the current context, the Israeli bet becomes clearer if Tel Aviv's failure to overthrow the Iranian regime through military option during the last strike, which it intended to send a decisive deterrent message and break existing power equations, is recalled. However, the Iranian response was devastating in its size and implications, revealing the fragility of the Israeli internal front, and inflicting unprecedented political, security, and economic losses, making the results of what was known as the “Twelve-Day War” ominous for Israel. From that moment, it became clear that the cost of direct military confrontation with Iran exceeds Israel's capacity to endure, and that its repetition might open doors that Tel Aviv cannot close.

From here, Netanyahu's government moved to search for less costly and more circuitous alternatives, based on exhausting the Iranian interior, or betting on escalating internal tensions by amplifying protests and mobilizing political, media, and intelligence tools, hoping to achieve what planes and missiles failed to do. In this context, the fundamental question arises as to whether Israel is actually betting on overthrowing the Iranian regime through demonstrations, or is it seeking, in a more dangerous option, to involve the United States in an open war with Iran, in which Israel would be the primary beneficiary without bearing the costs of direct confrontation alone.

In conclusion, the protests in Iran are not an isolated event from a turbulent regional and international context, nor can they be separated from frantic attempts to reshuffle the cards after the failure of the military option to break or subjugate Iran. Just as long-term sanctions failed to bring down the state from within, military strikes failed to impose new equations in favor of Israel, shifting the bets to more circuitous and dangerous paths. However, experience confirms that these bets, like their predecessors, are doomed to failure, and that Iran – despite pressures and challenges – will remain an active regional player, capable of repairing what has been damaged and strengthening its alliances. The clearest truth, which Western propaganda tries to obscure, is that no artificial crisis in Tehran can hide the ongoing genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza.