The Islamic Republic at the Breaking Point

The Islamic Republic has weathered many crises during its four and a half decades in power—from the turmoil of the 1979 revolution and the eight-year war with Iraq, to the student protests of the late 1990s, the Green Movement in 2009, the COVID-19 pandemic, and last year’s brief war with Israel. Yet none of these episodes brought the regime as close to collapse as Iran’s latest wave of protests, which have reportedly left thousands dead.

Though the regime appears to have regained control of the streets and forced protesters back into their homes, a central question remains: do these recent protests represent a crisis the regime cannot move past?

A Regime Under Pressure

To understand the stakes, it is important to note that the Islamic Republic is not behaving as if the crisis has ended. Iran has repeatedly shut down or severely restricted internet access nationwide. While connectivity has returned intermittently, millions of Iranians continue to experience communication blackouts, and contact between Iranians inside the country and those abroad remains diminished. The persistence of these restrictions suggests that the authorities do not view the crisis as resolved.

Amid Iran’s crackdown at home, the regional security outlook has darkened. The United States has expanded its military posture, deploying additional naval and air assets—including two aircraft carriers and F-35 fighters—to complement F-15 aircraft stationed in Jordan that can easily reach Iranian territory. This buildup has only heightened the regime’s sense of vulnerability. A potential U.S. strike that further degrades Iran’s military infrastructure could create conditions for protesters to return to the streets. In the short term, the crisis is far from over, and the Islamic Republic shows little sign of easing its repressive tactics. The more consequential question, however, concerns the long-term political damage wrought by the regime’s brutal crackdown on its own citizenry.

The Repercussions of Repression

The sheer scale of the repression makes a full recovery in the relationship between the state and its citizens difficult to imagine. According to the government’s  figures, at least 3,117 people have been killed. Human rights organizations, including the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists in Iran, place the number at approximately 6,872. Opposition and foreign-based media outlets, including Iran International, have reported vastly larger casualties ranging between 12,000 and 36,500. While the precise figure remains contested, all available estimates converge on one conclusion: at least several thousand Iranians have lost their lives at the hands of the government.

The magnitude of these losses becomes even more striking when compared to the June Iran–Israel war, in which the United States also participated. According to the Iranian government, roughly 1,100 Iranian citizens were killed during that conflict. Even the lowest protest death toll acknowledged by the state means that almost three times as many Iranians were killed during internal unrest than in a war involving foreign adversaries. This is not a trauma that can simply be absorbed or forgotten; the death toll will shape the regime’s legitimacy for years to come.

Another critical shift is that the Islamic Republic has crossed a political taboo it long sought to avoid. For decades, the regime deliberately ignored foreign-based opposition figures, especially the former crown prince Reza Pahlavi, because acknowledging him as a legitimate threat to the Republic could suggest that segments of Iranian society were turning toward the very order the clerical regime overthrew in 1979. While it remains difficult to measure Pahlavi’s true popularity or whether he would command majority support in Iran, street chants and growing international attention demonstrate that he has achieved one of the broadest and fastest-growing visibility levels among opposition figures.

By attacking Pahlavi through state media and propaganda—portraying him as a Western puppet or as an architect of instability—the Islamic Republic has acknowledged his political relevance. In doing so, it has also conceded that even after nearly half a century, it has failed to erase the legacy of the Shah from Iran’s political imagination. This alone constitutes a symbolic defeat for a movement dedicated to continual political revolution.

Beyond the Protests

The widespread nature of the most recent round of protests and the extraordinary measures required to suppress them have exposed the depth of Iran’s structural vulnerabilities—a widening gap between state and society, persistent economic hardship, elite corruption, and accumulated political resentment. These pressures have grown for years, and now appear to have reached a point of no return, leaving the Islamic Republic in one of its most fragile positions in decades.

It is not coincidental that Western rhetoric has also shifted. President Trump explicitly backed the protestors and has suggested that it may be time to consider regime change in Iran, while German Chancellor Friedrich Merz—the most outspoken Iran hawk among major European leaders—has warned that the Islamic Republic is approaching its end. Taken together, these signals indicate that the recent protests are increasingly viewed not as a temporary disturbance but as an existential challenge to the regime.

The Islamic Republic may have restored order on the surface, but the foundations of its authority have been profoundly shaken. The scale of casualties, the persistence of repression, the emergence of alternate political symbols by ordinary Iranians, and the convergence of internal unrest with external pressure all point to a prolonged period of instability. Even if protests do not re-emerge for some time, the crisis they revealed is unlikely to disappear. The question is no longer whether the Islamic Republic has survived the most recent bout of instability, but whether it can rebuild its legitimacy after unleashing unprecedented violence upon its own people.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of Gulf International Forum.