This week is crucial in terms of the protests. Many issues are coming together at the same time as Iran’s regime seeks to ride out the challenge.
Iran has pursued a variety of policies since protests broke out in late December. It initially sought to ignore the protests, hoping they would come and go after several days. After that didn’t work, it sought to distract from them by spotlighting its foreign policy, such as meetings in Lebanon and with Omani officials. Now it has moved into the killing stage, massacring thousands of people.
This is a very typical response by the regime. It is what has enabled the regime to survive many protest rounds in the past. The regime is not a monolith, and it is not so inflexible that it breaks under pressure. What that means is that Iran’s regime knows its limitations.
It knows it can’t control everything. It also knows that large numbers of people dislike the government. It knows it has a hard time controlling areas in the periphery where minorities live, such as southeast Iran’s Baloch areas and the area of Kurds, Arabs, and Azeris in the west.
Iran’s response is often to let protests run their course for days or weeks and then massacre people. In this case, Iran is under a larger amount of pressure because it was weakened by the 12-day war in the summer of 2025. Ostensibly, Iran lost some of its nuclear program and some of its ballistic missile capabilities. However, the regime attempts to paper over this and claim that it is unfazed. As such, the regime is able to portray itself as largely unchanging and unwilling to change.
What has happened over the weekend, in the last several days, is that Iran is also calling what it assumes is a US bluff. While US President Donald Trump has indicated support for the protesters and warned Iran against killing people, it is clear that Tehran does not take this seriously.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei attends a mourning ceremony for the deaths of Iranian military commanders and scientists, who were killed in Iran’s 12-day war with Israel, in Tehran, Iran, July 29, 2025 (credit: Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/West Asia News Agency/Reuters)
Iran has been correct so far that it can avoid US action. This may change
It assumes that if it does the killing in the dark, without internet connections and cut off from the world, then the US won’t act because there won’t be easy images to hang US action on. So far, Iran has been correct in this analysis. However, a change may be coming. Iran is gambling that by the time the US does act, the protests will be over and many will have been killed.
This is Iran’s game plan. It performed the early aspects according to its well-known script. It sought to do nothing and initially downplayed the protests. Then it unlimbered the methods of oppression, cutting off the internet and making the country essentially go dark, as it began a massive crackdown.
Now Iran is also calling for countries not to intervene. Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, held a telephone conversation with his French counterpart, Jean-Noel Barrot, to condemn any interference in Iran’s internal affairs, according to the pro-Iran Al-Mayadeen channel on January 14.
This is an example of how Iran is seeking to warn against any US action or foreign intervention. Iran is also apparently doing outreach to other countries, such as the Gulf, possibly to discuss mediation and also to see if it can get countries in the Gulf, which are close friends with the US, to warn the US against any kind of action.
Iran will play the “destabilization” card, claiming that if the regime is weakened, then instability will flow around the region, harming Pakistan, Turkey, and the Gulf states.
As such, countries such as Turkey, Pakistan, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia appear very concerned about any US action regarding Iran. All those countries are key US partners and allies. This is why this week is so crucial in terms of the protests. Many issues are coming together at the same time as Iran’s regime seeks to ride out the challenge.
