Iran regime ‘cornered’ and ‘extremely vulnerable’ as deadly protests spread

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We’ve been here before. Massive demonstrations across Iran rattling the foundations of the Islamic state, with protesters risking the wrath of an unforgiving regime, while a watching world wonders if they’ll topple a decades-old theocracy.

They haven’t in the past.  

But as the current protests — which began as a strike over Iran’s failing economy — near the two-week mark and continue to spread with a rising death toll, some believe Iran’s ruling clerics are facing an unprecedented threat, in part because of U.S. President Donald Trump’s moves on Venezuela. 

“Iran is now in the eye of the storm,” said Fawaz Gerges, Middle East analyst and professor of international relations at London’s School of Economics and Political Science. 

“The big lesson out of the fall of the Venezuelan regime is not Colombia, not Greenland,” he said. “The Iranians know that Iran is the next target. Not only of the Trump administration, but also of the Benjamin Netanyahu government [in Israel].”

Israel, which has long perceived Iran as an existential threat, launched 12 days of what it described as pre-emptive strikes on military and nuclear sites in Iran last June, with U.S. war planes attacking three major nuclear facilities.   

“They 1768012692 see Iran as being cornered, extremely vulnerable and weak at this particular moment,” said Gerges. “I think they’re piling on the pressure. They’re hoping that they could really, basically bring about regime change in Iran.”  

U.S. ready to intervene

U.S. President Donald Trump has delivered more than one warning to Iran about cracking down on the anti-regime protests.

On Friday, he told reporters in Washington that “if they start killing people as they have in the past, we’ll get involved.”

“Not boots on the ground, but hitting them where it hurts,” he said.

His comments may well have emboldened protesters who have long campaigned for an end to the Islamic regime, even if many don’t believe Washington has their best interests at heart. 

In a speech delivered in Tehran on Friday, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, dismissed American threats.    

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei dismissed U.S. President Donald Trump’s threats of intervention during a speech in Tehran on Friday. (Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/The Associated Press)

“Let [Trump] run his own country, if he can,” he said. “In his own country there are all kinds of incidents going on.”  

He also reverted to a familiar script, blaming the demonstrations on rioters and people acting as “mercenaries for foreigners,” raising fears that a larger crackdown on protests than already witnessed may be in the offing. 

Dozens killed in crackdowns

Amnesty International said authorities cut off phone and internet access across large parts of the country on Thursday.  

“Based on the track record of the Iranian authorities, we are extremely concerned that the authorities will carry out another wave of protest bloodshed,” said Raha Bahreini, Amnesty’s Iran researcher in London.  

“They have already killed dozens of protesters and bystanders, including children,” she said. 

A video shows Iranians blocking an intersection during a protest in Tehran on Thursday. (UGC/The Associated Press)

Bahreini said Amnesty investigations in 13 cities across eight provinces found that security forces including the Islamic Revolutionary Guards and the police had used assault rifles and shotguns loaded with metal pellets against protesters. 

“What is different this time is that people are no longer deterred by these horrific patterns of gunfire. Despite the deadly crackdown we have seen the protests growing in size day after day.”

Whether that will continue if Iran’s security forces embark on an even more brutal response remains to be seen.  

Sanam Vakil, head of the Chatham House think tank’s Middle East department, says Washington’s recent actions will no doubt be part of the regime’s calculation.  

“There are no easy off-ramps for the leadership in Iran,” she said. “They’re under distinct political pressure from within. The economic policy changes that they need to make are not really possible without coming to an accommodation with the U.S. administration and that requires diplomacy. It requires compromise.”

Iranians have endured decades of crippling U.S.-led sanctions aimed at curbing Tehran’s nuclear program. Perceived economic mismanagement and corruption amongst Iran’s ruling classes has added to the sense of anger amongst many Iranians demonstrating.

“What is abundantly clear to me is that the system at large in Iran, the political establishment is at a dead end,” said Vakil. “Without accommodation, without change in policy, but also in its position vis-à-vis protesters and perhaps the structure of governance in Iran, things are going to deteriorate.”