Why I think the Islamic Republic cannot survive this uprising

This article first appeared on our partner site, Independent Persian

“Knife-wielding thugs”, “weeds that must be uprooted, cut down and thrown away”, these were some of the words Ali Khamenei used on 10 June 1992. One might think he was referring to organised criminal gangs. He was not. He was describing the people of Mashhad, who had taken to the streets after security forces killed a high-school student in the city’s Kuy-e Tollab neighbourhood.

Thirty-four years later, in Mashhad – the birthplace of the supreme leader – protesters have once again filled the streets, capturing the world’s attention. From the White House, the US president is now speaking of the city slipping into the hands of popular forces. The ideological and religious heart of the Islamic Republic, the symbolic city bound to Khamenei’s own life story, has become the scene of the largest uprising ever directed against “the very foundation of the Islamic Republic”.

Over more than three decades of rule, Khamenei has faced repeated waves of unrest, protests, and social and political movements: the Mashhad riots of 1992, the Islamshahr and Shiraz protests that followed, the student movement of 1999, the Green Movement of 2009, the December 2017-2018 protests, the November 2019 uprising and finally the Mahsa movement of 2022.

Each time, the regime survived, at the cost of mass repression, killings and immense political and economic damage. That history may have led Khamenei and the small circle around him to believe that this latest wave of protests can also be crushed using the same old methods: violent suppression, attrition, cutting communications and dividing the opposition.

But what is unfolding today is fundamentally and strategically different.

The Islamic Republic is no longer facing just another wave of social unrest. It is facing the collapse of its capacity to govern. It has crossed the line from a crisis-ridden state to a bankrupt one – what political science calls a “failed state”: a government no longer able to provide basic services, enforce effective authority, or reproduce legitimacy and loyalty.

The turning point came in the early hours of 12 June 2025, when Israel launched massive strikes against Islamic Republic’s military and security infrastructure, plunging the regime into an unprecedented state of emergency. That emergency did not end when the 12-day war ended. The Islamic Republic never returned to “normal” because its security and material foundations had been eroded at the same time.

When UN snapback sanctions were triggered in October 2025 and the United States intensified its pressure on Iran’s oil-smuggling networks, the regime’s financial lifelines were cut. The rentier state, which had survived by distributing cash and privileges to its loyal networks, suddenly faced a crippling resource shortage. This was no longer just a budget problem. It became an inability to provide the basics: food, medicine, electricity, water, gas and fuel.

The regime found itself in a structural impasse. To prevent social explosion, it had to supply the population with the minimal living standards. But to survive politically, it also had to keep feeding the security forces, militias and patronage networks that form the backbone of its rule and any damage to their interests would accelerate its internal collapse. But the regime no longer has the money to sustain both. The result is the paralysis of the Islamic Republic’s traditional mode of governance.

Even during the bloodiest moments of the November 2019 uprising and the Mahsa movement, the Islamic Republic still had a key advantage: financial and diplomatic room to manoeuvre. Under the Biden administration and during nuclear talks, the Islamic Republic was selling around 1.2 million barrels of oil a day. Despite sanctions, it had relatively easy access to hard currency. There was no looming direct war, no nationwide power, water and gas crisis, and most importantly, it was able to buy the relative loyalty of its security forces and patronage networks.

Today, none of that remains. The Islamic Republic in 2026 is a state with no money, no diplomatic horizon and no functioning regional network. All that is left is a tired, expensive, eroding suppression machine that lacks both legitimacy and sustainable funding.

For three decades, one of the regime’s pillars was its regional reach: Hezbollah in Lebanon, militias in Iraq, the Houthis in Yemen, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad and networks in Syria. This network of proxies were tools of deterrence against Israel and the United States, and also a source of pride and unity for the regime’s ideological base.

That architecture has now largely collapsed. Hassan Nasrallah and his successor are dead. Hezbollah is under intense pressure to disarm. Militias linked to the Quds Force in Iraq are being contained. The Islamic Republic’s missile stockpiles and air defence systems have been badly damaged. For the first time, the Islamic Republic is weak both at home and abroad.

It has lost one of its most critical survival tools: the ability to threaten, bargain and intimidate from a position of strength.

Alongside the collapse of material and external resources, the very top of the power structure has begun to crack. Khamenei, once the central pillar of the regime, is now living in hiding, while key Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commanders have been killed or sidelined. The aura of invulnerability around the supreme leader has been shattered. In systems like this, the mere perception that the leader is vulnerable is itself a driver of collapse.

These protests are not just about poverty or discrimination. They are built around a clear demand: the overthrow of the Islamic Republic. The Iranian society has concluded that this system cannot be reformed, and that its survival means the destruction of the country’s future.

People are not only fleeing repression and hardship, they are fleeing hopelessness. They see a state that cannot keep the lights on, cannot provide medicine or food, whose leaders are hiding underground, and whose regional power has crumbled. What remains is not a strong government, but a bankrupt one.

The Islamic Republic has shifted from a rentier state with minimal governing capacity into a bankrupt system. Even if the regime manages to delay the outcome through bloodshed, the equation has not changed: the public wants regime change, the money is gone, and external power has collapsed.

One fact is certain: the endgame has begun.

Reviewed by Celine Assaf