The Protests in Iran

Panelists discuss the latest unrest in Iran, the economic pressures that have sparked nationwide protests, and the implications for U.S. policy amid ongoing regional tensions.

RYAN: Good morning. Welcome to today’s Council on Foreign Relations meeting—the unrest in Iran, what it means for Iran and for the world. My name is Missy Ryan. I’m a staff writer covering national security at the Atlantic magazine, and I’ll be presiding over today’s event.

I’d like to briefly introduce my guests. I’m pleased and honored to be here with such a great panel. First, we have Vali Nasr, who’s a professor of international affairs and Middle East studies at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. We have Ray Takeyh, who is the senior fellow for Middle East studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. And Sanam Vakil, who’s the director of Middle East and North Africa Programmes at Chatham House.

So we’re just going to jump in right now with a little bit of situational awareness. Given the internet blackout and the communications and media challenges that are in place right now in Iran, I’d like to ask each of our panelists to begin providing a brief synopsis of what is known about the current unrest, the extent to which this is gripping much of the country, and your take, for each of the panelists, on how this does or does not differ from previous uprisings, notably the 2009 Green Movement and the Women Life Freedom Movement of 2022. Vali, let’s start with you.

NASR: Well, first of all, thank you very much to Council on Foreign Relations for inviting me here. It’s great to be here with Sanam and Ray.

I mean, what we know is that the protests, particularly since January 8, have become very large across large number of cities in Iran. They have been quite intense and have challenged the Islamic Republic in a very significant way. The internet blackout that you mentioned is perhaps something that is very different from previous times. In other words, we don’t really know exactly how this is unfolding. But we know that there has been a very brutal crackdown that has been unfolding, perhaps with huge number of casualties across the country. And now how resilient the protests are, has the level of intensity been sustained, has it expanded? Some of those things are not known. And I note today also the government was organizing counterprotests across the country. We don’t know, also, what the—what the size of or relevance of those were.

But a few things are quite clear. One is that the regime has made a determination that it’s going to deal with these in a very, very brutal way and to shut them down quickly. There is no sign that there is any defections from within the regime, or that it has—that it has in any way fractured around these. And I think, as we’re speaking, it’s not—I’m not certain that the balance of force necessarily lies with the protesters. I think their challenge is extremely severe. But crowds win also when the other side folds. And that’s not clear, given the news breakup.

And one thing that is very different from last time is that also these protests are coming at a time of—in the shadow of a war that Iran had with Israel and the United States, at a moment where Iran is particularly weak internationally and in the region, which was not the case in 2022 and 2009. And also at a time when President Trump has threatened to intervene directly in Iran on the side of the protesters. And so the shadow of war over these protests are an unknown to us, compared to previous times.

RYAN: Ray, let’s go to you. Talk about, if you can, the ways in which this does or does not differ from those two previous uprisings that I mentioned in the intro.

TAKEYH: I tend to agree with much of what Vali has to say. I spend a lot of time thinking about the ’79 revolution, as Vali knows, because we often get together and talk about it. First of all, these protests have come about, as Vali indicated, in the aftermath of Iran losing a war in June. And it lost that war, but its narrative of success was that the purpose of that war was not to disable Iran’s nuclear program but to overthrow the regime. And the Iranian people stood by the regime in June. That narrative, to say the least, has been battered.

Second of all, you’ve seen the protests being a cross-section of social classes, but this is not yet a national movement in the sense that a lot of fence sitters are trying to figure out which way they want to go. They want to join the protest or not. And they have to feel some degree of immunity to do so, as what happened in the fall of 1978. The level of defections, disagreement, dissent within the system, I don’t think that can be obvious to outside observers at this point. What we do know about those defections and disagreements, in the aftermath. For instance, now we know even the Chinese had a very difficult time mustering the necessary consensus for the 1989 June massacre in Tiananmen Square. So what’s happening behind closed doors is less obvious today, especially with the protest—with the internet blackout that we see.

One thing I can say about these protests, all social protest movements have ebbs and flows. And even if the Islamic Republic manages to arrest the street, they have now created a situation—we’re in the cycle. There’ll be another protest movement over another issue, because underlining causes of dissent, economic mismanagement, economic corruption, foreign policy disasters and misadventures that have cost billions, lack of political opportunity cannot be addressed by the regime. And the fact that they have seemingly used a considerable amount of violence, that in essence means they have created martyrs for the—for the cause.

RYAN: Great. Ray, thank you. And we’re definitely going to get to the government response in our next question.

But first, Sanam, we were speaking before we went live about how you are maybe blessed or cursed by being really tied into the social media expressions about what’s going on. What are you hearing from your contracts in Iran about the extent of the protests? And, you know, we’ve seen estimates of a death toll of anywhere from 200 upwards of more than 1,000, but very—all very sketchy. Tell us what you know.

VAKIL: Well, first of all, thank you for having me. Thank you to the Council. And it’s great to be alongside Vali and Ray.

I would say—or, I would sort of echo what Vali has already said. The country has effectively been locked down for over ninety hours. And so we don’t have regular, reliable information. What is coming out is coming in dribs and drabs, only from people that are connected to Starlink intermittently. And journalists are scrambling to verify videos. And this is also what’s a particular feature of these protests. There’s been a lot of misinformation and disinformation that is adding layers of confusion to the scene. I would say I have not had direct contact with anyone, indirect contact through other parties. And, you know, that makes it all the more challenging to reliably assess what’s happening, or have evidence as to what’s happening.

But, you know, if we think about the past two weeks, I think that there are certain features that make this protest round distinct. But I would, you know, broadly agree with Vali and Ray. You know, we’re not yet at a, sort of, momentous stage. These protests, I think, build on the cycle of protests that we have seen in Iran for decades now. And each protest is showing new things, new trends. Protests do seem to spread across all of the provinces. And we saw this. This protest was important, in that we had urban protests as well as protests in and around towns and villages, also in border areas. We estimate that these are the larger protests but, again, we don’t really have accurate figures. And this could just be based on our feelings or our emotions. And without numbers and accuracy I think that’s important to bear in mind.

These protests seem more broad based, but there are constituencies within Iran that haven’t yet come out onto the streets. There are, of course, a small and maybe more narrow hardline base that remains loyal to the Islamic Republic for all sorts of reasons, ideologically, perhaps above all. Second, of course, is the so-called silent majority that have made choices about staying home. They think it’s too risky. They’re very worried about the other scenarios that could emerge. And you could just invoke the names of Syria, and Libya, and other conflicts to raise concerns and alarm. And, you know, I think what’s most alarming about these protests is that, you know, while the protests went on for a few—you know, about ten days, then number of days ago they locked down the country. And that speaks to the regime maybe sensing that they have to shut this down before it gets too big, needing to cut off contact among the protesters, that were clearly coordinating and communicating across the country, severing contact between the diaspora and those inside.

Certainly diaspora activists, including Reza Pahlavi, have tried to stoke up and make calls for people to come out onto the streets. And the regime has used perhaps the most brutal amount of force. I think we’re only going to begin to hear about the widescale death and destruction, you know, in the coming weeks, if not longer, ahead. And I think it’s going to be much higher than anything we’ve seen before. And lastly, last point, the regime has also categorized these protests not as usual protests. They’ve started out saying, oh, protests are fine. And the president of Iran even, you know, thought to acknowledge their role in government mismanagement. But the language very much shifted. And they began to call the protesters terrorists, labeling them or associating them with terrorist groups such as ISIS, for example. And, of course, invoking their usual blame game of blaming the West, blaming Israel, blaming the outside opposition. But today the framing is very much, particularly on my social media, as this is a—this has been a civil war where the regime had no point but to respond.

RYAN: Let me—I want to get to the government response, but really quickly before we do that I wanted to ask, for any of the panelists who feels like they have an answer they want to provide. In order to lay the foundation for the rest of the conversation I think it’s important for our audience to understand how many Iranians are the hardcore supporters of the regime versus the hardcore protesters who are going to go out? You mentioned the silent majority, Sanam. What does polling or other reliable information tell us, if it exists, about the breakdown in Iranian society along those lines?

NASR: I mean, we don’t have polling. But what we can usually go by is the number of people who vote in presidential or parliamentary elections, particularly for the most hardline of hardline candidates. And that usually is no more than 18 percent of the vote. So you could say 18 percent of the population, give or take, feels great affiliation with the—with the regime. And there might be a smaller halo around that that has reliance on entitlement and welfare programs and it’s tied into that. Still a minority, but it’s generally a much more—has been a much more vocal, active, assertive minority.

RYAN: Great.

TAKEYH: I’ll just say one thing about that. The protests that are coming out, they’re coming out in working-class neighborhoods that were presumably tied to the regime with patronage and piety. So that’s the working class in whose name the revolution was waged. And they’re the ones who are turning against it. They did so in 2019 as well. I was—my estimation of how much support the regime has, and it’s a very tentative one, is the number of votes that Saeed Jalili, the hardest of hardcore, gets when he runs for election. And they tend to actually be in the—some 4 (million) or 5 million. Now, that’s not—

RYAN: Out of 90 million or so, correct, right?

TAKEYH: Well, not quite 90 million, not registered voters.

RYAN: Oh. Right.

TAKEYH: But—so it’s less than that. But—so that’s kind of a ballpark figure, but that’s a very tentative, improvisational estimate.

RYAN: OK. Ray, I’m going to go back to you to talk about the government’s response. Why do you feel—why does the government feel so confident in taking this hardline response? Why are we seeing President Pezeshkian seem to change his response from a more conciliatory tone at the beginning to this more hardline response? And how far can the government go in offering concessions, economic or otherwise?

TAKEYH: Well, my view on this is in the first round the regime spoke a conciliatory language. It wasn’t just Pezeshkian, the president, or General Ghalibaf, the prime minister—the head of the parliament, Mohseni-Eje’i, the head of the judiciary. They all did that. And that’s not Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s playbook. So in my view, it indicates that, to some extent, the leader has been sidelined. Because he was saying something and they were contradicting him in real time. And that began over hijab. The Islamic Republic is obsessed with women’s hair. And so he was saying something, they were saying something else.

So to me this was a crisis that, in its initial point, was managed by the second generation of revolutionaries, for whom revolution is a myth as opposed to a lived-in experience. Now they’re going back to their basic playbook, which is essentially engage in repression, denounce the protesters as agents of sedition and foreign power, and use violence. Except they always tried to use violence rather sparingly in order to create deterrence, but not too many martyrs. Now they’re creating way too many martyrs, and that could actually further regenerate the cause.

RYAN: All right.

Sanam, for you, Ray alluded to this, but what role does the fact that we’re sort of in the twilight era of the supreme leader’s life, eighty-six—what role does that play in this situation and the government’s response?

VAKIL: Well, I think the Supreme Leader is, of course, the leader of resistance, not just the leader of the Islamic Republic. And his playbook, which, of course, has been institutionalized across the state, has been to resist perpetually. And every protest, from the ground up, has, you know, been very much directed to him. And protesters have become much more fierce over the years, over the decades, in criticizing him personally, which was, you know, previously a red line. And institutionally, of course, there is a lot of uncertainty about the future direction of this Islamic Republic, you know, however, Ali Khamenei ends his life. Over the war last summer, what emerged, as people were suspecting that Israel might try to take out Ali Khamenei, was, of course, that they have a succession plan, that there are some names in a box, and that they do have an institutionalized process which, of course, is also delineated in Iran’s constitution.

And I think obviously through these crises, the system—and I agree with Ray. It’s, of course, hard to see the cracks in the regime. And the factions do come together in times of crises. And, again, we’re seeing a complete unified presence today, for example, in the counterprotests in Tehran. But there are, of course, also competitive lines also developing as to who and what comes next. And I think that the Iranian elites—the second generation, if you will, to use Ray’s term—are competing for that future—for their future place in the next iteration of what’s to come. But Khamenei is stubbornly holding this system back from evolution. But removing him isn’t also going to be sort of the panacea that we might think. The system is also, you know, relatively unified in support of the Islamic Republic. And it will be much more—you know, you need a much more dramatic reform program of this system to change his policies and practices, including the power and influence of the IRGC.

RYAN: OK.

Vali, for you, I wanted to ask—first, I think maybe it just bears saying explicitly, the protests have clearly tipped over from economic grievances and concerns related to the currency over into a sort of more broader change, political change appeal. But is there a clear, unified format of that kind of change that’s being articulated by the protesters? That’s first question. And then the second question for you, Vali, can you address the role that’s being played, if any significant role, by the main exile figures, from the former shah’s son and any of the other Iranian exile groups?

NASR: First of all, the protests are leaderless and they’re disorganized. This is sort of a genuine eruption of anger, whether the early phase which was about the currency and inflation, or when it became about political issues. It’s not being directed from the outside. It’s not being also directed by any political leader or movement inside the country. And that’s why, in fact, an internet shutdown is such an effective way of disrupting it, because it doesn’t really have networks of organization, in a way, like a political party organization running it.

Secondly, you know, it has been evolving. As Ray mentioned, it started over an issue that merchants were really unhappy with the collapse of the currency, because some of them import material, like cellphones, et cetera, and it would impact them. Then the economic protests were joined by people who are asking for fundamental political change, much deeper-seated anger. And then in the eyes of the regime, I believe, that they think that it became a national security issue. I actually don’t think that they just accuse some of the protesters of being rioters or agents of outside out of political cynicism. They genuinely believe it. They believe the war didn’t end. Israel, after all, showed in June that it has enormous amount of presence in Iran. They have this suspicion that they’re being deeply penetrated, and that some—and that the protests and their own people could be hijacked. And I think that’s when the regime, the core of it, comes together to say that this is a national security issue. That’s the moment where dissent disappears and they clamp down.

Now I don’t think the exiles outside directed this. They seem to me that they were chasing it. This started on the twenty-eighth of December. There is a point at which the call by the—by the former crown prince of Iran for people coming to the streets seemed to be quite effective, but that was January 8. This was at least ten days after this had started that it was effective. But, again, you know, we don’t have a handle on exactly what’s going on, although I have to say that the degree of support and the chanting and the slogans that we’ve heard on the streets were also new in this, to me at least, in this protest. But I think as we’re speaking this is still a leaderless, headless, disorganized uprising.

RYAN: When you say—Vali, when you say the chanting and the slogans are new, in what sense?

NASR: Well, I mean, the degree to which we heard the call for him to return to Iran, the call of support we have, I had heard before. And nostalgic calls for his father and grandfather. This is actually not new in Iran, that people would sort of want to go back to the time of the shah or to the time of his—of the shah’s father. But to specifically rally around the crown prince to the extent that we saw in the protests, until the internet shutdown happened, was perhaps new. But even—as I said, even then he seemed to be jumping on the bandwagon of a protest that already was gaining an enormous amount of momentum. So I don’t think he’s leading it. He may be able to direct it, but that remains to be seen.

RYAN: OK. We’ve got about six or seven minutes before we’re going to open it up to questions.

So I want to get to the U.S. role here. President Trump said last night, Sunday night, as he was flying back from Florida, that he’s getting hourly reports and is deliberating different courses of action. He also notably said that he had received outreach from Iranian leaders and that there could be a meeting, without explaining anything about the details of that. Ray, I’m going to go back to you. We’re obviously deep in the speculation about another American military strike on Iran after the twelve-day war. What, what can we expect from the Trump administration, from Trump, if he does take renewed military action? What would he be likely to strike? And how does he calibrate that? First of all, do the Iranian people want that? Number two, how does he calibrate it in order to advance U.S. goals and not sort of discourage any change, by encouraging people to rally around the flag?

TAKEYH: Well, I would say, in a protest movement that—for it to continue and persist, the fear factor has to be diminished domestically. External intervention—first of all, I would say, this issue will largely be decided by the Iranians themselves. We always tend to believe it’s about us, but it’s actually about them. If the president does intervene and he targets, I would imagine it would be the paramilitary forces, the repressive forces, the Revolutionary Guard bases, and so forth, that could actually in some way retard the regime’s response. Because one of the things that the government had been talking about is the introduction of the armed forces into this debate, into this situation. They hadn’t done that before. You only do that if your existing forces are being exhausted and stretched, and they’re too—the nationwide protests are too dispersed to be disabled with your existing course of strength. That’s when you bring the army in. And they have always been reluctant to do that because after the shah did. So an American intervention could potentially cause them to have less of a coercive ability to handle the situation.

Second of all, the Iranian people seem to be asking for it, at least the slogans that I have seen. The idea that the Iranian regime can reconvene nationalistic appetite on its favor I think it’s exaggerated. It’s not even present. They seem to be asking for it. Whether and how it’s going to happen will be a determining factor. I think at the very least it will reduce the fear factor. And the second of all, it will affect the fence sitters about how they’re thinking about joining the protests or not. It will introduce an unpredictable data point into a situation that is full of unpredictable data points. I would say one more thing about these protest movements’ lack of structure and lack of leadership. They don’t need that at this stage. What they need is persistence. Once you have persistent, those things will suggest themselves.

RYAN: OK.

Sanam, for you, can you talk about how this situation and the statements that Trump and Rubio are making in defense of the protesters and their political rights, how does that interact with the administration’s goals vis-à-vis the nuclear program? Because it is a confusing moment because we’re seeing now in his second term President Trump is much more comfortable using American military power in different ways that he did during the first term. At the same time, as we’re seeing in Venezuela, they are also not necessarily as invested in the causes of self-determination, governance, and democracy, as we might have thought. So how are you seeing those different factors interacting here?

VAKIL: I think that President Trump is trying to—clearly, I think above all, trying to distinguish himself from his Democratic predecessors on Iran. Whether we want to go back to the time of Carter’s tenure or President Obama and President Biden. President Trump is trying to accomplish a couple of things. First of all, at least symbolically provide support for the protesters to continue their momentum. Time is certainly not on their side. And I would add that the government has also shut down banking access. So, of course, with shops being closed and your inability to access your own financial resources, that puts further pressure on the protesters. And that’s a problem. So if Trump did intervene, more than providing rhetorical support or that fear factor on the regime, that could generate momentum.

But in the same vein, it could equally play further into the hands of a regime that is paranoid. And this would build, you know, further unity and propel them forward to crack down further. So I think it’s not necessarily going to produce the outcome, but I do suspect that it is necessary if you want to keep people out there. But any kind of strike—and, again, it would probably be directed to the law enforcement forces, the Basij, the IRGC facilities, could, you know, then unleash a cascade of other risks that would then bring Iran into a broader confrontation. Over the weekend, they did state that this would lead to them, you know, responding or striking Israel, and then that’s where we get into scenarios that might not be in the president’s interest.

Simultaneously, in addition to defending the protesters at least rhetorically, President Trump has also dropped just yesterday that the Iranians have reached out for further negotiations. So in my mind, as he’s presented with the array of options, everything is on the table. And if he chooses to step back, obviously this will buy the Islamic Republic more time. But it’s not necessarily going to be time that will allow them to regenerate or build back political legitimacy. This is a system and a regime that is really backed into a corner and in a dead end. So we will certainly see more protests.

RYAN: OK.

I’m going to ask one very brief final question before we open it up, and that’s and that’s for you, Vali. Can you talk about the other significant foreign actor here, Israel? How do you see Israel approaching this moment? And how are they weighing off the—you know, the kind of goals that could be at tension of, you know, wanting to see, obviously, an end to the nuclear program and an end to a regime that they see as an existential threat to their survival, with the fear of, you know, as we’ve all been alluding to, the potential for chaos and uncertainty about what comes afterwards?

NASR: I mean, I don’t know what the Israeli thinking is on this, but I would think that they would—they would welcome the weakening of the Islamic Republic, it turning inwards. If the regime were to collapse into chaos, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar may worry a lot, but it would not worry Israel. Largely because it is much farther away from Iran, or whatever chaos happens inside Iran. I think the worst case scenario is that if this regime feels that its back is truly, truly against the wall, and it decides to react with missiles or in a sort of a final act of trying to back off its enemies, that then, in the short term, it could be—it could be of concern for Israel.

RYAN: OK. All right. So it’s 10:32. I’m going to invite members to join the conversation with their questions. I think you can raise—there’s a raise your hand icon, and the moderator will call on you. And also, I forgot to remind everyone at the beginning that this meeting is on the record.

OPERATOR: (Gives queuing instructions.)

We’ll take the first question from Aaron David Miller.

Q: The three of you are just really extraordinary. And, Missy, great moderating.

I think I know the answer to this, but ISW, Institute of the Study War, reported this morning that more Iranian security officers have been killed during the current protests than in any time in previous protests. They actually even give a number, 114 regime security personnel from the law enforcement command, the Basij, and the IRGC. I mean, given the internet blackout and the lack of context, is this at all credible? How would they know?

TAKEYH: I’ll say one thing about this. I’m not sure how they know, but one of the places—when we talk about this protest movement, it is also breaking out in sort of ethnic areas—Baluchistan, Kurdistan and other places. And in those areas there’s plenty of weapons available. And those areas have been—even in the Women Life Freedom Movement there was violence there. So in some places you’re going to see this becoming much more violent than it has been in other cases. Those casualty figures may come from those particular ethnic enclaves.

NASR: And, to me, the numbers are credible, and perhaps it’s actually higher. Just the number of overall casualties is higher than the one that Missy suggested at the beginning. What I would say is that it’s also not just the ethnic areas. I mean, I’ve seen it in with some videos uploaded in Starlink of instances of clashes, violence, et cetera, in Tehran as well. And that’s actually partly why the regime has got more and more suspicion that it’s under a threat and that somebody’s arming or guiding, and they’re trying to sort of make a distinction between those who they see as agitators and rioters and the protesters. But all said, it just suggests to you that the tempo of violence this time is much higher than before. And that’s not something that’s going to dissipate quickly.

RYAN: All right. Should we take the next question?

OPERATOR: We’ll take the next question from Andrea Mitchell.

Q: Hi. I’m in a bad wi-fi area, so tell me if you can hear me. But thank you so much. And, Missy, it’s great to have you moderating, with your expertise.

I’ve been really having a difficult time as, I guess, a lot of people. This obviously feels different than the more recent and, certainly, the Green Revolution in 2009. It feels more widespread. But it being leaderless, Vali, if you could speak to where you think this is going outside—without outside intervention? The president last night again, with NBC and on Air Force One, was certainly hinting at something going to happen. And maybe not kinetic, maybe cyber. Don’t know. But if you could speak to, more broadly, the reaction, how that might back—how that might create a backlash, because there was reporting also that the Israelis warned against action now, that that would create backlash.

NASR: My own sense is that if it wasn’t for the protests, Israel would have hit Iran by now. I mean, we were moving in that direction. And there was already build-up of U.S. forces in the Gulf. So definitely I think the calculation is, let this play out, let’s see what comes out of it before we go to war. You know, when Israel attacked in June, I was actually even surprised then that a lot of Iranians said, you know, they should attack and get rid of the mullahs and free us. And then, yet, when the attack came, they actually stayed home and they didn’t join in. So I’m not really sure this time. So truly I don’t know how Iranians would react if there was an attack by the outside. Would they join in? Would they be encouraged? Would the ranks of the protesters be divided? Really don’t know.

The other issue is that I don’t think it’s that simple to impact the protests. The protests have been in over 130 to 150 cities and localities in Iran. Now trying to hit security forces in all of these, or even the major cities of Iran, cities with over a million people, is more than just a few airstrikes. It needs a much more sustained campaign. And a lot of these locations of security forces are deeply embedded in urban areas. There’s no clean way of hitting, necessarily, security forces without endangering the lives of other Iranians as well. And if you don’t hit these, and you go for hitting air bases and military sites et cetera, yes, it has an impact, but it’s not necessarily going to degrade the ability of the government to suppress.

What I would probably think is that, given that this president really doesn’t want to get his hands dirty, and a performative strike maybe more where he wants to go, and then he wants to play the Venezuela card of trying to bully the Islamic Republic to buckle, we’re in a long, protracted period of war, protests, and this cycle repeating itself.

RYAN: And, Vali, do you mean if the Trump administration tried to kind of make a deal with the regime over the protesters’ head, say, a regime—sorry—a deal on the nuclear program, and kind of back off its military pressure that way? Is that what you’re suggesting?

NASR: Well, you know, the president is no longer satisfied with the nuclear issue. He wants Iran’s missiles as well, and probably some other things on top of that. And, as Sanam said, he wants to be the one who changes the Iran story altogether. That would be a big victory for him. I don’t think anybody knows what he wants. But I could very easily see that, under the right moment, the concern with the protests would dissipate and he would—he would basically deal with those who are in front of him and would give him what he wants.

RYAN: All right, let’s go to the next question.

OPERATOR: We’ll take the next question from Ishaan Tharoor.

Q: Hi, there. Thanks, Vali, and thank you to all. Thank you, Missy. Thanks to the great panel.

Vali actually just started addressing my question. I was curious if you could speak a bit more about the precedents and impulses that we’ve seen from Venezuela, and what, if any of that, may shadow things going forward. And, you know, from what we can gather about Trump’s approach toward Venezuela, given the kind of clientelistic arrangement that they may be trying to find in Caracas, what would a realistic version of that look like in Tehran?

NASR: I mean, this is being debated even—and I think Venezuela was read very differently by people versus the government. The reality is that the U.S. is capable and willing—this president is capable and willing to do things out of everybody’s imagination. But at the same time, he clearly is not into nation building. He doesn’t want to put troops in the ground. He’s not necessarily interested in regime changes. He’s interested in regimes that are there doing what he’s asking them to do. So I think that’s scary for Iran. I mean, you could put a blockade on Iran’s oil down the road. He could try to kill the supreme leader. He could pressure the regime. I mean, all of these scenarios are on the table, are in the minds of both the protesters and President Trump. Although, Iran is orders of magnitude more difficult than Venezuela, the ability to do this as precisely as he did it in Venezuela is not there.

VAKIL: Can I add a point?

RYAN: Please.

VAKIL: Thank you. I think Venezuela is a really important cautionary tale, not just what we saw in terms of removing Maduro but, you know, we had months of, sort of, maybe foreshadowing, if you will, of the Trump administration’s intent. So if we think about how the U.S. government might engage with Iran for the rest of the year, they see a weakened, you know, failing Islamic Republic. And so we can imagine just a build-up of further sanctions, containment, Israeli pressure, that could see, of course, an endgame that is Venezuela-esque. You know, Khamenei’s removal or moving the pieces around to enable an economic outcome that’s favorable to the United States I think is certainly something that has been digested in Tehran.

But that by no means would be something that I think would be acceptable to people on the ground in Iran. Of course, the economic conditions are certainly very dire, not as dire as they have been in Venezuela and other countries. But this is a protest movement in Iran that is making it clear they want the elites of the system to no longer be in power. And so just moving the pieces around or empowering the IRGC isn’t necessarily going to solve the political legitimacy piece. And that would be the delta to watch.

RYAN: And you also have to wonder how the Trump administration’s America first base would view a more hands-on approach in an election year as well. So should we go to the next question?

OPERATOR: We’ll take the next question from Barbara Slavin.

Q: Hi, guys. Can you hear me?

RYAN: Yep.

Q: Good. Thank you so much for doing this.

My question is about who you think is really calling the shots now in Iran. I mean , supreme leader, you know, is hardly at his most robust. So is it this national security council, new defense council? Who is actually making the decisions day to day?

TAKEYH: I’ll just say one thing about this. I do believe the supreme leader has been sidelined and sidestepped because of his catastrophic misjudgments that led to June—for June twelve war, even on sentimental politics of the Islamic Republic, that has an impact. How they’re making decisions is actually a very good point, because they are making decisions. Ali Larijani seems to do the national security portfolio. And the fact of the matter is that since June, during June, and every day since, the Iranians have been asking for negotiations with the United States. Ali Larijani has said he appealed to negotiations fifteen times. And the foreign minister does so all the time. They view negotiations as a way of releasing pressure. Pezeshkian may be handling administrative state, Gholam Mohseni-Eje’i, head of the judiciary, may be handling some of the security apparatus, in conjunction with, obviously, whatever is left of the leadership of the Revolutionary Guards, which has been obviously very much replaced.

In terms of military action, you have to say that, both in June and in Venezuela, the United States and Israel displayed an ability to do surgical strikes very carefully and without much collateral damage. Can they symbolically bomb the Ministry of Intelligence, and that be applauded by the population? I think so. Can they destroy the IRGC intelligence apparatus and further disabled that network? Would that be popular? I think so. So the military option, even its surgical uses, which will have a symbolic effect. But we’re in a situation where symbolism has its uses.

RYAN: I do think it is important to mention, just before we go on, that the United States military is not necessarily postured for a big strike on Iran, like it was in June. There’s no aircraft carrier in the region right now. It’s not dispositive, but it’s just something to consider as well. So let’s go on to the next question.

OPERATOR: We’ll take the next question from Christopher Isham.

Q: Thank you very much. It’s very good panel.

I just have a question which follows on some of the discussion we’ve been having the last few minutes. Which is on, it’s pretty clear from the reporting that the administration here is considering non-kinetic—the non-kinetic options on the table. And I just wondered if you guys might be able to elaborate a little bit on what specifically you think those options might entail, and how some of those options might affect the balance of power between the regime and the protesters at the moment. Thank you.

RYAN: Who wants to take that?

VAKIL: Sure. I can pick up. And I’m sure someone else can add to it. I mean, obviously—very obvious would be cyber operations to degrade the censorship infrastructure. That would be important. Help Iranians more broadly connect to the internet while there is a blackout, I think that would be important as well. Further economic and financial pressure. I’m not sure what more one can do, but there’s certainly more whether it’s stopping ships going out to China. Further constraining the economic lifelines of the regime, I think, is another area as well. And it’s worthwhile also thinking about those economic lifelines, because over this two-week period there was still commercial activity outside and inside of Iran. And while that continues, obviously the regime itself doesn’t feel significant pain. So it’s about making the regime feel much more pain, not just the people.

RYAN: Would sanctions be a significant or effective tool? Additional sanctions? Or no?

TAKEYH: I’m not sure how much more you can sanction the Iranian financial system.

RYAN: Yeah. (Laughs.) Just one other thing to mention before—oh, go ahead, Vali.

NASR: Yeah, I mean, but none of those matter in the next two weeks, one month. I mean, when he says non-kinetic, I really don’t know what he’s talking about, other than cyber. I think it’s maybe a way of—I don’t know. I mean, you know, the only thing as—I mean, to Ray’s point—if you’re even going to have a symbolic impact or even literally degrade the military’s ability to suppress, you know, you have to actually use military means. Otherwise, the non-kinetic, to me, is just a bit baffling.

RYAN: Yeah. One other thing Trump did mention last night was that he was going to call Elon Musk about Starlink. So, you know, on the connectivity front. But that also seems like a medium-term thing, at best.

NASR: Well, I mean, there are tens of thousands of Starlink terminals already in Iran. I mean, rich people have it. They bought it because it was much more—better way of having it on the ground. The Iranian government is trying to use GPS jamming to not allow Starlink to operate, but the issue is not that the satellites have to be turned on. The Iranians have been using it. And I don’t know how much faster can you get free Starlink terminals and give it to people inside Iran? Again, you have to think, what does it make a difference in the next two weeks to create the kind of resilience that Ray mentioned that the protesters have to have.

RYAN: OK. Let’s move to the next question.

OPERATOR: We’ll take the next question from Joanna Shelton.

RYAN: Oh, and can you—Joanna, can you mention your affiliation, please?

Q: Yes. I’m Joanna Shelton with the Maureen and Mike Mansfield Center at the University of Montana.

Israel, and possibly other outside parties, are evidently calling for regime change. I have a two-part question related to that. The first is, if the current regime were to fall, as unlikely as that may seem today, is there anyone or any group on the ground that could effectively take power? The second part is, if regime change led to a leadership vacuum and possible chaos, what would be the spin-off effects in the region? Thank you.

RYAN: Who wants to take the first part, which was, who takes over?

TAKEYH: I’ll just briefly. At this point, as has been mentioned, there are no identifiable leaders. Although, if the regime were to fall that protest movement would have to be mature enough that such a leadership may have suggested themselves. Iran is actually a society that has a civil society, a highly literate middle class, professional classes. I do think it is capable of managing a transition. But at the beginning there’s just certainly going to be some degree of chaos as remnants of the regime that are ideologically devoted to it, even in the aftermath of collapse, are not going to go that easily.

RYAN: All right. And that—and is there a scenario where—you know, regime change is a term that, I think, looks different in Venezuela than many of us thought beforehand. It ended up just being decapitation. I mean, there obviously is a scenario where it just becomes an IRGC-led state, or something like that.

TAKEYH: Well, that’s maintaining a repressive, unrepresentative society, a regime detested by the Iranian people. That’s what it is.

RYAN: And to the ripple effects for the region and beyond? Sanam or Vali, do you want to talk about that?

VAKIL: Sure. I’ll start and Vali can pick up. I mean, it much depends on, obviously, what emerges. I think we are too often looking for a single figure that will emerge. Iran has more than two dozen, off the top of my head, activists in jail that have the potential to be future political leaders in Iran. And, you know, it’s worthwhile just reminding everyone that prior to these protests a number of Iranian activists, including Narges Mohammadi who won Nobel Peace Prize, was rounded up, along many others, and put back into Evin. Part of the reason why there is no indigenous organized opposition is because the Islamic Republic has made sure that no coordination really develops.

What’s interesting to me though is, despite systematic civil society repression and despite perpetual oversight, surveillance of the opposition, that shopkeepers and people in the bazaar did coordinate a labor protest that got this started. And secondly, and quite quickly, university students also quickly coordinated sit-ins and protests. So it does show that there is organizational capacity within the system. And there are plenty of people in Iranian jails with ideas, thinking, recognizing that a coalition can be built and built from the ground up. And it’s important to just remind everyone, this Friday is the anniversary of Mohammad Reza Shah’s departure from Iran. It took two weeks for Ayatollah Khomeini to fly into the country. And in that vacuum, all sorts of individuals, institutions, local committees known as Komitehs, everything emerged indigenously. And I imagine that that kind of chaos, as well as coordination, from the state that is still quite institutionalized in Iran, would keep things ticking along and there would be a lot of competition for internal power.

RYAN: Vali, did you want to add something?

NASR: I’m not as sanguine as my colleagues are here. I think, you know, unless there is a faction from within the regime that breaks off and builds a coalition with the opposition, which actually did happen under the shah to some extent, the street cannot govern. You have a lot—Iran has 650,000 bureaucrats. Unless there’s a mechanism to bring them in—what I see right now in Iran is more revenge and reprisal that’s going to happen. That the people on the street who are being killed will want the scalpel of every single bureaucrat, somebody who’s worked in the regime. Yes, Iranians have the capability, but right now Iran is more—I mean, a total collapse is more likely to produce a mob scene than anything orderly.

Now, what’s the implications for the region? God knows. I mean, you have hundreds of thousands of Revolutionary Guards, Basij, with a country that has sophisticated missiles, that has 400 kilograms of, you know, enriched uranium, with a lot of different things that we used to think about the Soviet Union, et cetera, that is over here. I don’t know, maybe there’s planning somewhere in the CIA and Mossad about what to do about the day after, but I think the region really worries that what’s worse than the Iran that is in front of them is a lawless Iran with a lot of those elements in there. Yes, and eventually this will settle down. But the entire danger lies in the period until it settles down. And I just don’t see any organization, any leadership right now across this country that would basically focus and bring in the protest into a coherent political movement that then can actually have an orderly transition to something else.

RYAN: OK. I think we’ve got time for one, maybe two questions. Let’s go to the next questioner, please.

OPERATOR: We’ll take the next question from Lyric Huges Hale.

Q: Yes. As a student of both China and Iran, this episode, this situation really reminds me of Tiananmen Square—the brutal crackdown, the media shutdown, and misplaced optimism in the West. Could you comment on that? And also, my concern here is, is it possible the unintended consequence of this situation will be an acceleration of Iran’s nuclear program? That would be my response, if I were ruling in Iran today. Thank you.

NASR: I mean, I would just say one thing, which is as somebody who was there when 1979 revolution happened, I mean, the enthusiasm about how democratic Iran would be, how Ayatollah Khomeini would retire to Qom, how Iran was going to be seeing a future of democracy. I mean, you know, we might miss—we can very easily misread the circumstances, but Iran’s own history is perhaps the best—the best mirror to sort of give us some degree of perspective here.

RYAN: As a cautionary tale, you’re saying?

NASR: As a cautionary tale. I think we should—we’re very hopeful that the Islamic Republic is going. That’s hope number one. But hope number two about what’s going to come after it is a lot more complicated.

TAKEYH: I’ll just say a couple of things about this. The Tiananmen Square demonstrated how hard it is for the regimes to do this, because based upon the documentation that has come out since then we see considerable degree of dissension within the army and between the army and the party. So that’s a cautionary tale for how national armies are reluctant to shoot their people, even ideological ones. The nuclear program, the Iranian nuclear program is now buried in the sand and has been no indication that it’s being revived. And the Israelis have made a commitment, and the Americans have, that if they see something they’re going to bomb something. Which is why the country is gripped with a fear of external intervention, as Vali has suggested.

RYAN: But they did move some of the enriched uranium, as far as we—

TAKEYH: I don’t think so. To move it you have to dig it in. And when you start bringing those equipment in, they’re fearful that they get bombed again. Israelis took command of the Iranian airspace in forty-eight hours. That’s a real experience for a regime that invested so much in its missiles and made so much of its missile technology as essential deterrence and the projection of power.

RYAN: All right. Sanam, do you want to add anything?

VAKIL: Well, I mean, this 400 kilograms, whether it’s buried underground or been moved, I don’t think that this is something that the Islamic Republic can easily assemble. I would imagine Iran is heavily surveyed, more than any other country right now. So I think they’re very well aware, and in fact they’re buying into this narrative that they haven’t touched their nuclear program. That’s what the Iranian foreign minister has been saying repeatedly and actively.

RYAN: All right, I think we have time for one very, very quick final question.

OPERATOR: We’ll take the last question from Madison Schramm.

RYAN: And just, Madison, maybe a very quick one, please.

Q: Thank you so much for sharing your insights.

So I guess, short of the type of elite fracturing and defection, you know, if we were to see some type of symbolic strike negotiations with the United States, economic reprieve, Trump can claim a deal out of this, would this potentially be sufficient for the Iranian population and Israel? Or can you see some type of agreement that would satisfy all parties here? Thank you.

RYAN: Who wants to take a quick stab at that?

VAKIL: Quickly, sure. I don’t think one agreement will satisfy everybody. But a deal, depending on the scope and scale, could satisfy the United States and Israel, and certainly buy the Islamic Republic more time. Because the economic sanctions relief that would come with a deal would allow it to try to rehabilitate the Iranian economy, although there’s a lot of structural work that needs to be done. People, you know, can be bought off as well, but that would be, of course, something that we would have to see and watch. There is going to be a change in this regime, either externally facilitated or internally, through the death of Ali Khamenei. So one way or another, you know, that’s something to bear in mind as well.

TAKEYH: The Trump administration does have elements of what it accepts as a deal: zero enrichment, missiles to be dismantled, and also abandonment of terrorism or regional allies. If the Islamic Republic, in a moment of internal stress, agrees to that capitulation agreement, I don’t see how that doesn’t energize the domestic opposition.

RYAN: Final quick word from you, Vali.

NASR: I think you have to add to it President Trump also wants normalization. He wants that performative part of it as well. And I think majority of the Iranian public would be—would be assuaged if the living standards improved, if Iran opened up. All of which means the regime would have to change in fundamental ways, as Sanam said.

RYAN: All right. Well, unfortunately, I think we have to leave it there. It’s 11:00. I want to thank everyone for joining today’s virtual meeting and give special thanks to our fantastic panelists, Sanam, Ray, and Vali. Hope everyone has a good day.

NASR: Thank you.

(END)

This is an uncorrected transcript.