Iran’s leadership is increasingly worried a US strike could break its grip on power by driving an already enraged public back onto the streets, following a bloody crackdown on anti-government protests, according to six current and former officials.
In high-level meetings, officials told Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that public anger over last month’s crackdown, the bloodiest since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, has reached a point where fear is no longer a deterrent, four current officials briefed on the discussions said.
The officials said Khamenei was told that many Iranians were prepared to confront security forces again and that external pressure, such as a limited US strike, could embolden them and inflict irreparable damage to the political establishment.
One of the officials told Reuters that Iran’s enemies were seeking more protests so as to bring the Islamic Republic to an end, and “unfortunately,” there would be more violence if an uprising took place.
“An attack combined with demonstrations by angry people could lead to a collapse (of the ruling system). That is the main concern among the top officials, and that is what our enemies want,” said the official, who, like the other officials contacted for this story, declined to be named due to the sensitivity of the matter.
Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei looks on during a meeting at the IRGC Aerospace Force achievements exhibition in Tehran, Iran November 19, 2023. (credit: Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS)
The reported remarks are significant because they suggest private misgivings inside the leadership at odds with Tehran’s defiant public stance towards the protesters and the US.
The sources declined to say how Khamenei responded. Iran’s Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment on this account of the meetings.
Multiple sources told Reuters last week that US President Donald Trump is weighing options against Iran that include targeted strikes on security forces and leaders to inspire protesters, even as Israeli and Arab officials said air power alone would not topple the clerical rulers.
People are extremely angry, says former official
Any such uprising in the wake of a US strike would stand in contrast to the Iranians’ response to Israeli and US bombing attacks on Iran’s nuclear program back in June, which was not followed by anti-government demonstrations.
But a former senior moderate official said the situation had changed since the crackdown in early January.
“People are extremely angry,” he said, adding a US attack could lead Iranians to rise up again. “The wall of fear has collapsed. There is no fear left.”
Tensions between Tehran and Washington are running high. The arrival of a US aircraft carrier and supporting warships in the Middle East has expanded Trump’s ability to take military action if he so wishes, after repeatedly threatening intervention over Iran’s bloody crackdown.
Regime must make major reforms or face wider protests, former president Rouhani states
The Iranian Regime needs to make major reforms, or it will face more protests, former president Hassan Rouhani was cited by The Telegraph as saying.
“People have demands and we must respond to them with a major reform, not a minor reform,” Rouhani said.
“If you make minor changes, God forbid, we might face problems again in two or three months, or even in 10 days,” he added.
Nasrollah Pejmanfar, a hardline member of the Iranian parliament, denounced Rouhani’s comments, stating that “Today is the time for major reform, which is the arrest and execution of Rouhani.”
‘The game is over,’ says former prime minister
Several opposition figures, who were part of the establishment before falling out with it, have warned the leadership that “boiling public anger” could result in a collapse of the Islamic system.
“The river of warm blood that was spilled on the cold month of January will not stop boiling until it changes the course of history,” former prime minister Mir-Hossein Mousavi, who has been under house arrest without trial since 2011, said in a statement published by the pro-reform Kalameh website.
“In what language should people say they do not want this system and do not believe your lies? Enough is enough. The game is over,” Mousavi added in the statement.
Dire situation result of Khamenei’s destructive domestic, international interventions, policies, former parliament speaker Karroubi says
Iran’s current situation is the “direct result of destructive domestic and international interventions and policies” of Khamenei, former parliament speaker and reformist cleric Mehdi Karroubi was cited by The Telegraph as saying.
The “costly and fruitless nuclear project and the heavy consequences of sanctions over the past two decades on the country and people” were examples of failed policies, according to Karroubi.
“The depth of the tragedy [of protester deaths and injuries] is so deep that no excuse or justification can be accepted for this horrific and merciless massacre and disrespect for the bodies of victims,” he added.
The only way out of the crisis while maintaining the peace is to “recognize the right of the people to self-determination in a free referendum,” he stated.
Security forces destroying demonstrations with lethal force
During the early January protests, witnesses and rights groups said, security forces crushed demonstrations with lethal force, leaving thousands killed and many wounded. Tehran blamed the violence on “armed terrorists” linked to Israel and the US.
Trump stopped short of carrying out threats to intervene, but he has since demanded that Iran make nuclear concessions. Both Tehran and Washington have signaled readiness to revive diplomacy over a long-running nuclear dispute.
Simmering anger, ‘danger of bloodshed’
Analysts and insiders say that while the streets are quiet for now, deep-seated grievances have not gone away.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei waves during a public rally in Mashhad, Iran March 21, 2023. (credit: Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS)
Public frustration has been simmering over economic decline, political repression, a widening gulf between rich and poor, and entrenched corruption that leaves many Iranians feeling trapped in a system offering neither relief nor a path forward.
“This may not be the end, but it is no longer just the beginning,” said Hossein Rassam, a London-based analyst.
If protests resume during mounting foreign pressure and security forces respond with force, the six current and former officials said they fear demonstrators would be bolder than in previous unrest, emboldened by experience and driven by a sense that they have little left to lose.
One of the officials told Reuters that while people were angrier than before, the establishment would use harsher methods against protesters if it were under US attack. He said the result would be a bloodbath.
Ordinary Iranians contacted by Reuters said they expected Iran’s rulers to crack down hard on any further protests.
A Tehran resident whose 15-year-old son was killed in the protests on January 9 said the demonstrators had merely sought a normal life, and had been answered “with bullets.”
“If America attacks, I will go back to the streets to take revenge for my son and the children this regime killed.”
Iran’s Khamenei compares protesters to Islamic State
Amid the ongoing protests, Khamenei on Monday compared Iranian protesters to Islamic State terrorists in a post on X/Twitter.
In a post, the supreme leader claimed that “seditionists in Iran burned people alive. They beheaded people. They committed the very same atrocities that Islamic State committed.”
Khamenei, who refers to the protests as “sedition,” stated that a defining feature of the protests was violence and went on to claim that the protests in Iran were orchestrated by the United States and by “Zionists.”
