𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

For more than four decades, Iran’s rulers have relied on one well-tested response when faced with popular unrest – crush it ruthlessly. That was the fate of the Green Revolution in 2009.

It was also the reaction to the nationwide protests of 2022, sparked by the death in police custody of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman arrested for allegedly breaching Iran’s hijab rules. Hundreds were killed as the regime moved to silence dissent. Today, at the start of 2026, the mullahs are once again reaching for the same brutal playbook.

Security forces are moving to suppress the latest wave of protests, with reports of deaths and mass arrests already emerging. But this time, the regime is on far weaker ground.

The immediate trigger for the unrest has been economic collapse. Inflation is punishing ordinary families, youth unemployment is endemic, and the Iranian rial has lost huge value.

Savings have been wiped out, prices are soaring, and millions of Iranians are struggling to meet basic needs. What began as anger over living standards is now turning openly political.

Tellingly, the protests first erupted in Tehran’s Grand Bazaar. When merchants and traders, long regarded as the backbone of Iran’s economy, close their shops in protest, the regime faces something far more serious than sporadic street demonstrations.

Students, workers and professionals have since joined them, widening both the scale and ambition of the movement.

Public fury is also being fuelled by the regime’s reckless priorities.

While ordinary Iranians are pushed towards poverty, vast sums have been squandered on foreign adventures and terrorist proxies.

Money poured into Hezbollah, Hamas and other militant groups is widely seen as money stolen from the Iranian people. Protesters have responded with chants demanding regime change and an end to the costly overseas entanglements.

Western audiences should not be deceived by talk of moderation from Tehran.

President Masoud Pezeshkian has sought to present himself as a calming influence, urging officials to listen to protesters. But this is theatre, not reform. Real power in Iran lies with the Supreme Leader and the Revolutionary Guard – and repression has intensified, not eased, during Pezeshkian’s presidency.

Human rights organisations have reported a surge in executions. Amnesty International estimated that more than 1,000 people had been executed in Iran by September 2025 alone. The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) puts the figure for the full year far higher, estimating that executions exceeded 2,000.

While exact numbers are hard to verify in a closed system, the trend is unmistakable – the regime is relying ever more heavily on brutality to maintain control.

So what should the West do?

The first requirement is clarity. Western governments should abandon the comforting fiction that Iran’s leadership contains a meaningful reformist wing capable of progressive change. The system is designed to prevent that, and pretending otherwise merely allows time for the repression to continue.

Second, the West should focus unremittingly on the consequences of that repression. That means scrupulously documenting executions and abuses and translating that evidence into targeted sanctions against those directly responsible.

Third, Western states must take the export of intimidation beyond Iran’s borders seriously. Iranian dissidents in Britain and Europe should not suffer harassment while those responsible enjoy impunity.

Where this occurs, it should be treated as a national security issue. In the UK, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the regime’s principal tool of repression, should be proscribed as a terrorist organisation, a move for which the NCRI and its supporters have been calling for many years.

The West cannot decide Iran’s future. That is a matter for the Iranian people. But it can, and must, do all it can to reject the illusions that help keep such a brutal regime in place.

David Jones is a senior member of the British Committee for Iran Freedom