# Pressure Is Mounting on Iran's Regime

An episode of [Big Take](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1578096201), 14 Jan 2026, 19 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/tracking.swap.fm/track/UVBrz8bN8aM2Xe47PEPu/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/825d4e29-b616-46f4-afd7-ae2b0013005c/1bda65ef-563c-4ebe-b6f7-b3d2018606da/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=8b1dd624-a026-43e9-8b57-ae2b00130066

Weeks of protests in Iran started over the high price of food and essential goods. They quickly engulfed the nation and, before long, were met with deadly force by the Iranian regime’s security forces. The violent crackdown has drawn international condemnation and President Trump has offered protestors his support. On today’s Big Take podcast, host David Gura and International Crisis Group’s Iran Project Director Ali Vaez discuss how we got here, the existential threats facing the Iranian regime and what could come next if it falls. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:02] Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
[0:09] Speaker 2: Protests over economic conditions in Iran have roiled the country
[0:13] Speaker 2: for weeks. Anti government protests in Iran have entered a
[0:16] Speaker 2: thirteen day as the country faces economic.
[0:19] Speaker 1: Terms nationwide movement that has now swept through all thirty
[0:22] Speaker 1: one provinces.
[0:24] Speaker 2: The death toll in Iran may be in the thousands,
[0:26] Speaker 2: higher than previously feared. And while it's not the first
[0:29] Speaker 2: time Iran's regime has faced massive demonstrations, this time feels different.
[0:34] Speaker 1: What was unique about it, I think, is that the
[0:37] Speaker 1: sheer desperation of the population brought all segments of the
[0:42] Speaker 1: society together.
[0:43] Speaker 2: Olivyas is the Iran Project director for the International Crisis Group,
[0:47] Speaker 2: an independent policy research organization that tracks conflicts around the world,
[0:51] Speaker 2: and he says, these protests in Iran are widespread.
[0:55] Speaker 1: Rich and poor, old and young, secular and pious, and
[0:59] Speaker 1: also it's spread geographically in places that we had not
[1:03] Speaker 1: seen protests before, some of the regime's strongholds, including rural areas,
[1:09] Speaker 1: and then again it's quickly spread to bigger cities.
[1:11] Speaker 2: What also sets these demonstrations apart is the kind of
[1:14] Speaker 2: support they're getting from a sitting US president. In a
[1:17] Speaker 2: social media post, the Commander in chief said, quote, we
[1:20] Speaker 2: are locked and loaded and ready to go if Iran
[1:23] Speaker 2: shoots and violently kills peaceful protesters. The Iran regime was
[1:28] Speaker 2: in a precarious position before this. Israel and the US
[1:32] Speaker 2: attacked Iran in June. The country's currency, the Iranian reale,
[1:36] Speaker 2: has weakened dramatically in recent months.
[1:39] Speaker 1: And so you put all of those things together, it's
[1:42] Speaker 1: created not just a national sense of desperation, but also
[1:47] Speaker 1: a sense of finality that we're getting close to a
[1:50] Speaker 1: moment of absolute deadlock across the board. The regime was
[1:55] Speaker 1: and is failing, and the people, I think were just
[1:58] Speaker 1: fed up with it.
[2:02] Speaker 2: I'm David Gura, and this is the big take from
[2:04] Speaker 2: Bloomberg News today on the show, weeks of protests in
[2:08] Speaker 2: Iran and the possibility of international support threatened the Iranian regime,
[2:13] Speaker 2: How we got here and what could happen next. Iran
[2:20] Speaker 2: has been led by a religious authoritarian regime since nineteen
[2:23] Speaker 2: seventy nine, and it has faced protests since then, but
[2:27] Speaker 2: they've always been quashed by Iran's military and security forces,
[2:31] Speaker 2: which are aligned with the regime. Olivayaz, the Iran Project
[2:34] Speaker 2: director for the International Crisis Group, says, there is something
[2:38] Speaker 2: unique about the demonstrations that are currently taking place across Iran.
[2:42] Speaker 1: Iran is not unfamiliar with protests. This time, the trigger
[2:47] Speaker 1: was economic. The Iranian currency has lost about fifty percent
[2:51] Speaker 1: of its value in the course of the past few months,
[2:55] Speaker 1: ninety nine percent of his value in fact, since the
[2:57] Speaker 1: beginning of the revolution. And the economic downturn in the
[3:01] Speaker 1: past few weeks created a real crisis, and the merchants
[3:05] Speaker 1: in bazaar came to the streets protesting the market volatility.
[3:09] Speaker 1: I think they never imagined that they would unleash an
[3:12] Speaker 1: avalanche that basically covered the entire country very quickly and
[3:18] Speaker 1: fantastasized into an immediate demand for regime change. Now, of course,
[3:23] Speaker 1: we have seen this before. It usually takes maybe a
[3:26] Speaker 1: day or two for these protests to start spreading, but
[3:29] Speaker 1: this was almost immediate.
[3:31] Speaker 2: As you mentioned, in twenty twenty five, the Iranian real
[3:34] Speaker 2: slumped by about forty five percent against the US dollar.
[3:37] Speaker 2: We've seen this dramatic weakening. What accounts for that? Why
[3:40] Speaker 2: have we seen the currency depreciate so much?
[3:42] Speaker 1: Well, first of all, David, I think that it's the
[3:45] Speaker 1: accumulated impact of sanctions. Iran has been in a state
[3:49] Speaker 1: of stagflation for about fifteen years. Second is that the markets,
[3:55] Speaker 1: especially since last fall when the UN sanctions on Iran
[4:00] Speaker 1: were restored and it became clear that there's basically no
[4:04] Speaker 1: light at the end of the tunnel for getting any
[4:05] Speaker 1: sanctions relieved anytime soon, and so there's no economic reprieve
[4:09] Speaker 1: around the corner. There was some significant capital flight and
[4:14] Speaker 1: dimming of hopes and expectations in the market in Iran,
[4:18] Speaker 1: and I think all of these factors came together and
[4:21] Speaker 1: created a perfect economic storm that the government simply did
[4:25] Speaker 1: not have any answers to. The middle class was already
[4:27] Speaker 1: hollowed out after years of sanctions, corruption and mismanagement. But
[4:34] Speaker 1: the government was better at trying to look after his
[4:37] Speaker 1: own core constituents, the lower strata of the Iranian society.
[4:42] Speaker 1: But again, there was no cushion left now to try
[4:45] Speaker 1: to bail them out anymore.
[4:47] Speaker 2: How has their government responded to these protests, Well.
[4:50] Speaker 1: Look, these protests I think have had three phases. The
[4:53] Speaker 1: first phase was the Pesition administration trying to see if
[4:58] Speaker 1: there was a way to placate these protests by offering dialogue,
[5:03] Speaker 1: offering subsidies seven dollars to every Iranian and hoping that
[5:08] Speaker 1: it would go away. It did not work because the
[5:11] Speaker 1: problems are so much deeper and widespread to be alleviated
[5:16] Speaker 1: just with marginal reforms like this. And then the second
[5:21] Speaker 1: week we started to see the clampdown the usual mo
[5:25] Speaker 1: of the Islamic Republic, which is repress and carry on
[5:31] Speaker 1: refused reforms. It was really back to that playbook. And
[5:34] Speaker 1: then President Trump threatened to intervene, and I think that
[5:40] Speaker 1: served as a perverse incentive for the regime to try
[5:44] Speaker 1: to wrap up these protests before the US could move
[5:48] Speaker 1: military assets to the region. And this is when we saw,
[5:53] Speaker 1: coinciding with last weekend and run, a very brutal crackdown.
[5:59] Speaker 1: The regime brought down the iron fist with speed and
[6:02] Speaker 1: ferocity that we've never seen before. The number of fatalities
[6:08] Speaker 1: now ranges in a few thousands, tens of thousands of
[6:11] Speaker 1: people have been arrested.
[6:15] Speaker 2: We are just a few months from the war back
[6:17] Speaker 2: in June, and you had US and Israel attacking a
[6:20] Speaker 2: lot of a run in infrastructure, targeting scientists, military officials.
[6:24] Speaker 2: How is that shaping the way the regime is responding
[6:27] Speaker 2: to these protests well.
[6:30] Speaker 1: As I said, Iran has had experience with protests before,
[6:33] Speaker 1: but this is really once in a generation phenomenon that
[6:37] Speaker 1: the regime was dealing with, and I think that made
[6:40] Speaker 1: it feel that it is facing an existential angst for
[6:44] Speaker 1: its survival, and it resulted in its resort to brutality
[6:49] Speaker 1: the kind of which we have not seen in decades.
[6:53] Speaker 1: I think the fact that the regime believed that Israel
[6:57] Speaker 1: would not just try to undermin it through military and
[7:02] Speaker 1: kinetic actions or sabotage of its nuclear or military facilities,
[7:06] Speaker 1: but also through subversion, also through infiltration. And of course
[7:11] Speaker 1: we saw in the Dream Conflict an extraordinary degree of
[7:16] Speaker 1: intelligence penetration by Israel into the Iranian system and society,
[7:21] Speaker 1: and Israel was openly talking about trying to topple the regime.
[7:26] Speaker 1: So some of that fear was not paranoia, some of
[7:29] Speaker 1: it was justified based on past experience. So all of
[7:34] Speaker 1: this provided more ammunition for those within the system. We're
[7:38] Speaker 1: arguing that this should be nipped in the butt as
[7:41] Speaker 1: quickly as possible.
[7:43] Speaker 2: One tool the regime has at its disposal is control
[7:46] Speaker 2: of the Internet, and we've seen that happen here over
[7:48] Speaker 2: the last few weeks. I'm curious how that shaped our
[7:51] Speaker 2: understanding of this protest movement, and beyond that, the effect
[7:55] Speaker 2: that that's had on protesters' ability to organize.
[7:58] Speaker 1: Look, the regime has no answer to the legitimate grievances
[8:02] Speaker 1: of its population other than repression and shutting down the internet,
[8:07] Speaker 1: as it has done repeatedly in the past. It serves
[8:10] Speaker 1: multiple purposes. First of all, when the regime turns off
[8:13] Speaker 1: the lights, the world doesn't understand the scale and scope
[8:17] Speaker 1: of the atrocities committed until the regime has managed to
[8:21] Speaker 1: re establish control. Partly, this time around, we know about
[8:26] Speaker 1: what has happened because the regime actually broadcasted it itself
[8:30] Speaker 1: broadcasted on state television, and the regime did that in
[8:34] Speaker 1: order to instill fear in the hearts of the protesters.
[8:38] Speaker 1: Is also to prevent communication and coordination between the protesters
[8:43] Speaker 1: and to make sure that the images of bravery in
[8:48] Speaker 1: one city do not spill over and encourage and incentivize
[8:52] Speaker 1: other cities to come join the protest. And finally, it
[8:56] Speaker 1: is to prevent cyber attacks or covert operations, as we know,
[9:02] Speaker 1: to prevent internal forces from being able to coaliesten to
[9:06] Speaker 1: bigger masses that would be hard for the regime to
[9:09] Speaker 1: contain and control.
[9:11] Speaker 2: Elon Musk says he's going to make his Starlink Internet
[9:13] Speaker 2: service available for free to Iranians. Is that likely to
[9:16] Speaker 2: make any kind of a difference here?
[9:18] Speaker 1: So, look, there are some images and some information trickling
[9:22] Speaker 1: out of Iran because the blackout is about ninety nine percent,
[9:27] Speaker 1: so it's about one percent of Internet connection that is
[9:30] Speaker 1: still established, and part of that I think is coming
[9:33] Speaker 1: through Starlink. So it's a positive thing that Elon Musk
[9:36] Speaker 1: is doing, but it's still awfully insufficient. It is very
[9:41] Speaker 1: difficult to get a comprehensive and accurate image of what's
[9:44] Speaker 1: happening on the ground. I have not been able to
[9:48] Speaker 1: reach my own family in the past six stays. I
[9:51] Speaker 1: don't know how they're doing. The landlines, mobile phones, Internet,
[9:57] Speaker 1: all of it is down, and so it's really possible
[10:00] Speaker 1: to get hold of them.
[10:06] Speaker 2: Coming up. What President Trump has said about the United
[10:08] Speaker 2: States is support of the protesters and what could happen
[10:11] Speaker 2: if the protest movement or intervention from overseas topples the
[10:15] Speaker 2: Iranian regime. The protest movement in Iran is facing a
[10:31] Speaker 2: violent crackdown, including threats to kill popular opposition leaders and activists,
[10:36] Speaker 2: that has drawn international condemnation, and President Trump has offered
[10:40] Speaker 2: protesters his support. At an event in the Oval Office
[10:43] Speaker 2: on Wednesday, Trump said he'd heard the executions were called off.
[10:47] Speaker 3: We have involved by very important sources on the other side,
[10:50] Speaker 3: and they've said the killing this up and the executions
[10:53] Speaker 3: won't take place. There was supposed to be a lot
[10:56] Speaker 3: of executions today and that the executions won't take place.
[11:00] Speaker 2: Also asked about the possibility of US military action in Iran,
[11:03] Speaker 2: which he still won't rule out.
[11:04] Speaker 1: Does mean a military action is now off the table
[11:07] Speaker 1: against Iran?
[11:08] Speaker 3: Or We're going to watch and see what the process is.
[11:11] Speaker 2: I asked Alivayas, the Iran Project director for the International
[11:14] Speaker 2: Crisis Group, to unpack Trump's comments. In recent days, President
[11:18] Speaker 2: Trump has been a very vocal supporter of the protesters.
[11:22] Speaker 2: He's threatened to twenty five percent tariff on goods from
[11:24] Speaker 2: any country that trades with Iran, and he's also encouraged
[11:27] Speaker 2: protesters to keep going, keep protesting. He wrote on social
[11:30] Speaker 2: media this week, take over your institutions. In another post,
[11:34] Speaker 2: he wrote help is on its way, with no specifics
[11:36] Speaker 2: about what that means, and when reporters asked him about that,
[11:39] Speaker 2: the President declined to elaborate. What is the potential for
[11:43] Speaker 2: US involvement here and what could it look like as
[11:45] Speaker 2: you see it?
[11:46] Speaker 1: To be honest, it's anybody's guests, But there is a
[11:49] Speaker 1: range of options available to the president in the category
[11:52] Speaker 1: of non kinetic I would say that overall, they're not
[11:58] Speaker 1: gonna move the needle of that month, because if you
[12:01] Speaker 1: engage in cyber attacks, for instance, to hamper the repressive
[12:05] Speaker 1: apparatus's ability to communicate, they can still you know, it's
[12:10] Speaker 1: a temporary measure. If you engage in sanctions or sanctions enforcement.
[12:16] Speaker 1: First of all, one has to remember that Iran is
[12:19] Speaker 1: already sanctioned to the hilt, and if the US is
[12:22] Speaker 1: to enforce, let's say, an oil embargo, it risks in
[12:26] Speaker 1: the process endangering one of the most critical choke points
[12:29] Speaker 1: in the world. And that would also have an inflationary
[12:32] Speaker 1: impact on the US as well, because gas prices will
[12:35] Speaker 1: go up in the same way that imposition of tariffs
[12:38] Speaker 1: on China, or on UAE or on Turkey, which are
[12:43] Speaker 1: trade partners of Iran, would also have an inflationary impact
[12:47] Speaker 1: on the United States, and in any case, it's unlikely
[12:51] Speaker 1: to have an immediate impact that would save the protesters.
[12:55] Speaker 1: So the non kinetic options I really don't think are
[12:57] Speaker 1: going to be effective in the short run. Kinetic options
[13:04] Speaker 1: come with huge risks and unforeseen consequences. The president can
[13:10] Speaker 1: decide to go for political decapitation of the running regime,
[13:14] Speaker 1: try to eliminate the Supreme leader or the government or
[13:20] Speaker 1: additional military leaders. But there are two facts about the
[13:23] Speaker 1: running regime that one should not underestimate. One is that
[13:26] Speaker 1: it's deeply entrenched, just like in Venezuela, where the president
[13:31] Speaker 1: decided that he's just going to remove the head and
[13:34] Speaker 1: leave the rest of the body of that regime in place.
[13:37] Speaker 1: And second is that it's also deeply benched regime. It
[13:41] Speaker 1: quickly replaced all the generals who were killed in June
[13:46] Speaker 1: and started fighting back against Israel. And even in a
[13:50] Speaker 1: scenario that one creates political vacuum at the top of
[13:54] Speaker 1: the system, it might be replaced by either a more
[13:59] Speaker 1: repressive set of leaders within the Revolutionary Guards, or it
[14:04] Speaker 1: might be replaced by violent chaos if we end up
[14:08] Speaker 1: in a free for all. In Iran, there is almost
[14:11] Speaker 1: half a ton of near weapons grade uranium that is
[14:15] Speaker 1: unaccounted for in Iran. That's sufficient for ten nuclear weapons
[14:18] Speaker 1: and maybe dozens of dirty bombs, and this would be
[14:22] Speaker 1: a major security breach for not just Iran and the region,
[14:26] Speaker 1: but the rest of the world.
[14:29] Speaker 2: This week, German Chancellor Friedrich Mertz predicted the Islamic Republic
[14:32] Speaker 2: is in its quote final days. He said, when a
[14:34] Speaker 2: regime can only hold on to power through violence, it's
[14:37] Speaker 2: effectively finished. Is this a regime on the brink of collapse?
[14:42] Speaker 1: Look, the Islamic Republic is in a debt spiral without
[14:47] Speaker 1: any doubt. But when it would collapse is anybody's guests.
[14:52] Speaker 1: I've been hearing these predictions literally for decades, and the
[14:57] Speaker 1: reality is that other regimes like the the Syrian regime
[15:01] Speaker 1: survived on use of lethal force and repression for many years,
[15:05] Speaker 1: so that Saddam Hussein and it eventually required foreign military intervention.
[15:11] Speaker 1: So it's hard to predict when the Islamic Republic will collapse.
[15:14] Speaker 1: But there are certain things that are absolutely clear. This
[15:17] Speaker 1: is a regime that is at a dead end. It
[15:20] Speaker 1: has been ideologically bankrupt, economically bankrupt, politically at a dead end.
[15:26] Speaker 1: Even if it had a little bit of legitimacy left
[15:29] Speaker 1: because its social contract was defined by providing safety and
[15:35] Speaker 1: security instead of prosperity and pluralism. Even that fell apart
[15:40] Speaker 1: last year when it exposed the country to foreign aggression
[15:45] Speaker 1: as a result of its policies. So overall, I do
[15:50] Speaker 1: believe that the Islamic Republic is doomed to fail. But
[15:53] Speaker 1: when that happens, I think it's anybody's guest.
[15:57] Speaker 2: Let me ask you last that we've talked a bit
[15:59] Speaker 2: about the the transition would mean domestically, let me pull
[16:02] Speaker 2: back and ask about what it would mean for the
[16:04] Speaker 2: Middle East and for the world more broadly. I'm thinking
[16:06] Speaker 2: about the Sui's, the Qataris, the Israelis, also thinking about
[16:10] Speaker 2: Russians and the Chinese. What would that moment of transition
[16:14] Speaker 2: mean for the world as a whole, Well.
[16:17] Speaker 1: It depends, David. I think the status quo is attractive
[16:21] Speaker 1: for many because Iran is basically in a box. It's
[16:27] Speaker 1: dependent economically on China, militarily on Russia, and it is
[16:35] Speaker 1: not able to really pose an existential threat to most
[16:39] Speaker 1: of its neighbors and even to Israel in terms of
[16:42] Speaker 1: the threat it poses to Israel, as has been weekend,
[16:45] Speaker 1: So as long as it doesn't lash out, I think
[16:48] Speaker 1: a lot of Iran's neighbors would prefer Iran to remain
[16:52] Speaker 1: in the weak state that it is right now. Now,
[16:56] Speaker 1: a good scenario of Iran fulfilling its potential turning into
[17:00] Speaker 1: a G twenty economy, pluralistic democratic society is actually unattractive
[17:09] Speaker 1: to most of Iran's neighbors. To some of Iran's neighbors
[17:12] Speaker 1: who have monarchies and our authocracies, this basically sets a
[17:17] Speaker 1: precedent for their own populations that could be destabilizing to
[17:22] Speaker 1: some of Iran's neighbors who have been able to reap
[17:25] Speaker 1: the economic benefits of Iran's isolation, all of a sudden
[17:29] Speaker 1: there will be a major competitor, a major energy exporter,
[17:33] Speaker 1: a major attraction for foreign investment, and this could be
[17:38] Speaker 1: quite problematic. Also, Iran could be able to once again
[17:45] Speaker 1: influence US policy in the way that it was doing
[17:48] Speaker 1: prior to the nineteen seventy nine revolution. That would then
[17:51] Speaker 1: diminish the privileged position that some countries like Israel have now.
[17:56] Speaker 1: The worst case scenario, which is Iran becoming another failed state,
[18:00] Speaker 1: is also pretty unattractive for most of Iran's neighbors. With
[18:04] Speaker 1: the exception of Israel, which I think will be okay.
[18:07] Speaker 1: With Iran descending into chaos and it's fought away from Israel.
[18:13] Speaker 1: As long as it's internally focused, it's not a problem.
[18:16] Speaker 1: But for Turkey there will be probably millions of refugees
[18:21] Speaker 1: who would cross the border. For the Gulf States who
[18:24] Speaker 1: want to invest on their economic plans and future prosperity,
[18:29] Speaker 1: a country of ninety million being engaged in a civil
[18:32] Speaker 1: strife with a lot of lethal weapons and facile material
[18:37] Speaker 1: being unmonitored is quite problematic. So I think the worst
[18:41] Speaker 1: and the best case scenario are not attractive for Iran's neighbors.
[18:46] Speaker 1: The STATISCO is, but unfortunately the STATUSCO also doesn't appear
[18:51] Speaker 1: to be very sustainable.
[18:58] Speaker 2: This is the Big Take from Bloomberg New I'm David Gurat.
[19:01] Speaker 2: To get more from The Big Take and unlimited access
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