Is this the end of the Iranian regime?

0:00This is The Guardian.

0:07Today, is Iran's Ayatollah running out of road?

0:25The protests began in late December. People couldn't afford the basic things they need to survive. Sanctions, war and corruption had decimated the economy. As the protests swelled, so did the demands. This wasn't just about the economy anymore. People were calling for an end to the regime that had ruled Iran for more than four decades. And in the last week, the regime hit back. We're watching the videos and the pictures of the dead bodies and we're looking for a familiar face Every single picture is breaking us and we feel really helpless For Masa Pare, it's been agony She lives here in the UK, but all of her family are inside Iran Her father, brother, grandparents, all of her childhood friends.

1:24I cannot explain what we go through, you know, how we feel. We cannot sleep. We cannot live a normal life. Then, last Thursday. The regime cut the internet and mobile networks. Iran went into a communications blackout. I've been trying to call my family for a few days with mobile phone to the landline, through the WhatsApp, but no, no answers. Massa knew what was coming next. We know that behind this is a massacre. They're killing people. Only a few images and videos made it through, and they were horrifying. Students shot at close range Streets on fire Rows of body bags By Monday it was estimated More than 500 people had been killed Masa believes her family is out on the streets And she knows what's at stake They killed my mum During the woman's life freedom uprising And now here we are again So I experienced it again and I'm really worried I don't know what my family goes through these days in Iran.

2:48Yet despite her fear, Massa also says she has hope. Hope that this time the protests will be too powerful for the regime to suppress. Since I lost my mum in this way, that's my dream to see this dictatorship ruin. I know this time is totally different from the previous uprising. It's totally different. People of Iran, they raise their lives not for reform. We all want regime change and they want this. They want regime change. So they raise their life.

3:29The Iranian regime and its supreme leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, has never been more vulnerable. It survived wars, isolation, crushed rebellions. But could this time be different? From The Guardian, I'm Annie Kelly. Today I'm Focus. More bloodshed on the streets of Iran. But how dangerous are these protests for the country's leaders?

3:58Ellie Garamaya, you are a Senior Policy Fellow and Deputy Head of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at the European Council on Foreign Relations. And we're speaking to you on Monday afternoon. Over the weekend, we've seen more than 500 people killed in what started out as protests around the economy among small business owners in the country's markets or bazaars. And these have now swung into the biggest protest since 2009, with many protesters now calling for regime change. Why are these protests so different? Thanks for having me on the show. So historically, the Islamic Republic of Iran had a base that was supported by the so-called bazaris, by the merchants across the country, but also the lower income households.

4:45And that was because when the revolution happened in 1979, the promise of the leaders of the revolution was to equalize the major divides between the poor and the rich. And so they had a populist message. They had a support base from these sectors that are now, you know, 47 years on, concluding that the social contract that was offered to them by the Islamic Republic can no longer deliver. And I think this is a real significant problem for Iran's leaders, because in the past, they have had some wiggle room. Even if there has been economic protests, which there has been in the past, they have been able to tap into the state coffers.

5:31but over the years as the build-up of mismanagement, corruption but also the pressures of sanctions have built they have far less to tap into and so what do they give these people who are hungry on the streets and fighting for basic survival and this is why it's such a high-risk moment in terms of off-ramps for the ruling elite in Iran. I think you saw that reflected, didn't you, in the early rhetoric that the government and the regime were extending towards these protests there was an appreciation that people were really struggling with just basic survival and that the economy was a major factor in people being so unhappy with how things were going.

6:07But that changed, didn't it, just before the weekend when their stance really toughened and then we saw the blackout and then all of the violence that happened over the weekend. Could you just explain to me what you think was behind that shift in rhetoric and this ramping up of violence that we've seen over the last couple of days? Well, I think that at least in these protests, there has been a dual approach, even in recent comments from Iran's government, which is currently in the hands of, let's say, a more moderate faction of power internally. they have been calling for a national dialogue, to not shoot at protesters who are peacefully demonstrating, and to basically work with the merchant class, with economists to try and find a way out of these economic problems.

6:55But then you have the other arm of the Islamic Republic, which is the security apparatus. And since Thursday, they seem to have gone back into the factory setting of using repressive force, iron fist, internet blackouts to respond to these protests. And I think one of the turning points for why that repression has significantly upscaled is because there has been an increasing threat of military force by the United States. We're watching the situation very carefully. I've made the statement very strongly that if they start killing people like they have in the past, we will get involved. We'll be hitting them very hard where it hurts.

7:36And that doesn't mean boots on the ground, but it means hitting them very, very hard where it hurts. And so there is a sense that the Iranian regime has to showcase that they are in control firmly. This is the impression being built up, I would say, by the opposition outside the country. And I think the more that is happening, the more the system in Iran feels the need to double down. They have really upped the ante on calling these protesters now rioters who are agents of foreign regimes and who are being labeled a terrorist actors, or they are working with terrorist elements. So it's a really, I would say, terrible dynamic for those on the ground at the moment in order to be able to push for change.

8:20Could you just expand a bit more on that point about there being all of these kind of internal and external forces which are creating this particularly dangerous situation right now that we're seeing? Yeah, so the Islamic Republic of Iran, whenever there are protests, at some point they point the finger externally. The country's president, Masoud Pazeshkian, has claimed the unrest is being manipulated by his country's enemies and the government has called for In the 12-day war, the enemy wanted to create chaos in our country and is doing the same thing with our economic situation. They have trained some people inside and outside the country.

9:00They have bought in some terrorists from outside. They are not our people. Right, and they always go back to this playbook that these are stoked by foreign adversaries of Iran, namely Israel and the U.S., to try and create regime change or regime collapse. So it's, you know, it's the kind of boy who cried wolf. So it's very hard to believe them this time around. But I think, you know, what is different this time around is the fact that, for example, the former US CIA director, Mike Pompeo, basically has come out to say that he stands with the protesters, but also commenting on how Mossad operatives are on the streets of Iran.

9:39So there is, I think, a new landscape, which is also made even more, I think, tense by the fact that we've just come out of the 12-day war in which Israel and the United States carried out large-scale attacks inside Iran, targeting its nuclear program, but also in Israel's case, targeting Iranian security apparatus, including police forces, which Iran says was Israel's attempt to create regime instability. So this is essentially the game unfinished for Israel, and the Iranians think that Israel and the US have had a hand in turning these protests towards a violent direction. I think Israel would be perfectly happy, in my view, to live in a scenario where Iran is at war with itself, no longer able to threaten Israel, no longer able to have a regional presence as it had before, and economically extremely weak without an opening with the US.

10:38And do you believe that they're right and that they are managing to infiltrate those protests and maybe offer people inside Iran a hope, even if it is a false hope, that there might be some kind of external intervention that will help topple the regime? Look, I have no idea what the Israelis and the Americans are doing on the ground. I would just say that I think the sort of intelligence operations that took place in Iran during the 12-day war suggest that Israel does have significant assets on the ground in Iran at very high levels because they managed to take out almost 30 senior security and military ranks of the Islamic Republic of Iran in the first 48 hours of the 12-day war in June.

11:23So Israel definitely has human assets present on the ground. I don't know to what extent they're being mobilized. But I do think that Israel's endgame and the U.S. endgame are quite different, at least under the current Israeli government led by Benjamin Netanyahu. If they do that, we will hit them at levels that they've never been hit before. They won't even believe it. I have options that are so strong. So, I mean, if they did that... The US obviously has threatened the kind of risk of military intervention. How do you think if that did happen, that would play out inside Iran? So I think that's the$100 billion question at the moment that I keep getting asked.

12:11And it's really hard to tell. He likes to have these big theatrical shows of military force that do not bog down the US military in forever wars as his promises based. So, you know, one option is that he goes in for some sort of a theatrical response that proves to his own base and to Iran that he's not an Obama, quote unquote, weak leader that allows red lines to be passed without any action. And this is, you know, a lot of people are saying inside Iran, it depends in terms of the consequences on the ground, what type of action he goes for. If he goes for a sort of surgical strike in and out, Venezuela strikes or Iranian Jew strikes to show that he's acted, but without necessarily creating regime collapse and state failure in the country, then I think that the dynamics on the ground will play out differently to having potentially US and Israeli long-term military bombardment across the country that's aimed at taking out every single member of Iran's military.

13:22Then we're talking more in the sort of Iraq, Afghanistan, nation building projects, which frankly, we're not seeing any indication that Trump is interested in this. For the US, I think President Trump, while he has repeatedly threatened Iran with war, and has actually done something that no US president has done, which is bomb Iran, its nuclear facilities in the summer, he still, even as of Sunday night, maintains that, you know, the door was open for some sort of a diplomatic deal with Iran. I think they're tired of being beat up by the United States. Iran wants to negotiate, yes. We may meet with them.

14:01I mean, a meeting is being set up. Yes, and Iran has signaled that it's willing to sit down and negotiate on a nuclear deal, which is an indication that it is responding to US pressure. It's under extremely harsh set of terms, but there is a door open, there is an off-ramp there. But for that to work, for all of this to work, and for this shadow of war to be removed, and for international sanctions to be removed, Iran will have to move away from its current position on the US and Washington and find some sort of an accommodation on a bigger set of issues going beyond the nuclear issue. And I think for the US, in Iran, that is an economic opportunity of 90 million in Iran that could basically stabilize the flow of oil in the region is to its interest.

14:53And so I think there are divergent endpoints for the US and Israel here on Iran.

15:07In many ways, the characters are very similar to the 1979 revolution, where you had the Ayatollah Khomeini versus the US-backed king or Shah. Now you have calls for the Shah's son, Reza Pahlavi, to be reinstated if the Ayatollah's regime falls. Could you just briefly explain who is Reza Pahlavi and what is his support base? You know, he left Iran as a teenager with his father after the revolution. And his profile as an opposition leader began to skyrocket, I would say, in 2022-23, when Iran faced its major protests on female social freedoms under the Mahzah Amini Women's Life Freedom Protests.

15:52And he really came to the fore in the Western media, amongst Western governments, as one potential leader of the opposition against the Islamic Republic of Iran. Reza Pahlavi, Your Highness, thank you so much for being here this morning. This is a moment that is defining. Despite being completely cut off from the world, internet shutdown, and for a regime that is massacring its own people, this is an opportunity to liberate that nation. Remember, the same thugs that hate America... He is heavily backed by several forum-based Persian-speaking media networks. And so he has been able to transport his messaging and, you know, almost use these networks as a campaign platform with the people of Iran.

16:39So the messaging that Reza Pahlavi is pushing out is that he is proposing to be the leader of a transition movement and that he wants to have a democratic platform for the day after the fall of the regime. I think there are real questions posed because of the behavior of circles around him, whether they are really committed to that democratic platform. And I don't think we can deny that he has a base in Iran. From the videos that we have seen circulating from the protests, they are calling for his return.

17:24But to the extent that it reflects the views of the majority of Iran's 90 million plus people, it's very hard to ascertain this. But I think it's also important to say that people are reaching the end of their limits now with what's happening in Iran. And so they are in this scenario where as long as the dictatorial current face has a downfall, they will look at the day after later. And so any force that is working towards that is gaining traction. And people are becoming more and more radicalised in that position, I would say. So is there no comparable figurehead inside the country? There are many, let's say, activists, but also civil society figures inside of Iran that are doing incredibly brave work on the ground, you know, looking down the barrel of the gun as they go on the streets or on hunger strike in prisons or facing death row inside Iran.

18:26And they have paid a very, very high cost for trying to push for freedoms from their base inside Iran. And so I don't think we should forget that grouping exists and we are not hearing major calls for U.S. intervention. So it's a very different approach coming from civil society access in the country compared to those outside.

18:59It's difficult to know, isn't it, especially with the media, the internet and the mobile blackout, exactly what is going on and what people are calling for on the streets. From an external perspective, it can kind of look like everybody is rising up and that this signals the end of the regime. But what are your views on that? Do you think that the regime does still command support and is it still firmly in control with the apparatus of the state inside Iran? Look, I think the one thing that is becoming clearer is that the death toll is significantly rising. And I think the more Iranian households see body bags of their loved ones returning, the more that radicalisation process that I spoke about happens.

19:44and we have seen over and over again when different systems have a significant hold on the security apparatus until they don't, right, until it reaches a point of no return. I don't think that they have lost control but they have certainly lost the hearts and minds of a significant portion of the Iranian citizenry.

20:14Iran's Ayatollah Ali Khamenei accused protesters of, quote, ruining their own streets to make the president of another country happy, in reference to US President Donald Trump.

20:28And the violence seemed to also follow the statements by the Ayatollah Khamenei about the kind of calling the protesters foreign agitators. What's your analysis of his grip on power at the age of 86? So first of all, it's very, very hard to tell because since the 12-day war, the Iranian ruling elite has become more and more opaque to the outside world. But at the same time, domestically, you saw a major debate happening in the country about where Iran's supreme leader's legacy has brought him to. You know, you said he's 86. There is much talk of succession and how that will look. But he leaves a terrible legacy at the moment in the past two years where Iran's so-called network of regional resistance alliance has broken down.

21:25They no longer have those key partners in the Middle East to work with as a deterrent against US and Israeli attacks. economically. The country has nosedived. They have not been able to have this big project of turning to Russia and China's major eastern powers that will support Iran at times of war or help Iran's economy in a major way. And so many people are asking, you know, is it time for the 86-year-old supreme leader to step down? And I think these latest protests and the pressure they face from the US at the moment is going to expedite that discourse internally about his future role and immediate role in the country.

22:15Coming up, is this the end for the Iranian regime?

22:32So, Ellie, what options do the Iranian regime have left? One is they double down on a security response both at home and abroad. And this would be an intensification of the old playbook that Iran has, which is crackdown, crackdown, crackdown until the protest fizzles out, and potentially confront the US and Israel in a bigger military confrontation that broadens the war to the region and the Middle East. And I think this is a serious scenario that countries like Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar are extremely concerned about. And I think there's many forces in the region trying to prevent that military confrontation road from happening.

23:21But I think it's a serious possibility. And the other, which I think is the only non-suicidal pathway is for a new social contract to be offered, which provides systematic change away from what exists, which provides for the economic needs of the Iranian people that will require some sort of a deal with the US, but also a major shift away from the current very corrupt systems that are in place in Iran that runs the economy, expand the political and civil rights of the Iranian people, as well as the social rights. And I think only this type of a systematic change will be heard on the streets, not the type of gestures at best, I would say, that we've heard from the Iranian system in the past two weeks, which is, you know, calls for a national dialogue, a very, very small monthly stipend for each household, and promising economic reforms.

24:20No, I don't think that's going to cut it anymore. So it's all very complicated. But what do you think will happen next? Yeah. You know, we are really in an unpredictable territory at the moment. It's uncharted. I do think that there are off-ramps for the Iranian political elite and leadership to take to prevent more bloodshed. But I think if they continue with the current trajectory of resistance at home, resistance abroad, they have a very bleak, immediate and long-term future ahead. And so I hope that if there can be one thing positive that comes out from what's just happened and the horrors that we are seeing unfold in Iran, is an internal-led push for major changes and a transition away from the current system because it's just broken and it's not working.

25:25Ellie, thank you so much. It's been a fascinating conversation, really fast-moving situation too, so really appreciate your time. Thank you. Thanks for having me on the show.

25:38And that's it for today. My thanks to Ellie Garamaya and a special thanks to Masa Paré. You can read all of our reporting on the situation in Iran at theguardian.com. This episode was presented by me, Annie Kelly, and produced by Tom Glasser, Alex Atak, and Hannah Abdon. The sound designer was Rudy Zagadlo, and the executive producer was Homer Khalili. We'll be back this afternoon with the latest.

26:21This is The Guardian.