Q&A: Naghmeh Sohrabi on the protests in Iran and the possibility of a new regime
January 16, 2026
The world is watching what’s unfolding in Iran. Protests over a plunging currency and worsening economic conditions have been followed by an internet blackout and a violent crackdown that human rights groups estimate has killed hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of citizens. Many observers, including Naghmeh Sohrabi, the Charles (Corky) Goodman Professor of Middle East History and the Director for Research at the Crown Center for Middle East Studies, say there are elements to the latest unrest in Iran that could prove difficult for the regime to overcome, even as it seems that the current round of protests have died down. Sohrabi shares her thoughts on the situation as it continues to develop.
Broadly speaking, what prompted the current wave of protests in Iran?
When we talk about the most recent protests in Iran it helps to think of them as occurring in two stages. On Dec. 28, merchants in Tehran protested the plunging of the Iranian currency against the dollar. While the rial had been on a downward trajectory against the dollar for a while, in December it went into free fall. The currency's weakening was a reflection of the dire economic situation in the country due to both internal and external factors, such as corruption and foreign sanctions. To give you a sense, in late December inflation was around 52.6%, while food inflation was up 72% compared to the year before. Additionally, rumors were rampant that another Israeli attack was on its way after the 12-day war in June.
All of these things together created a paralysis in Iranian society and a deep sense of desperation. Merchants first took to the streets, followed by students, and the protests spread across the country. Then on Jan. 8, answering the call of the son of the deposed Shah, Reza Pahlavi, a much wider swath of society came out to protest. What had begun as an economic grievance turned into a stand against the regime.
It's important to note that while Pahlavi did put out a call for people to join the protests, the reason for people going out in the streets was not necessarily to call for the return of the monarchy. The main slogans shouted were calls for freedom and “death to the dictator” on that night, reflecting the widespread anger and frustration society felt against the current government. Right after that, the government shut the internet down, and since then the country has been cut off from the rest of the world. There has been a trickle of images coming out, and people within Iran have been calling their loved ones outside Iran from landlines, but overall we have very little verified information about the situation on the ground.
Can you give us a brief history lesson on how the current government in Iran came to power?
The current government, the presidency of Masoud Pezeshkian, came into power in summer 2024 after elections were held to replace the previous president, Ebrahim Raisi, who died in a helicopter crash. Pezeshkian is a reformist, and while many Iranians by 2024 were disheartened by a regime that in 2022 had used violence against protestors in the “women, life, freedom” movement, there was a sliver of hope that he would find a way to bring Iran to the nuclear negotiating table and give the country some much needed economic relief. Unfortunately, the June war with Israel closed that possibility.
Iranian leadership initially appeared to tolerate the protesters, and even offered to create a dialogue. How unusual was that, and why do you think it didn't last long before a crackdown began?
I mentioned earlier that we need to see the protests as happening in two stages, precisely to address this. At first, when the merchants took to the streets and began protesting the economic situation, the government did strike an unusual conciliatory tone, and acknowledged the burden people were feeling. The reasons for that are complicated, but a simplified answer is that they did not see these economic protests as an existential threat. Perhaps that was because Iran's economic woes are a mixture of internal and external forces: both government mismanagement and a brutal sanctions regime. To that end, the government narrative made a distinction between who they called protestors and who they called rioters.
On Jan. 5, the government came up with a plan to pay citizens the equivalent of $7 as a way of addressing the situation and cooling things down. But that was like putting a band aid on a gangrened leg. The nature of the protests on Jan. 8, which encompassed many sectors of society and the chants that were calling for the fall of the regime and death to the supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei put an end to any talk of national conciliation and led to the regime's brutal crackdown of the demonstrations.
It seems that every several years or so we hear news of uprisings or protests in Iran, but they are quickly put down and the leadership remains in place. Are you noticing anything different this time?
The most important difference to me is that it's almost impossible to see what the off ramp is going to be for the regime. As brutal as the reaction to the 2022 “women, life, freedom” movement was, the Islamic Republic nonetheless was forced to concede to the demand that there be no more mandatory veiling for women. It never changed its laws but veiling became, for all intents and purposes, a personal choice in the aftermath of that movement. It didn't heal the rift between society and government but it also did not create an unbridgeable abyss between the two.
The economic issues of today are much harder, if not impossible, to solve. Even if it wanted to, how can the government address high inflation and such a desperate economic situation in a time frame that would be meaningful to the population, all under the threat of another war with Israel and/or the U.S.?
Additionally, its violent reaction to these protests, evidenced by a video showing a room filled with rows of body bags and citizens walking among them trying to identify their loved ones, seems to have burned any path towards any type of reconciliation between the government and the people. At the same time, the protests are not enough to overthrow the system. So there is now a singular situation where there is no way to go back and no way to go forward. It's what Reza Akbari calls a state of political paralysis, in which Iranian citizens are trapped in cycles of protests and state repression.
