Targets could include the IRGC; crucial economic infrastructure, such as the oil terminals on Kharg island in the Gulf; and key officials, perhaps even the supreme leader, Ali Khamenei.

Yet Mr Trump later suggested that an attack may no longer be necessary: “We’ve been told that the killing in Iran is stopping,” he said.

The ebb in demonstrations does not mean the unrest is over, as Iran’s own history shows. At the start of the Islamic revolution in 1978, protests grew in the spring, dwindled in the summer and roared back in the autumn.

Iran’s economy was forecast to slump by 1.7% in 2025. And that was unevenly distributed. The service sector, which employs half the workforce, is shrinking, as is agriculture. Construction, mostly carried out by military firms, grew.

Almost one-third of Iranians live in poverty. Professionals linger outside butchers hoping for scraps. Just a third of working-age adults are employed, says the World Bank.

Since July the rial has plunged by 40% and hit an all-time low, which sent the price of imports soaring. Annual inflation is nearly 50%.

This is probably the worst bout of state violence in the regime’s 47-year history. It dwarfs the killings during the protests in 2022, when around 550 people died in two months. Even the mass executions of 1988, when thousands of prisoners were sent to the gallows, may pale in comparison.

When shopkeepers in Tehran went on strike last month, it did not seem they would give birth to a movement so big or so consequential. Protests simmered for almost two weeks, persistent but far smaller than those in 2022—until January 8th, when Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of the deposed shah, urged Iranians to take to the streets en masse. Many of... See more

The Islamic Republic has weathered bouts of turmoil in the past, from the rigged election of 2009 to the women-led protests of 2022. Each time, optimists predicted the regime’s imminent downfall; each time, it muddled through. B