Iran’s leaders are facing unprecedented pressure from abroad and at home
When an American drone assassinated General Qassem Suleimani...
...it sent shockwaves around the world
Not only was he Iran’s most senior military commander...
...he was also a legend within his own country
Iran’s regime vowed bloody vengeance
But its immediate retaliation seemed designed to avoid escalation
It fired missiles into two Iraqi bases, which host American soldiers...
On Iranian TV it claimed to have caused great damage...
...in reality the missiles killed no one
But then Iran made a horrific blunder
Its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps...
...mistook a Ukrainian passenger jet for a missile and shot it down
Everyone on board died, including 82 Iranians
The disaster, and the way it was handled...
...has sparked widespread anti-government protests in Iran
It has also exposed cracks in the country’s theocratic regime
Immediately after the crash...
...Iran’s government said that it was caused by a mechanical failure
They didn’t admit that it was, in fact, an Iranian missile...
...that had shot it down until the weight of evidence from overseas...
...made it impossible for them to deny this fact
Three days later the Revolutionary Guard issued a statement...
...admitting the mistake and the President of Iran, Hassan Rouhani...
...confirmed it on Twitter
You’ve seen a surge of fury inside Iran
You’ve seen people coming out into the streets to demonstrate...
...even at the risk of being forcibly dispersed and even shot at
You’ve seen artists and sports people saying they no longer wish...
...to be under the Iranian flag
You’ve seen newspapers apologising to their readers...
...for having spread the lies of the government for so long
Iran’s only female Olympic medallist, Kimia Alizadeh...
...publicly defected from the country...
...in a blistering Instagram attack on the regime...
...in which she described herself as...
...“one of the millions of oppressed women in Iran”
Iranians have been dissatisfied with their government for a long time
The economy is doing terribly
Iran ought to be a reasonably well-off country
It has a well-educated, sophisticated citizenry
It has a lot of people who understand how to do business
It has a millennia-old tradition of trading
And yet, it’s doing absolutely terribly
Now, this is partly the fault of sanctions that have been placed on the regime
But it’s also because of the incompetence of the government
Protesters rallied against the government in 2017 and 2019 in provincial cities
The latest unrest began in Tehran, Iran’s capital, and has rippled outwards
The kind of people that we’ve seen...
...demonstrating against the government recently...
...it’s different from the groups that we’ve seen before
It’s a wider selection of people and it includes a lot more established...
...sort of middle-class people
They’re fed up with their government’s incompetence...
...with its brutality and with its endless banging of drums for war...
...when many people feel that it should be concentrating on...
...the appalling state of the Iranian economy
Prominent members of Iran’s parliament have retired...
...and there are calls for President Rouhani to resign
However, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader...
...remains unrepentant
The goings on inside the Iranian regime are completely non-transparent...
...and it’s very hard to tell which faction is up...
...who’s fighting against whom and who’s likely to end up in control...
...when the ageing Ayatollah Khamenei ultimately dies
But one thing is certain, the regime is very unsettled by this...
...and by the reaction to it
The plane disaster, together with the economic gloom...
...has tarnished the credibility of the Islamic regime
So what are Iran’s next steps?
Its leaders are clearly worried...
...but they show no sign of giving in to the protesters
Many Iranians are reaching the end of their patience with their rulers
That doesn’t mean the regime is going to fall straight away
Regimes that are prepared to shoot people, which this one is...
...can last for a very long time
The regime will do whatever it takes to keep its grip on power
It will also continue to stir up trouble in the wider Middle East
It will keep enriching uranium, which could be used to make a nuclear bomb
And it will probably seek revenge for the death of Suleimani
The most likely consequences include...
...future covert, deniable assassinations by Iranian proxies in the Middle East
That could be a soft target...
...an American businessman, a Jewish diplomat
More attacks on Americans might prompt President Trump...
...to withdraw more American forces from the region
If American troops were to pull out of Iraq...
...the country would fall apart...
...into squabbling Shia, Sunni, Arab and Kurdish factions...
...and that Islamic State might come back in Iraq
So that would be very risky
Suleimani’s death has rattled the Iranian regime
Ordinary Iranians are sick of their rulers wasting huge sums...
...on foreign military adventures...
...when the economic situation at home is so dire
Suleimani’s legacy was to help make Iran a global pariah...
...crushed by sanctions
His death probably won’t change that