Iran Is Teetering. The West Isn’t Prepared.

A lone man crouched in the middle of a Tehran street, a black jacket pulled over his head, blocking advancing Iranian security forces. The video went viral among Iranians, quickly drawing comparisons to the famous “Tank Man” in China’s Tiananmen Square in 1989. Similarly courageous actions have occurred across Iran: young protesters—sometimes alone, sometimes in pairs or more—standing or kneeling peacefully before their repressors. The protests are the largest since the Woman, Life, Freedom uprising that began in 2022 and are taking place despite what the United Nations has called crimes against humanity committed by the authorities during that period. The trigger this time was the collapse of the Iranian rial against the dollar. However, the protesters’ core grievances remain constant—government mismanagement, corruption, and repression—and they include an explicit demand for the ouster of the Islamic Republic...

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