Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has built his 37-year rule on uncompromising repression. His answer to the current protests is no different.
“There is massive disappointment and disillusionment,” one Tehran resident said. A human rights group acknowledged that demonstrations had been subdued since Sunday, with thousands of people detained.
Understanding the factors that can topple regimes.
Iran’s representative denied the country had killed protesters, as the U.S. ambassador said President Trump had made clear “all options are on the table” to stop the killing.
Israel is unlikely to do much to try to precipitate a regime change in Iran, seeing the government as far from the brink of collapse and the current protests as insufficient to push it to that point.
Iran’s judiciary said there was no death penalty issued for Erfan Soltani, whose case drew international outcry. Analysts say the government is using fear and intimidation to keep people off the streets.
President Trump has said that “help is on the way” for Iranian protesters. Amid reports that thousands of the protesters have been killed, our national security correspondent David E. Sanger describes what some of Mr. Trump’s options might be.
Iran had planned to put a 26-year-old protester to death amid the wave of unrest in the country, but apparently stood down for now.
President Trump has left himself plenty of room for maximal intervention. But there are a host of potential wild cards, each with risks for the president.
Its security forces have brutally defended the Islamic Republic, but the protests show that many Iranians consider it stagnant and ideologically hollow.