Over the past two years, the Islamic Republic of Iran has sustained a series of major blows that may prove fatal to its survival over time. Despite all of this, there is little to indicate the likelihood of regime change in Iran in the immediate term. Undoubtedly, the Iranian regime is deeply unpopular, as January’s mass protests and footage of the celebrations that followed the killing of Khamenei make clear. But they are also reluctant to engage with other elements in the Iranian opposition, wary of further marginalisation in whatever Persian-dominated dispensation might follow from the fall of the Islamic Republic. In every case, the regime response was violent repression, leading to hundreds, and in some cases thousands, of deaths.

Source: The Irish Times March 02, 2026 17:34 UTC