Iran is on fire. The regime has slaughtered protesters in the streets. It has cut internet access. It is daring the world to do something. And after more than two weeks of bloodshed, the question that raises—the essential question for outsiders looking in—is the most basic one: Is the Islamic Republic, this brutal system that has ruled Iran for 47 years, actually vulnerable? Can it be brought down?
This is not the kind of isolated flash protest that we’ve seen in the past. The scale is unprecedented: a major nationwide challenge to the regime that has brought out new constituencies that had not previously joined the protests. And the regime is responding in kind: with bullets and mass arrests.
The seriousness with which the regime is treating the threat is evident in the complete shutdowns of internet and phone connections to the outside world we saw over the past two weeks. These actions are not just meant to hide from outsiders what’s happening: the killings of thousands by regime enforcers. They’re also, and primarily, intended to stop Iranians themselves from coordinating with one another, thus making it more difficult to keep organizing new protests.
And the death toll. We don’t yet know the real number. We may never know. Multiple credible reports describe mass casualties on a staggering scale, from 12,000 to as high as 20,000, in just a few days. Israeli intelligence reportedly said a few days ago it believed the number had passed 5,000. Even the regime’s own officials actually admitted to 2,000 dead—which means it could easily be 10 times that. These numbers alone tell the story of the scale of the protests, of the rage, and of the regime’s panic.
The Islamic Republic survives not because it’s popular but because it’s built to survive. It has an ideological story that gives it an enormous advantage in moments like these, and a security apparatus specifically designed for domestic war against its own people. Indeed, it has failed at just about everything it has tried, or claimed to be trying, for 47 years: destroying Israel, delivering prosperity. Everything except the construction of an expansive and capable domestic architecture of oppression: the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the intelligence services, the paramilitary Basij Resistance Force, the police—the whole vast and overlapping architecture of coercion.
