Holly Dagres

Okay, so before 1979, Iran was a monarchy ruled by a U.S.-backed shah or king named Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

He was installed by the U.S.

in 1953 after a CIA-backed coup against the democratically elected government of Mohammad Mossadegh.

He stayed in power until 1979, when he was overthrown after a massive protest movement erupted against his autocratic rule.

Iran's Muslim clerics emerged as the ruling force in the country, and Iran became a theocratic republic.

In other words, it is ruled by Islamic law or Sharia, but it also has a president, legislature, and Supreme Court.

On paper, it doesn't look much different from many other countries.

Since 1999, the Islamic Republic has seen unrest from its population regularly, a repeating cycle of protest and repression.

But each of these cycles has been unique.

In 1999, it was a student-led protest movement focused on freedom of expression.

In 2009's Green Revolution, the protests happened in response to what was perceived to be a stolen election.

There were smaller-scale protests in the years after, until the next major one in 2022.

The Women Life Freedom Movement started after Masa Gina Amini died in the hands of authorities after she was arrested for allegedly not observing Islamic dress codes.

This is Ali Alfone.

He's a senior fellow at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, D.C.

Wow.

You might remember Ali Alfone from our episode called Soleimani's Iran.

He is an Iranian-born political scientist and an expert on the country's leadership.

Ali says that these economic problems have been exacerbated by the fact that the pain is not being felt by everyone.

So would you say that the response from the regime to this economic crisis has been insufficient?