Holly Dagres

One question that the American audience might ask is what impact the tightening sanctions have had on this economic crisis for Iran.

These are American sanctions on Iranian oil and other products I'm referring to.

This is Holly Dagras.

Hali went to high school in Tehran, Iran's capital, and witnessed firsthand how much the desire of young people for more social freedom has fueled uprisings in the country.

Reza Pahlavi is the son of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the Iranian Shah or King, who was deposed in the 1979 revolution that brought the Islamic Republic into power.

For most of the last 47 years, Reza Pahlavi has been living in exile in the U.S.

Javid Shah.

This is one of the many messages Reza Pahlavi has directed towards the Iranian people in the last few weeks.

Dear people of Iran, my brave compatriots, you have over the last two weeks shaken the Islamic Republic at its foundations.

There's something that I've noticed about these protests that seem to be different from the ones in the past.

And it's centered around sort of what we can tell at least from symbolism.

And one is the flag that many people are flying.

Can you talk about what the lion and sun flag is basically and how it differs from Iran's official flag and what that means?

That's a change, right?

To me, it shows that there's this underlying deep desire for sort of a nationalistic, pre-Islamic cultural identity to reemerge in Iran.

The regime's response to these protests, like they have in the past, has been extremely violent.

The numbers we are seeing on the conservative side are shocking.

If you could describe their strategy in these response traditionally, like why they respond in this way, what are they thinking about?

Kurdish armed groups based in Iraq have said that they are conducting operations to protect protesters in Iran, where there is also a Kurdish minority.

I mean, your description makes it sound like the IRGC is kind of backed into a corner, more or less.