Jared Malsin

They're trying to fight a fire that has already consumed them.

Right.

So they have spiraled to pull in a wide cross-section of Iranian society.

You had protests in cities across the periphery, in all kinds of regions, in Balochistan, in the Kurdish areas, in Tehran itself.

Very importantly, these protests in the city of Mashhad, which is more religious, more conservative, which shows that

Some of the core constituents that would normally support the system as a whole, support the Islamic Republic, that those people are protesting.

That is why it is a situation that is challenging the system as a whole.

they have also launched a crackdown.

There's been this very deadly, very concerning crackdown on protesters where you've had hundreds if not thousands of people killed, and you've seen the videos circulating that we've reported also of the bodies piling up in morgues.

And that's what our newsroom is focused on now, is trying to figure out how many people were killed, how many people died,

We're going to get the story out eventually, and we're going to find out just how many people are dead in what looks to be one of the worst, most lethal acts of political mass killing in recent years.

That's a great question.

I think, you know,

What a lot of analysts have said is that Iran's government drove itself into a perfect storm of factors that caused this crisis, where you have this underlying banking crisis and a weak financial system, a war with a more powerful neighbor.

And then a lot of Iranians are looking at this situation saying, OK, what was all this money spent on?

Like, what was the point of all this?

Yeah, exactly.

And then, you know, it's just part of how a country like this stays afloat is ordinary people participate in the economy.

You know, like you go to work every day, you go to school, you open your shop.

And if you can't do that anymore, that's when that starts to come apart at the seams.