Mike Baker

But the very need to publicly signal toughness may point to internal debate.

Regimes, confident in their legitimacy, rarely feel compelled to advertise punishment.

Now, another pressure point that's arisen in the past several days is the issue of succession.

Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei is in his mid-80s, and the question of who follows him has never really been resolved.

Prolonged unrest complicates that calculus.

A violent crackdown may secure control in the short term, but it risks poisoning any future transition, a concern that weighs heavily on elites thinking beyond the immediate survival of the regime.

There's also growing tension, reportedly, between Iran's political class and its security state.

Civilian institutions increasingly absorb public anger without wielding real power, while security forces dominate decision-making.

Over time, that imbalance could erode or corrode internal trust and leave parts of the system feeling expendable.

Now, none of this means, of course, that the Iranian regime is close to collapse.

History suggests that it's resilient, ruthless, and capable of surviving prolonged unrest.

But it does suggest something important has shifted.

The leadership is no longer debating whether repression works.

It's debating how much damage the system can absorb before the costs outweigh the benefits.

For outside observers, including the US and its allies, this matters.

Regimes under internal strain sometimes seek external confrontation to rally support at home.

They may also make less predictable decisions as elite consensus narrows.

For now, Iran's leaders remain outwardly unified, but beneath that facade, reporting indicates a regime grappling not just with unrest in the streets, but with growing anxiety and differing opinions inside its own ranks.

Coming up next, an ISIS prison break in Syria raises fresh security concerns during a fragile government transition.

I'll be right back.