Nick Fountain

And I am grateful.

The financial struggles, that has been a huge part of the change that Ali's been tracking.

He says things changed even over the course of his short visit in December to see family and friends from childhood, the few that stayed.

Then a popular opposition figure, the son of the former monarch, Reza Pahlavi, he urged Iranians to go out into the streets on January 8th and just walk with their family and friends.

Ali ended up joining the protests, too.

Took some video.

By the way, he asked us to use his nickname to avoid retribution from the Iranian government.

And a lot of that economic pain is from corruption.

But a lot of it is because of the U.S., because of sanctions.

The U.S.

has been sanctioning Iran in one way or another for 47 years.

The aim has been to push the regime to stop arming militias and terrorist groups in the Middle East, to stop pursuing nuclear weapons.

But instead, the regime cracked down.

Shot thousands of people in the streets.

Imprisoned thousands more.

Shut down the internet.

The Iranian government has said 3,000 people were killed.

Independent observers estimate the true number to be many times that, in the tens of thousands.

Ali says you got to keep in mind, the entire history of this regime in Iran has been littered with protests and violent crackdowns, protests and violent crackdowns.

This is not new.