Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. Klaas Olssonin asiakaskuulutus. Meillä on uutinen, joka koskee kaikkia asiakaitamme. Viikko, kaksi ja kolme eivät ole vuoden synkimmät viikot. Päinvastoin tarjoamme nyt 30 prosentin alennuksen Northlightin kato- ja pöytävalaisimista. Ja kaiken lisäksi lampuista miinus 20 prosenttia.
Astu toiseen maailmaan Storytelin kanssa. Rakkaustarinoita, trillereitä ja lastensuosikkeja. Täytä talvi yli miljoonalla tarinalla. Kokeile Storyteliä nyt kolme kuukautta puoleen hintaan. Life is better with a story. This is a special edition of the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Will Chalk.
Iran on huomannut Donaldun, että hän on valmis opettamaan hänet yllättyvällä koulutuksella. Se on tullut, kun Yhdysvallan presidentti huomioi, että hän miettii hyvin vahvia vaihtoehtoja. Selkeästi se, mitä aloitettiin viime vuonna, kun Iranin kaupungin Teheranin demonstraatio on ollut, on jo syntynyt paljon isommin.
Chapter 2: What sparked the recent anti-government protests in Iran?
Hundreds of people have reportedly been killed as the protests continue to spread across the country, and internet blackout is still in place, making it difficult to get information. The BBC has been taking questions from our audience about what this all means and what's at stake. So let's hear from my colleague Matthew Amroliwala, who's been speaking to two of the BBC's diplomatic correspondents, Caroline Hawley in London and Paul Adams in Washington, as well as Siavash Adelan from BBC Persia.
Sivash, to you first of all. As I say, we're into the third straight week of this. From the fragments of information that's coming in, what can you tell us? The main fragment of information that came out was a video clip, a very heart-wrenching and horrific image of people at a mortuary outside Tehran, the capital, where hundreds of bodies were piled upon each other and relatives or families of these people searching for their loved ones. Now, we hadn't
known the scale of the killings until this video had come out. And then from the fragments of information we're getting from people via Starlink sending us messages telling us the grim atmosphere right now prevailing in Tehran and other cities after that massive crackdown. Everyone knows someone who has been killed. So the situation is one that you would associate with the serious civil war or with Gaza today in Iran for the authorities to quell one of the biggest protests that took place over the past years.
Caroline, is this the biggest threat to the Islamic Republic since its inception? It's certainly a huge threat and they have responded in kind. They clearly felt that they are fighting for their life. They, as you know, have blamed this on rioters inspired by Donald Trump and Israel. But we've had many cycles of unrest before and uprisings.
There was 2009 over disputed elections, 2019 over fuel prices, 2022 of course over women's rights and after the death in custody of a young woman, Massa Amini, who was accused of not wearing her hijab properly. And then these began on December the 28th as an economic protest. But it very, very quickly spiraled into people expressing their anger over everything.
Kaikki, mitä he välttävät islamisen republikaan ja heidän ekonomisen, poliittisen ja sosiaalisen ongelmansa. Ja luulen, että se, mikä on erilainen tämän ajan, on se, että iranian regiumi on yhdessä ja ulkopuolella vahvistettu. Se on vahvistettu vuoden jälkeen, kun Israel vahvisti Yhdysvallojen nukleusasioita.
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Chapter 3: How has the Iranian regime responded to the protests?
Joten se on ollut suuri vaikutus islamilaisille, ja he ovat käyttäneet, mitä minulle on sanottu, todella epäonnistuneen vahvistuksen, jotta pystyisivät hallitsemaan kaupungit. Se on tullut erittäin pahalta Iranilaisille. Emme tiedä, kuten Siavash sanoi, täysin kuvan, koska olemme vain saamassa pieniä osia jigsauksella.
Iranin regiimi yrittää kontrolloida narratiivia nyt, ja laittaa kuvia itsenäisistä ympäristöistä ympäristöistä, mutta emme tiedä täysiä kuvia. Luulen, että paljon ei ole jäänyt esiin, mitä on tapahtunut viime viikkoja. Pauli, sinulle Washingtonissa on paljon kysymyksiä, että onko Donald Trump onnistunut antamaan joitain nykyisiä huomioita, joita hän on antanut regiimiin. Mitä Donald Trump sanoo?
Yeah, Matthew, before the latest reports of mass casualties emerged, he did indeed warn that there could be an American response and that it would be dependent on how the Iranian authorities responded. He also has spoken about his desire to rescue the protesters, as he's put it. Now, he flew back to Washington from Florida yesterday and aboard Air Force One. He said that he was looking at what he described as some very strong options.
He are expected to receive a briefing on those options tomorrow at the White House. But he also said that the Iranian regime had on Saturday reached out to Washington to try and negotiate. He again didn't say exactly what about.
He said the two sides were working on arranging a meeting, but he also said, and I'm quoting here, but we may have to act because of what's happening before that meeting. So clearly a strong warning that America might be poised to take action.
I'll come back to that point. Caroline was touching on it. This was sparked by inflation and economics at the end of December. It is now morphed into something entirely different with so many of the protesters on the street calling for the end of the regime. But tell me more about how the regime itself is portraying it. What is appearing on state television, for example?
Well, on the first day of the protest he had the government saying that they recognize this protest because it was a strike by shopkeepers that come out in the streets protesting against inflation and the way that the currency market works, which is really to their detriment. And then, as the pattern usually is, it morphed into something different. Kiitos, että katsoitte.
The crackdown turned very violent and the protests turned very massive. The rioters became armed terrorists trained by the Mossad and by the CIA to sow discord inside the country. And now with these high numbers of deaths that have emerged ever since this crackdown, what the government is saying that most of these people who have been killed are the security forces and innocent private citizens killed by the protesters, which the government calls terrorists.
Caroline, let's go back to something you were mentioning a little earlier, because the internet blackout is making it very difficult to actually find out the facts of what is happening on the ground, but it has a wider impact too from all of those desperately around the world trying to find out about loved ones who are living in Iran.
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Chapter 4: What role is Donald Trump playing in the current situation in Iran?
Tiedän, että 12-luvun viikon jälkeen, kun Israel ja Yhdysvallat heittivät syrjään Iranin, Donald Trump laittoi sosiaalisessa mediassa sanan, että Iran on hyvä. Hän kertoi mahdollisuuden, että regiimikäytäntö oli hänen mielensä.
We've heard some of the similar rhetoric in the last few days. Just on Saturday he said Iran is looking at freedom perhaps like never before. The USA, he said, stands ready to help. He called the leaders in Iran violent. I don't know if you call them leaders. They rule through violence. The idea of removing that leadership I think is on his mind, although I'm sure that many, many voices in Washington will be advising him
to be very, very careful if he decides to go down that route. A quick postscript on just that, because Jackson has contacted us to say, would US allies be supportive of any strikes in Iran?
Iran, vaikka sen monia viimeiset asetukset, on edelleen suuri, kompleksinen, tärkeä regionaalinen pelaaja. Uskon, että regime-muutoksen mahdollisuus on yksi, joka täytyy katsoa erittäin huomattavasti, koska uskon, että sen seuraukset voivat olla suurin piirtein epäonnistuneita, sekä Iranin sisällä, joka on kompleksinen etninen muoto, että myös alueella. Mikä olisi vaikutus esimerkiksi Irakan paikalle, jossa iranilaisuus on ollut suuri?
What would be the implications for Iran's various proxies around the region? Of course Israel would be delighted to see the head of the snake as it sees it defeated in the wake of the blows delivered to people like Hezbollah, the Houthis, Hamas and of course the end of the Assad regime in Syria. Iran's regional influence has been hugely dented.
and damaged by events over the past 18 months or so. And so there are strong voices, certainly in Israel, saying that it is time to finish the job. But I think the consequences could be so complex that I think the notion of regime change will be one that the Trump administration, even with its enthusiasm for taking abrupt and robust action around the world, will be fairly careful before embarking on.
Yes, you're absolutely right. Iran's tentacles have stretched across so many countries in that wider region. Siavash, just on the possibilities of a conflict, your assessment of how people, protesters even feel about a possible war.
President Trump warned that he will intervene if the regime starts killing protesters. Now, some protesters were trusting that warning, thinking that if they go out to the street, they will be protected by the United States, somehow believing that the US has an actionable plan to prevent a crackdown.
Tämä ei todennäköisesti tapahtunut. Regime ei kuitenkaan välttämättä huomannut presidentin huolta ja meni eteenpäin ja käsitteli yksi suurimmista taitoista viime vuonna. Eli paljon ihmisiä voi olla vahvistunut presidentin huolta. Nyt, kun taitoja on tapahtunut, kysymys on, onko protesterit vaikuttaneet joillekin regime-muutokseen.
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Chapter 5: What are the implications of a potential regime change in Iran?
A real quick one on this, because Iran's parliamentary speaker said Tehran would consider US bases and Israel as targets if they detected signs of an impending attack. So again, they are watching very, very closely any sort of potential action from Israel, from the US, and then deciding what they might do.
Absolutt. They have their own scenarios in mind. They initially had warned that Iran might even carry out preemptive strikes in anticipation of an Israeli or a U.S. attack. But today Iran's foreign minister ruled that out, yet said we're very ready for a war, even more ready than we were back in June when Israel attacked Iran.
Olen tullut Carolineille heti, mutta Pauli, haluan vain kysyä sinulle yhden muun kysymyksen, jos menemme tämän eri kautta, koska se on epäonnistunut, eikö se ole, kun puhumme nyt, mitä arsenaa Iran on jätetty 2025-luvun jälkeen?
Donald Trump at the time was trumpeting America's success, saying that Iran's nuclear program had been completely obliterated. I think all the intelligence assessments since then, or at least what we understand of those intelligence assessments, suggest that the damage was very significant, but not necessarily terminal. Iran's nuclear program, and indeed its entire military infrastructure, is quite diffuse. Elements of it are extremely well protected.
It is not thought that the nuclear effort kind of ground to a halt as a result of the attacks of last summer. So elements of it persist. Clearly, it wasn't just the operation, the 12-day war. The Israelis had already launched attacks before that, which had had a devastating effect on Iran's air defenses. And so Iran is in a very weak position, whatever the leadership may suggest.
And even though the US doesn't have a huge flotilla of ships and aircraft carriers and so forth in the region, it's got enough, and we know that it can do things from a distance, to deliver more blows. Not necessarily kind of Venezuela-style helicopter-borne operations to capture elements of the Iranian regime, but certainly the ability to destroy barracks, to go after the besieged militia that is responsible for so much damage.
of the repression on the streets and to launch kind of symbolic attacks that could even kill or target elements of the Iranian leadership.
This is a special edition of the Global News Podcast on the 12th of January 2026. You are listening to Caroline Hawley and Paul Adams, two of the BBC's diplomatic correspondents, and Siavash Adelan from BBC Persian, answering questions about the anti-government protests in Iran.
Astu toiseen maailmaan Storytelin kanssa. Rakkaustarinoita, trillereitä ja lastensuosikkeja. Täytä talvi yli miljoonalla tarinalla. Kokeile Storyteliä nyt kolme kuukautta puoleen hintaan. Life is better with a story. LähiTapiolan henkivakuutuksen asiakasedulla saat nyt 25 prosentin alennuksen. Henkivakuutuksen myöntää LähiTapiola keskinäinen henkivakuutusyhtiö. Asiakasetu ja sen määrä vahvistetaan vuosittain.
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Chapter 6: How are international relations affecting the protests in Iran?
LähiTapiola, samalla puolella.
In 1999 four Russian apartment buildings were bombed, hundreds killed. But even now we still don't know for sure who did it. It's a mystery that sparked chilling theories. I'm Helena Merriman, and in a new BBC series I'm talking to the reporters who first covered this story. What did they miss the first time? The History Bureau, Putin and the apartment bombs. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.
I've got eight or nine questions still to go. Caroline, let me put one of them to you. The former shah of Iran's son has been very outspoken. Is he being considered as one of the people who could take over if the regime was to fall?
That's a really interesting question. And there are many people now who are putting their minds to what would happen the day after. Who would rule Iran? How would it be governed? I think the key problem with Iran is because of the political repression there. There is no formal opposition in Iran. It's simply not allowed. There are very significant figures who fought against the regime, battled for human rights, like Nagas Mohammadi, who won
No, she's a very significant player in Iran. Then what you've had recently during these protests is calls for, which we've heard before in previous uprisings and previous protests, death dictates.
Mutta tämän ajan erittäin uusia oli kutsuttu monakeen kestävän ja vanhempi puolustusprinssi Reza Pahlavi kestävän Iranin. Ihmiset sanoivat, että pitkällä elämällä isä. Tämä ei ole tapahtunut aiemmin, joissa olen kuullut. Hän on erilainen erilainen erilainen erilainen erilainen erilainen
Ja kun hän viime viikolla kutsui ihmisiä ulkopuolelle viikonloppuun, ja sitten taas viikonloppuun, se näyttäisi olevan pysähtynyt. Ja Siavash voi olla parempi tunne siitä, miten tärkeä Reza Pahlavi on ollut tässä. Mutta hän kutsui ihmisiä ulkopuolelle, ja he tekevät. Ja sitten he olivat pysähtyneet.
Sivash, pick up on that point, because two points. How much support does he have within Iran? And it is always risky, Caroline, ending with that point, people outside of Iran calling for people inside Iran to take to the streets, given all the risks we know about.
Well, the issue of the Iranian opposition is very complex. At the moment, if you want to divide them into categories, you have the monarchists led by Reza Pahlavi and you have the non-monarchists, the Republicans. The Republicans are very fractured, composed of various groups, but the monarchists, owing to a very powerful campaign, not just against the regime in Iran, but against also the Republicans and the opposition, other opposition forces, they have managed to rally the people together
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Chapter 7: What can we expect in the coming days regarding the protests in Iran?
Paul, let me ask you about what the Iranian foreign ministry have recently said. They have summoned the French, the German, the Italian, the UK envoys over support for these protests. There will be worry, won't there, not just what is happening within Iran, but how the rest of the world is responding.
It's a very difficult dilemma right now. I mean, look at Donald Trump's situation. He has spoken about his willingness to rescue the protesters. He runs a real risk now of doing nothing and being seen by a large part of the Iranian population as being full of hot air, but not willing to follow through with action and consequently experiencing a large loss of face, something that Donald Trump does not like doing.
of going in and doing too much and triggering huge levels of internal instability and regional instability too. And perhaps to create a kind of situation which might suck back
western, in particular, American militaries to a part of the world that, frankly, none of them want to go back to. That must be a specter that is in his mind. This is not an easy one. This is not Venezuela. This is a much, much more complicated situation. And so there will be people saying, think hard before doing too much. But also, frankly, given the rhetoric so far, you can't be seen to do nothing.
Sivac, let's loop back around to the scale of what we're seeing, because it is not just Tehran and a few other cities. It is in so many different places now, isn't it? Well, let's be careful in using the present tense, because we don't know whether the protests are still ongoing. They may have completely been put out after this crackdown. But what we did see on the 8th of 9th of January, which was historical, is people...
This is people from all age categories, all walks of life coming out to the street and challenging the system. This is what it takes to start a revolution and we were in the initial phases of that. So this protest was historically very important.
It's really important, isn't it, not to underestimate. You have the supreme leader, you have the revolutionary guard, you have decades of the tightest grip from this regime over its people. People simplify the overthrow of this regime. There are so many layers of security. The security apparatus is so powerful. So much investment has gone into consolidating this. It's not as if people come out in the streets and the revolutionary guards will suddenly melt away.
More killings, according to the estimates that we're getting, have taken place in such a short span of time that even during Syria's civil war. So we have a very powerful force that is prepared to fight to the end. And if it feels cornered, it might even take risks or do things that might seem suicidal.
Olen tullut taas sinulle viimeisenä ajatuksena. Pauli, viimeinen ajatus sinulle, koska se tuntuu niin, että olemme saapuneet ympäristöön, se on hieno ajatus. Mutta olemme nähneet Trumpin hallituksen kanssa, että he ovat muuttuneet yllättävän nopeasti. Jos ajattelee Iranin nukleuvillisuutta, katsotaan, mitä tapahtui Venäjällä aiemmin, niin asiat voivat muuttaa tämän erittäin nopeasti.
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