Chapter 1: What historical context led to the current protests in Iran?
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Iran was nothing like it was three years ago. The people's attitude, the people's words, I could clearly sense that no one is truly satisfied anymore. The city felt like fire under ashes.
Fire under ashes. This is the voice of an Iranian graduate student currently living and studying in the U.S. She asked that we refer to her as Kay. Back in early December, during her university's holiday break, she and her husband went back to Iran to visit family. They planned to stay a month. This was her first time back in three years.
She says Iran kind of felt like a tinderbox when she got there.
Not only because of economic problem or economic crisis, but also because of the suffocating atmosphere and the lack of civil freedoms.
We will not be sharing her name because she asked to remain anonymous in order to protect her family in Iran.
When I went to a supermarket or hospital, bank, I've seen a conversation, I've heard a conversation that people talk about Iranian currency and why it's really low and it's getting worse and what's going to happen. They didn't see any future upon them.
Over the last several years, Iran's economy has been struggling. Sanctions from the U.S. and its allies, mismanagement from the government, they've both played a major role in the downturn. But things got way worse in late December of 2025, when the rial, Iran's currency, basically collapsed. One U.S. dollar became worth over one million rials.
This meant the buying power of Iranians was down by nearly half since 2022.
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Chapter 2: How do recent protests differ from previous movements in Iran?
They start to suppress and kill people. I've seen them with my own eyes, riot police and special forces. They were armed to the teeth, all of their body covered. And they were carrying a kind of military grade weapons. And they were stopping cars on the roads and setting up checkpoints. And yeah, they were really scary.
So did you at any point start hearing, did you all hear gunfire?
Yeah, yeah, I've heard that. I've heard that. I've heard like some gunshotting and it was really scary.
Kay and her husband were set to come back to the U.S. on January 10th, but her flight was canceled. In response to the protests, the Iranian government cut off the internet and blocked outgoing calls for the entire country. Planes were grounded too.
We were, both of us, we were like confused. What's going to happen if we can't find a flight? What's going to happen to our life? Both of us.
After two days of going back and forth to the airport, they were finally able to secure a ticket. They made it out of Iran. They are back in the U.S. now, carrying on with their lives, but always with an eye towards what's happening in their homeland.
We are 90 million people that we are fighting for our life on the streets. And I, myself, as a Iranian, it is my responsibility to be their voice. Just because of my sisters and all my sisters around the country.
Since the protests started in the last days of 2025, the Iranian government has used its security forces to stop the unrest. The violence has worked. The streets of Iran are mostly quiet. But the cost paid by demonstrators lingers. The Iranian government says at least 5,000 people have been killed since the protests started.
U.S.-based human rights activist News Agency reports more than 25,000 people have been arrested. NPR has not been able to independently confirm these numbers. How did this happen? On January 14th, I called up two experts on modern Iran, Ali Alfone and Hali Dagres, to ask them three central questions. What were the conditions that brought about the current uprising in Iran?
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Chapter 3: What economic factors are fueling the unrest in Iran?
On paper, it should be a wealthy country. Yet, according to a report from the Iranian government, 30% of Iranians live in extreme poverty.
Purchasing power of the average Iranian has been hollowed out. The value of the Iranian currency is gone.
This is Ali Alfone. He's a senior fellow at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, D.C.
This in part means that a regular school teacher is no longer even capable of purchasing a new pair of shoes once a year. For a relatively long time now, it's been very difficult to purchase meat for the kids. People who can afford to purchase meat, they are too ashamed of, for example, having a barbecue in their backyard because they do not know how well or poorly the neighbor is doing.
And the smell of food would be a problem for the kids of the neighbor. So this is the kind of disaster that Iran's middle class, the average school teacher, the fireman, the nurse, even doctors, the professional middle class teachers, has been experiencing for the past year.
Wow.
Nowadays, it is almost difficult. It really, truly is hard to distinguish between the middle class and the poor. There is no longer any difference.
You might remember Ali Alfone from our episode called Soleimani's Iran. He is an Iranian-born political scientist and an expert on the country's leadership. Ali says that these economic problems have been exacerbated by the fact that the pain is not being felt by everyone.
Iran's middle class and also the poor who can afford to have a mobile phone and have access to the Internet, they can watch YouTube channels. They see on TikTok. The rich kids of Tehran who can afford a $10 cup of coffee at the luxury shopping malls in northern Tehran. And even worse, on TikTok, they can see sun.
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Chapter 4: How did the Iranian government respond to the protests?
For a very long time, the words Iran and protests have been paired regularly in the news. Iran has been here before. But there are some key differences this time around. Many of the past protests have focused on reforming the country, bringing about incremental changes on voting, freedom of expression, women's rights.
But this time around, protesters appear to be demanding the end of the Islamic Republic entirely.
The number of people going to the streets does not even amount to 5% of Iran's total population. But the people who go to the streets, they truly mean what they are saying. And the 5% opposing the regime, they do want to bring down the regime. But unfortunately for them, the regime is better armed and is better organized.
The opposition, on the other hand, has no effective leadership, has no effective organization. has no real funding and has no unifying vision for Iran after the collapse of the Islamic Republic.
I think it's important to talk a little bit about the former Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi's role in these protests.
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.
I remember Iranians used to be like, at the time of the Shah, when they wanted to talk about when things were better. And I think that nostalgia has only grown because of the access to information. There's documentaries about pre-revolutionary Iran. There's also all these nice pictures and photos that go viral. And now with AI, there's also these like AI versions of what they're seeing. Javicha!
Javicha! Javicha! Javicha! Javicha! Javicha! And that's why you've also been seeing these, I would say, pro-Pahlavi chants. You've heard, this is the last battle Pahlavi will return. Referring to the crown prince and long live the Shah.
Javid Shah.
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Chapter 5: What role does social media play in the Iranian protests?
It's because it runs counter to the Islamic Republic. It's seen as a symbol of patriotism. I think the clerical establishment has recognized it. They've dabbled with nationalism here and there. It really surprised me how hard they leaned into the Shahnameh or the Book of Kings, which is the epic of the Iranian people written by the poet Ferdowsi.
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.
I think what happened was that they realized that Iranians weren't going to take the Islamic version of events. They'd shoved it down their throat for so long that they had thrown it up and they weren't going to take it anymore.
And so the regime has spent time and energy for years trying to invest in this pre-Islamic identity to kind of bring the people back on their side, tapping into nationalism, tapping into ancient Persian culture. And as it's clear from these anti-regime protests, it didn't work.
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?
Their logic is that now we are facing, the regime is facing, not just peaceful protesters, but also an armed opposition and possibly an ethnic armed insurgency.
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.
Therefore, the regime can take liberties and engage in excessive response against the protests. That is how they legitimize extreme use of force. How this type of things, but how can a regime live with this kind of history? That is, again, up to the leaders of the Islamic Republic. And it is a tragedy unfolding in front of us, truly, truly. I have only one word for it, tragedy.
There's another element that makes these protests different. The fact that the Islamic Republic has suffered devastating losses in its foreign policy during the last few years. For decades, the Revolutionary Guard, or IRGC, have carefully built proxy military forces in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen. These military forces were created to project the Islamic Republic's power in the Middle East.
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Chapter 6: What are the implications of U.S. foreign policy on Iran's protests?
You have to remember there's still a 30% rule. 30% rule of thumb is that an authoritarian regime can survive. That was the New Yorker's Robin Wright that said that. And I think there's something to it. And so I would say that's probably a safe number to say how much regime support's left of this country.
That's significant, though.
It is and it isn't. Because, yes, it's enough to send, to hand a gun over to someone and shoot protesters. But it beats, it's very, it's dwindling. It's dwindling time after time, year after year. And, you know, the more Iranians see and learn, the more they know. This actually played out in this movie that was nominated last year at the Oscars, The Seed of the Sacred Fig. Nasred Habulbosheh.
This movie was basically the microcosm of Iranian society. It was this conservative family, but these Gen Z young siblings that are pushing back against the parents and they're brainwashing. And it was very much like a symbol of the fight between the youth and the clerical establishment.
And I think that thanks to social media and the internet and satellite dishes, young people are increasingly seeing and peeling away from maybe the conservative household or pro-regime household they live in. It doesn't mean that everybody feels that way. I mean, there's always going to be those diehard believers.
But I think that's what brought us to this moment that that number is so small today. Coming up, how will the U.S. respond to the protests? And where does Iran go from here? Hi. This is Justin Whitlow from Leicester, North Carolina, and you are listening to ThruLine. I want to say that the show is an absolutely wonderful show.
I appreciate your deep dives into really interesting stories and the work that you do. Thank you so much.
Since the taping of these interviews on January 14th, 2026, the protests in Iran have mostly been ended by the Islamic Republic. The death toll is in the thousands and continuing to rise. President Donald Trump has expressed support for the Iranian protesters and has threatened the Iranian government.
On January 9th, he warned the Islamic Republic to not kill demonstrators, saying, I tell the Iranian leaders, you better not start shooting because we'll start shooting too. Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei responded by calling President Trump a criminal. And the U.S. military has sent an aircraft carrier to the Middle East, bringing up more questions about how the U.S. intends to engage.
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Chapter 7: How do generational differences influence the protest movement?
Because in the past, it's been protest, violence, end of protest. Wait a few more years and another protest will start. Is there anything different you're seeing here?
I mean, I think the level of brutality they've committed under the communications shutdown, this massacre that we keep talking about, I don't think the Islamic Republic can come back from that. And it's not just me saying it. Before the massacre happened, we had...
Carnegie's Kareem Sajjadpour and Jack Goldstone, an expert on revolutions and uprisings, co-authored a piece in The Atlantic, and they said that this winter, for the first time since 1979, the Islamic Republic had checked all boxes for collapse. I think it really tells you the direction of where things are going.
And after this massacre, they've crossed a line that I don't think any Iranian could see past anymore.
As of January 14th, I, Ali Alfone, believe that the Islamic Republic manages to contain and effectively suppress protests for a time. But then these protests will flare up again because Iran's economic woes remain unresolved. And therefore, the Islamic Republic has to reach an agreement with President Trump and receive sanction relief.
So I do believe that this regime, its demise and collapse is neither imminent nor inevitable. The regime will fight for its survival. And one of those ways is a negotiated solution with President Trump.
People, you know, I make this assumption, but how much do you think this is about democracy versus just getting rid of the regime? Are those things two, like, hand in hand?
Well, I get the sense that this is for a call for a transition. And transition, you have to, in order to have a transition, arguably, you should have free and fair elections. The Iranians could decide they want a monarchy tomorrow, but that needs to be decided in an election.
So it's, yeah, I mean, I guess democracy is one word to use, but choice seems like the other. Choice. That they have not had one up to now.
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