The Iranian protests triggered by the collapse of the rial in late December now appear to have been suppressed. The currency crash merely landed atop a mountain of social, political and economic decay, transforming economic anger into the most serious crisis of legitimacy the clerical regime has faced since 1979.
The state responded as tyrannical regimes do when they feel their survival is at stake. On Jan. 9, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei reportedly instructed Iran’s security council to use “any means necessary” to crush the unrest.
Despite internet shutdowns and rolling blackouts, harrowing footage has filtered out of Iran showing bodies stacked in morgues and civilians shot or beaten in the streets of Tehran and beyond. The true death toll remains guesswork. Conservative estimates now place it at around 6,000 — three times higher than initial figures — while some organizations claim to have verified deaths in the tens of thousands. In addition, thousands have been arrested, including doctors punished for treating wounded protestors.
It was against that backdrop that EU foreign ministers voted unanimously on Thursday to designate Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist organization. The bloc’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, said the blacklisting puts the IRGC on the same level as al-Qaida, Hezbollah, Hamas and ISIS.
The decision lands as the United States, having initially threatened intervention should the regime’s brutality continue, has turned its attention to striking a nuclear deal. “A massive armada is heading to Iran,” Donald Trump wrote on social media on Jan. 28, warning that time is running out to “MAKE A DEAL.” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi responded that the country’s military stood ready to respond “immediately and powerfully” to a US attack.
Iran does have options. It could fire ballistic missiles or drones at U.S. bases in Bahrain or Qatar, or block critical shipping lanes such as the Strait of Hormuz. But recent history suggests the regime has little appetite for a direct confrontation with a vastly superior adversary.
When the U.S. struck Iranian nuclear facilities last year with bunker-busting bombs, Tehran’s retaliation — a missile strike on Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar — was carefully choreographed to avoid American casualties, with advance warnings reportedly provided. It was less an act of war than a face-saving gesture.
Trump’s threats, by contrast, appear more credible. The armada he boasts about — now believed to have reached the Gulf of Oman — is led by one of the U.S. Navy’s largest aircraft carriers, the USS Abraham Lincoln. In other words, the U.S. certainly has enough firepower to make good on Trump’s promise that the next strike would be “far worse” than the last unless Iran comes to the table.
What is less certain, though, is what Trump actually wants. He may indeed be angling for a sweeping security deal, involving Iran’s nuclear program, missile arsenal and network of regional proxies. He could opt for limited strikes designed to coerce Tehran back to the negotiating table. He could even reprise his Venezuela playbook: decapitate the leadership and then offer talks. Or he could apply military pressure calibrated to reignite protests and tip the regime into collapse.
The EU, for its part, appears to want no part of such scenarios. Kallas was blunt on Thursday: “I think the region does not need a new war.”
That is undoubtedly true. But the Iranian people also don't need another generation condemned to life under a theocracy they despise. The past month has shown just how much violence the clerical regime is willing to unleash to preserve its grip on power. In the absence of meaningful pressure, or intervention, that violence has likely not ended but merely been paused.
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