For the past two weeks, Iran has been witnessing its broadest popular uprising since the revolt of 2022, which itself had been the largest and most radical since the demonstrations of the Green Movement in 2009.
The current uprising, however, differs markedly from its predecessors—whether in its slogans, its social base, its geographical scope and national implications, or in the manner in which a regime subjected to intense external pressure has responded to it.
Unlike the 2009 uprising, which emerged from the rejection by a largely urban and university-educated generation of electoral fraud in a presidential election they believed could open the door to political change, and unlike the 2022 revolt, which articulated feminist slogans and combined demands for individual freedoms persistently curtailed by the authorities with broader rights-based claims—particularly in regions with Kurdish, Azeri, and Baluchi majorities—the present uprising began with calls by the bazaar (the class of traders rooted in Iran’s historic marketplaces) for a general strike. These calls protested economic deterioration, the collapse of purchasing power, and the devaluation of the national currency. They were subsequently followed by major political mobilizations initiated first by student groups and then by rural popular sectors across most of the country, with the notable exception of areas that had experienced the most extensive protests three years earlier, where demonstrations have so far remained limited, for reasons to be discussed later.
Based on the geography of the current uprising and the characteristics of its participants—and drawing on analyses by Iranian researchers—three significant developments can be identified since late 2025.
The first concerns the bazaar, which neither actively participated in nor openly supported the Green Movement in 2009, and which remained hesitant in 2022 despite the scale of demonstrations, strikes, and the severity of state coercion. In December of last year, it was the bazaar that initiated calls for strikes and protests. Such calls almost automatically compel a response from merchant associations, particularly those representing mid-level economic actors, given the historic and vital presence of the bazaar in Iranian cities. Traditionally conservative and focused on livelihood concerns, the bazaar’s recent mobilization signals a fracture within a social base upon which the Iranian regime has relied—or sought to neutralize—since its establishment in 1979.
The second development lies in the mobilization of rural areas that had previously expressed limited opposition during earlier uprisings. This mobilization stems from two main factors: the deterioration of agricultural conditions and declining rural incomes, and the forced migration of some farmers to smaller cities where employment opportunities proved scarce, deepening economic hardship. An unprecedented drought has further aggravated these difficulties in many regions, compounded by chronic mismanagement of water resources that has periodically sparked localized protests in recent years.
The third development concerns the slogans raised. While remaining as radical as in previous uprisings in their opposition to the regime and its domestic and foreign policies—particularly its expenditure on arming allies in Lebanon and Palestine—they have this time included, albeit in a limited way, monarchist slogans. These call for the restoration of the monarchy and salute Reza Pahlavi, son of the deposed Shah, who resides in California and claims leadership of the Iranian opposition.
That claim to leadership, however, appears greatly exaggerated. Pahlavi enjoys little broad support among opposition currents, whether reformist religious, liberal constitutionalist, leftist, non-ideological, or among those driven primarily by a desire for freedoms constrained by the regime and its security and propaganda apparatuses. He is likewise rejected by Iran’s national minorities—Azeris, Kurds, Baluchis, and Arabs in particular—who together account for over 40 percent of the population and view Pahlavi as embodying a project of domination and authoritarian rule, much like his father and grandfather, whose governance rested on an exclusionary nationalist model that broke with the plural imperial Persian diversity that had persisted until the fall of the Qajar dynasty.
This rejection, combined with the vivid memory of the harsh repression experienced during the 2022 uprising—which began in Kurdish regions following the death of Mahsa Amini after her arrest by security forces for allegedly wearing the hijab “improperly”—helps explain the limited engagement of minority regions in the current uprising, despite the deep hostility there toward the Islamic Republic.
Thus far, the Iranian regime appears to be avoiding large-scale bloodshed for both internal and external reasons. Domestically, it fears that escalation could trigger broader and more radical mobilizations, as well as fractures within its own security apparatuses, whose incomes have been severely eroded by currency collapse and whose personnel are often drawn from rural areas now witnessing protests of unprecedented scale.
Externally, the regime is acutely aware of its isolation and of direct military threats from Israel and the United States. Recent statements by Donald Trump have intensified this pressure. At this stage, Tehran appears to favor direct negotiations with Washington alongside domestic de-escalation, both to postpone a new Israeli war and to buy time for external and internal economic initiatives aimed at slowing its ongoing collapse.
Such calculations, however, may prove futile. Trump seeks to further weaken the regime in order to impose agreements he can later present as foreign-policy achievements for Washington. Israel, for its part, is persistently pushing for a war it considers decisive against the Iranian regime and likely to bring about a political change installing its ally, Reza Pahlavi, in power.
Meanwhile, most protesters in Iran—demonstrating against declining living standards, the curtailment of freedoms, mismanagement, and the corruption of rulers operating under the doctrine of velayat-e faqih—seek to sustain their uprising as a continuation of previous revolts, despite the absence of centralized leadership or consensus on an alternative to the existing system.
All of this underscores the complexity of the Iranian landscape and the entanglement of domestic and external dynamics at a moment of major regional and global transformation. It would not be surprising if some of Iran’s former adversaries, foremost among them Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, were to engage in mediation between Tehran and Washington to prevent external escalation—particularly since they, like Qatar, Kuwait, Iraq, and Turkey, have no desire for an Israeli role or future presence along their immediate borders.
Ziad Majed
Article first published in Arabic in Al-Quds Al-Arabi
