Iran Is Teetering. The West Isn’t Prepared… by Holly Dagres

washingtoninstitute / by Holly Dagres

Holly Dagres is the Libitzky Family Senior Fellow in The Washington Institute’s Viterbi Program on Iran and U.S. Policy.

Also published in New York Times

To avoid being caught flat-footed, Western governments must begin policy planning for the destabilizing waves that could accompany regime collapse while urgently restoring support for programs focused on internet freedom, human rights, and similar areas.

A lone man crouched in the middle of a Tehran street, a black jacket pulled over his head, blocking advancing Iranian security forces. The video went viral among Iranians, quickly drawing comparisons to the famous “Tank Man” in China’s Tiananmen Square in 1989. Similarly courageous actions have occurred across Iran: young protesters—sometimes alone, sometimes in pairs or more—standing or kneeling peacefully before their repressors. The protests are the largest since the Woman, Life, Freedom uprising that began in 2022 and are taking place despite what the United Nations has called crimes against humanity committed by the authorities during that period. The trigger this time was the collapse of the Iranian rial against the dollar. However, the protesters’ core grievances remain constant—government mismanagement, corruption, and repression—and they include an explicit demand for the ouster of the Islamic Republic…

Read the full article on the New York Times website.