One of the New Year’s gifts given to those of us who wish to retain our freedoms is the anti-regime riots that have erupted across Iran. The significance of these riots cannot be overstated. The regime is a junior partner inside the Axis of Evil, dominated by Russia and China. They are the most regime-threatening uprisings since the fall of Iran’s Shah in 1979.
As Merhdad Youssefani at the Middle East Forum puts it, “While not yet a regime-ending event, the unrest is drawing upon a combination of economic collapse, post-war fatigue, and eroding legitimacy (of the theocratic rule), which has the potential to cascade toward regime collapse.”
The riots began on December 28, 2025, when merchants in Tehran’s Grand Bazaar closed their shops to protest the rial’s collapse against the dollar and an annual inflation rate that soared to over 42 percent. This suddenly priced essential products out of reach, igniting strikes mounted by bazaar vendors, but joined by truck drivers, gold and furniture merchants. This is new because it united very disparate groups, including university students.
The rioting merchants populating the bazaars had been a pillar of the regime’s traditional support base. Their joining the thousands in the streets marks a new phenomenon. Combined with all the groups present in the streets, we are watching a profound systemic threat to the theocratic regime.
The unrest is nationwide and has engulfed all the major cities—Tehran, Mashhad, Hamadan, Malard, Arak, Izeh, Kermanshah, Rasht, Shush, and with bazaar closures, commerce is paralyzed.
Slogans have evolved rapidly from “We can’t afford bread” to anti-regime chants like “Death to the dictator,” and calls for former Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi to return.
The Middle East Forum, a very reliable source, warns that regime change must come without overt support from outside Iran.
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