Who Is Leading the Revolt Against Iran’s Crumbling Regime?
Bazaar closures evolve into anti-regime protests amid water crises and currency woes. Experts see systemic fractures, not single-leader movement.
Iran’s latest wave of protests did not erupt suddenly or as a unified political movement. What began with merchant strikes and shop closures in Tehran—particularly among traditionally cautious bazaar networks—has evolved into a broader rupture, driven by currency collapse, rising prices, chronic water shortages, and opposition to the Islamic Republic as a governing system.
With at least two believed killed after five days of demonstrations, some analysts and observers see support for the son of the deposed Shah, Reza Pahlavi, as the main factor, and others cite economic grievances. All agree it is a complex, multi-tiered reality.
That the initial spark came from merchant stoppages in Tehran, was a notable shift in a system where bazaar merchant networks have long served as an economic pillar. Their decision to shutter businesses signaled that silence had become costlier than protest.
Nik Kowsar, an Iranian-Canadian award-winning journalist and cartoonist based in Washington DC, situates this turning point within a deteriorating economic environment. “The currency exchange rate is not under control, and it has risen fast,” he told The Media Line.
For shopkeepers and small business owners, the plunge of the rial translated immediately into unaffordable prices and evaporating margins. “It’s like having your monthly income cut in half because of the higher prices, but actually you are getting the same money in rials, but not in US dollars,” Kowsar said.
Years of mismanagement, he argues, primed the ground for this moment. “People have been under pressure of bad governance and bad management, and it’s a good opportunity to go to the streets, because the security forces are having a bad time too,” he noted.
Ashkan Rostami, an Iranian-Italian political analyst, member of the Iran Transition Council, and co-founder of the Institute for a New Middle East, also traces the unrest to economic pressures while stressing how fast it spread. “It all started at the economic level, that is, initially with the bazaar, which is actually the economic node of the country, and then it spread quite quickly, and honestly, I didn’t expect it to be so fast. It spread immediately to universities, then it also spread to normal people,” Rostami told The Media Line.
As closures spread and security forces intervened, the protests widened beyond merchant circles. Students, truck drivers, and other social groups began appearing in demonstrations, transforming what started as an economic outcry into a broader confrontation with state authority.
Independent Iran scholar Alireza Nader, affiliated with the Nader Research Group, cautions against reading the unrest as purely economic. “It’s important to realize that these protests are not just about the economy but are motivated by opposition to the Islamic Republic as a governing system,” he told The Media Line.
Economic shocks, he explains, function as triggers rather than root causes. “The depreciation of the currency and water shortages in Iran are some of the immediate triggers for these protests,” he added.
The social toll, Nader notes, has become severe. “Life has simply become impossible for ordinary Iranians and more and more people are committing suicide because they cannot afford the basics of life,” he said.
Beyond prices and currency issues, Iran’s water crisis has quietly eroded social resilience for years. Shrinking reservoirs, mismanaged infrastructure, and environmental degradation—compounded by sanctions and isolation—have narrowed the margin for survival across much of the country.
Kowsar argues that unrest was inevitable under these conditions: “I was expecting this for a long time, because when we have this type of water crisis, things usually go south,” he said.
In this framing, environmental collapse becomes political. When the state cannot secure water, livelihoods, or food stability, trust in governance fractures.
An image from Tehran showing a lone protester confronting authority in the street spread online, becoming a symbol of defiance. The figure quickly became emblematic of a nation pushed to its limits.
Kowsar cautions against overreading such moments. “It depends on the numbers whether it can lead to something big or not,” he said.
He argues that what matters more is whether different sectors converge simultaneously. “To add one point, if college students from all around the country join the movement, it will be really hard to control the protests,” he observed.
Momentum, he says, remains fragile. “But they’ll win only if they don’t leave the streets and hand the streets to security forces,” he noted.
Rostami similarly identifies a decisive turning point as a shift within the security apparatus. “The crucial moment could be when the police or a part of the army decide to come on behalf of the people,” he said.
Foreign coverage of Iran’s unrest has often elevated Reza Pahlavi as a central opposition figure. Analysts say this reflects a tendency in international media and diaspora discourse to search for identifiable leadership in movements that remain fragmented inside Iran.
Nader strongly challenges portrayals that present the protests as overwhelmingly pro-Pahlavi. “The monarchist Persian language media stations, especially Manoto TV, are manipulating images of protests in Iran to portray Reza Pahlavi as the only man whose name is heard in the streets, but this is a completely false and duplicitous depiction,” he said.
He does not deny that some demonstrators may support Pahlavi but warns against presenting that strand as representative of the will of Iranians in the streets. “They want freedom to choose their representatives and leaders. Something which they never had, including during the Shah’s dictatorship,” he explained.
Rostami offers a more nuanced reading of pro-Pahlavi slogans heard in the streets, arguing they reflect trust in a transitional figure rather than a clear monarchist agenda. “A good part of the people have finally understood that he is the only person in which at this moment, at least for a transition, they can trust,” he noted.
“It is not said that they are necessarily monarchists. There are also Republicans among his followers. People who are neither Republicans nor monarchists, they are indecisive, but in any case, they see him as a character who can guide the transition from the Islamic Republic to a democratic type of government,” he added.
Rostami also cautions against dismissing all pro-Pahlavi chants as fabrications. He noted that numerous videos had emerged on social media from various areas, and he had heard directly from friends who participated in the recent protests that they had witnessed these chants firsthand.
Pahlavi has addressed the protests directly, calling for continued mobilization saying, “Your presence in the streets across Iran has kindled the flame of a national revolution.”
In a message to protesters and security forces, he said, “Greetings to my compatriots in the bazaar and to those who have taken the streets of Tehran into your own hands. As long as this regime is in power, the country’s economic situation will only worsen.”
He has also been quoted as saying, “I ask all sectors of society to join their compatriots who have taken to the streets and to call for an end to this regime,” and, “Take your destiny into your own hands. This regime is collapsing. Don’t stand against the people, join the people.”
Rostami stresses that Pahlavi does not seek unilateral power. “He does not want to be that person who goes into power on his own and takes power on his own. He has said it several times and is willing to go with other sides of the opposition,” he noted.
Rostami also questions the protests’ timing, pointing to their proximity to high-level diplomatic meetings involving Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Donald Trump recently. “The clearest fact is that Netanyahu actually flies to Florida to visit Trump and a few hours before the visit everything explodes—I don’t think it is unrelated,” he said.
He suggests the sequence may have strategic implications. “In fact, Netanyahu can use this as a political strategy on Trump to say, ‘Look, now people are out on the streets. What we have been looking for, for months, is happening,’” he said.
Rostami adds that visible institutional cracks are already emerging. “The governor of the Central Bank resigned, the political vice-president resigned in these three days. It means that something big is already taking place,” he noted.
Kowsar and Rostami both point to fractures within the system. Kowsar argues that the public perception of failure is decisive. “The government has proven to be incompetent and naive. If people find out they have lost everything, and by going to the streets, they have nothing to lose, you may see a bigger turnout,” he said.
Nader, while cautious, does not rule out systemic rupture. “Yes, it’s entirely possible that the protests will lead to the fall of the regime, though no one can predict the turn of events,” he said.
He argues that escalation depends on sustained pressure across strategic sectors. “The key to success [is] if there are sustained demonstrations throughout Iran with full international support, including from Israel, and also strikes in the energy and transportation sectors,” he concluded.
For now, Iran’s protests remain decentralized, fluid, and unresolved. They are not purely economic, nor fully ideological; not leaderless, yet not unified behind a single figure. What they reflect most clearly is a society confronting overlapping crises—economic, environmental, and political—while competing narratives struggle to capture the reality on the ground.
As the unrest shows no signs of abating, reports emerge of mounting violence, with security forces firing on crowds, resulting in the death or wounding of a number of protesters, and a Revolutionary Guards affiliated volunteer also killed in clashes.
Whether this moment becomes another contained uprising or the opening of a deeper transformation will depend less on symbolism than on numbers, persistence, cross-class participation, and the willingness of key institutions to break with a system widely perceived as exhausted.