Iran's 2026: Romania 1989 or Syria 2011
Iran enters 2026 facing unrest without the economic depth to contain it.
Iran is starting 2026 on a knife-edge.
The Iranian rial hit 1.45 million to the dollar last week.
The government’s response was to float a 62 percent tax increase.
On December 28, shopkeepers in Tehran’s Grand Bazaar closed their stores and marched. Not students. Not activists. Middle-aged merchants. Conservatives. The people who’ve coexisted with the Islamic Republic since 1979.
When that class shuts down the commercial core, it’s a warning flare.
By New Year’s Eve, reports from Lordegan and Izeh described clashes with security forces. Attacks on police stations. Authorities responded with live fire.
People were killed in the streets.
Iran erupts roughly every five years. 2009 was political. 2018 was economic. 2022 was social, sparked by Mahsa Amini’s death and centered on compulsory hijab enforcement.
That last one mattered most because it broke something structural. When large numbers of women stopped covering their hair, the state faced a hard constraint. Reversing that shift would require coercion at a scale that risked turning society against the security apparatus.
Even inside the system, dissent over hijab enforcement became harder to ignore.
Assad’s government fell in December 2024, wiping out years of Iranian investment in Syria. Hezbollah’s room for maneuver narrowed under Israeli pressure. President Raisi died. A direct Israel-Iran confrontation in mid-2025 exposed vulnerabilities and reportedly killed senior commanders.
The Supreme Leader turned 85.
For decades, Iran’s strength came from strategic depth. A network of partners and proxies across Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen. Logistical corridors, financial channels, revenue streams that helped sustain operations beyond Iran’s borders.
Most of that depth now looks degraded.
With Syria transformed, the channels that ran through Damascus and Beirut appear disrupted. Revenue ecosystems tied to illicit trade have faced pressure. The regional map that once gave Tehran leverage is no longer what it was.
Facing that erosion, the regime attempted a pivot. Started pushing Persian nationalist symbolism alongside Islamic revolutionary rhetoric. An unusual turn for a system that long kept distance from pre-Islamic identity.
The promotion of Shapur I, the Sasanian shah who captured a Roman emperor, is striking. Far from the early revolutionary years when some factions treated ancient Iran’s legacy with suspicion.
Authorities also lowered pressure at home. Hijab enforcement loosened. Under President Pezeshkian the law was widely suspended.
The rial collapsed anyway.
The deeper problem is fiscal capacity. Oil revenue has been below target. Inflation has eroded purchasing power. Food prices have risen at destabilizing rates. In December, schools and offices closed because the state couldn’t reliably heat buildings.
Iran holds immense gas reserves and people are freezing.
That helps explain why these protests started differently. Iranian unrest typically ignites in the provinces, escalates fast, gets crushed brutally. 2019 is remembered for how quickly the state moved to end it with mass killing.
This time the pattern reversed. Unrest started cautiously in Tehran and spread outward over days. Building rather than detonating.
When it reached peripheral areas, places with sharper ethnic tensions, clashes hardened. Police stations were attacked and burned.
The slogans shifted. Crowds chanted Javid Shah. Long Live the King.
That signals something beyond reformist anger. An opposition current that wants regime change and is willing to rally around a single symbol. The return of monarchy rather than elastic promises of reform.
Reza Pahlavi, son of Iran’s last shah, publicly backed protesters from abroad. Trump warned the country was locked and loaded if civilians were harmed.
Hard to treat this as isolated. Observers have speculated for months about another Israel-Iran escalation. Domestic unrest becomes part of that strategic environment. Pretext, distraction, accelerant.
Can this wave overthrow the regime?
The Islamic Republic has survived repeated cycles by deploying the Revolutionary Guards, using lethal force, imposing exhausted quiet. The system developed a kind of immunity.
But immunity is expensive.
Repression requires resources. Revenue to pay security forces. Reserves to slow currency collapse. Something to offer the men holding rifles besides hunger and worthless paper.
That’s why this moment looks different.
The 2022 protests weakened social enforcement. Regional setbacks reduced leverage. The confrontation with Israel reportedly damaged military leadership. The rial’s fall reflects strain in underlying finances.
On December 31, the Supreme Leader appointed Ahmad Vahidi as Deputy Commander of the Revolutionary Guards. A figure associated with earlier crackdowns.
The regime is preparing for sustained confrontation and tightening oversight of coercive power.
Coup-proofing in real time.
The question isn’t whether the regime will shoot. It’s already shooting.
The question is whether it can afford to keep shooting long enough to win.
External actors are watching for openings.
Prolonged crisis could rattle energy markets and produce another refugee wave into Europe.
The optimistic analogy is Romania in 1989. Brittle dictatorship collapses quickly, transition begins.
The realistic danger is Syria. Drawn-out conflict with no clean winners, mass displacement, a country permanently damaged.
Iran is larger than Syria. More diverse. Better armed. The Revolutionary Guards won’t simply dissolve. The Basij remain. The people who’ve run this state for nearly half a century are unlikely to step aside quietly.
So the crisis may not solve itself through sudden collapse. It may mutate into prolonged unrest, harsher repression, elite fragmentation, or something worse.
References:
Iran Update, December 29, 2025
Iran Update, December 31, 2025
‘Javid Shah!’ Why Iranians are calling for the return of the Pahlavis and their monarchy