In the final days of 2025, hundreds of thousands of desperate demonstrators took to the streets across Iran to protest against the regime. They were protesting poor economic conditions, unemployment, the regime’s brutality, and above all, the absence of hope that has characterized recent years in the Islamic Republic of Iran.

US President Donald Trump, briefed by close associates and others, saw in these events a major opportunity: He promised the protesters that help was on the way, and two months later, together with Israel, launched a military operation against Iran.

On the first day of the war, Trump expressed hope that after the intense phase of the fighting, the protesters would be able to topple the regime. About a week after the outbreak of the war, Senator Lindsey Graham estimated that the regime would fall within two weeks.

For now, the US is not preparing for a ground invasion and is continuing, together with Israel, to pound the Iranian regime from the air, in the hope that the brutal, corrupt regime, hated by a large part of its own people, will be weakened enough to collapse in one way or another.

But a look at the history of authoritarian regimes around the world indicates that this wishful thinking does not necessarily come true, even under the harshest conditions. The cases of Iraq and Syria show that even a terrible economic situation, brutal repression, and heavy military blows do not necessarily bring down regimes, at least not immediately.

Authoritarian regimes in the Middle East, Europe, and Latin America did collapse when several conditions were met — conditions that do not necessarily exist in Iran today. So what needs to happen in Iran for the Islamic Republic to breathe its last and make way for a different Iran?

The regime’s great test: Military loyalty

On April 8, 2003, Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf, Iraq’s information minister, gave an interview to Abu Dhabi TV and declared that Iraqi forces had succeeded in driving American soldiers away from the area of Baghdad International Airport. “We have cleaned the entire area around the airport,” al-Sahhaf said.

After the interview, the channel broadcast images from Baghdad airport, where American forces were clearly in control and not a single Iraqi soldier could be seen.

The cases of Iraq and Syria show that even a terrible economic situation, brutal repression, and heavy military blows do not necessarily bring down regimes, at least not immediately

The cases of Iraq and Syria show that even a terrible economic situation, brutal repression, and heavy military blows do not necessarily bring down regimes, at least not immediately

The following day, Baghdad finally fell and the Iraqi regime collapsed. The Iraqi army crumbled during the first three weeks of fighting, as many soldiers abandoned their battalions, changed into civilian clothes, and returned home.

Even the Republican Guard, which continued fighting in several locations, failed to establish defensive lines. Only militias personally loyal to Saddam Hussein, such as the Fedayeen Saddam, gave everything they had and fought fiercely against the Americans.

What caused the Iraqi army to fall so quickly? It had been exhausted by the endless war with Iran, then by the failed invasion of Kuwait, by sanctions, by Saddam Hussein’s brutal purges, and by a sense of futility and hopelessness.

The Iraqi writer Ghaith Abdul-Ahad wrote in his book “A Stranger in Your Own City” about the corruption that had spread through the country and left no decent part untouched: “Corruption gnawed at the state and turned it into an empty shell, devoid of legitimate authority and unworthy of respect. When a teacher’s salary fell to a dollar, and a policeman’s to five dollars, when pilots and tank commanders were forced to work as taxi drivers to supplement their income, corruption and embezzlement became a way of life.”

In Syria, too, in December 2024, the army disintegrated and surrendered to the rebels led by Ahmad al-Sharaa. This was preceded by years of civil war, forced conscription, and extremely harsh economic conditions among the regime’s soldiers.

In Libya, where Muammar Gaddafi relied on mercenaries out of fear of a rebellion emerging from within the army, there was ultimately no one left to defend him. In Portugal, army officers and generals dissatisfied with the policies of Antonio Salazar and his successor Marcelo Caetano — who had waged bloody wars in Africa — launched the “Carnation Revolution,” which won broad support from the masses.

The picture in Iran today looks different. The Iranian regime, itself a corrupt one, still managed over the years to look after its loyalists — members of the security forces, bureaucrats, and businesspeople close to power.

Iran has frequently intervened in the conflicts of others, but has avoided war on its own soil since the 1980s, following the end of the Iran-Iraq War. Despite sanctions, it built a relatively stable isolationist economy and became a regional power of significance.

Is the Iranian army distinct from the Revolutionary Guards and the Basij, and is there a chance it might side with demonstrators when they once again find the courage to take to the streets?

Nikita Smagin, an Iran expert working from Azerbaijan and the author of the book “Iran for Everyone,” told this writer that for now, there have been no significant defections from the army or other security forces, even though the issue — defection by the Iranian army or a decision by it to stand with protesters — has been widely discussed since the June 2025 war.

“Both the army and the Revolutionary Guards are subordinate to the General Staff, and the difference lies mainly in recruitment: the Revolutionary Guards recruit loyalists from the Basij ranks, checking that they have no relatives who participated in demonstrations and are not considered critical of the regime. But their officers mix with one another; the defense minister usually comes from the army, while the chief of staff comes from the Revolutionary Guards.

“During the latest protests, the regime also used the army – at roadblocks, and perhaps also through the use of weapons. Because the internet is blocked, we do not know all the details. From what is known, there have not yet been broad and significant defections.”

In order to dare defect, you need the confidence that something is waiting for you on the other side

In order to dare defect, you need the confidence that something is waiting for you on the other side

Smagin believes that to defect or stop fighting, members of the security forces need to feel betrayed by the regime — and for now, despite the dramatic assassinations carried out by the Israeli and US air forces, that turning point has not yet occurred. “Also, for obvious reasons, no one has promised them immunity at this point. In order to dare defect, you need the confidence that something is waiting for you on the other side,” Smagin says.

How far is the regime prepared to go?

Journalist Henrique Cymerman, who was born in Portugal, remembers well the repression during the Salazar regime and later under the pro-Soviet officers who came to power shortly after the Carnation Revolution in 1974: “There was a political police force involved everywhere, the PIDE, which penetrated universities and every place… it spread terror.

“It was like the Stasi. I remember the police beating students, and one of them apparently thought I was a student too and hit me in the back so hard that I… I still feel it to this very day. And that blow also changed me as a person, into someone who understands that democracy is not something to be taken for granted.”

At the same time, Cymerman also recalls that those who went out into the streets did not fear being murdered, unlike the Iranian demonstrators. “We were not afraid. We were not afraid. We were afraid of being beaten and arrested. We were not afraid they would shoot us. What is happening in Iran is something completely different.”

In Iran, too, Shah Pahlavi did not resort to extreme violence in 1979, when masses demanding his ouster took to the streets under the leadership of Ayatollah Khomeini. “There were cases of repression, but they were relatively isolated. Dozens of people were killed, not tens of thousands as happened this winter, and afterward, the regime fell,” Smagin adds.

The ayatollahs’ regime learned well from its predecessor how not to behave if it wanted to keep power, and so this winter, it used extreme violence against its opponents

The ayatollahs’ regime learned well from its predecessor how not to behave if it wanted to keep power, and so this winter, it used extreme violence against its opponents

Apparently, the ayatollahs’ regime learned well from its predecessor how not to behave if it wanted to keep power, and so this winter, it used extreme violence against its opponents and forcibly dispersed the mass protests.

In January and February 2011, in Egypt, during the 18 days of protests in Tahrir Square and other squares, about a thousand people were killed. They were shot or murdered by snipers who officially did not act on behalf of the regime, by police forces, and by semi-official organizations known as baltagiya, while the army embraced the protesters and did not raise weapons against them.

The same happened in Tunisia. Incidents of violence caused the deaths of between 150 and 300 people. On January 13, 2011, President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali fled the country with his wife, associates, and vast treasures looted from state coffers over many years. It is unclear whether he could have used broader violence against the protesters, but in the end, that did not happen.

By contrast, Bashar Assad was willing to go much further. The unarmed protesters who initially took part in demonstrations were met with sniper fire, and tanks were even used to disperse them. Later, Assad used his air force, and the Russian air force as well, to overpower his opponents, who by then were already carrying weapons.

Prof. Eli Podeh, who teaches in the Department of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies at the Hebrew University and is a member of the executive board of the Mitvim Institute, says: “That is the situation when the army and the other security services remain loyal to the regime. As long as that happens, you can rely on them. And in Syria, they remained fairly loyal to him.

“There were defections, but they were not too dramatic. It may also be that the Alawite factor helped here, meaning they were fighting for their lives. But it comes back to the point of the extent to which the army is activated or not.”

There is no shortage of similar examples from around the world. In China, the tanks that crushed the student encampment in Tiananmen Square were proof that the regime was ready to go all the way to suppress the uprising. Eleven people were killed in the crackdown, and many thousands were later thrown into prison.

This is also how the Russian regime acted against opponents of the war in Ukraine, who did not threaten its hegemony so much as the narrative the state sought to promote among its citizens. The protests were brutally suppressed, and even an innocent tweet in favor of world peace can now end in a lengthy detention in a remote penal colony.

It seems that the most brutal authoritarian regimes, those that did not hesitate to use extreme violence, managed to survive, or at least delay their end for several years, compared with those that refrained from doing so, whether for moral reasons or because they could no longer control the security forces, which switched sides or refrained from participating in mass violence. The Iranian regime has already shown more than once that it will stop at nothing to survive.

Prof. Ofra Bengio, an Iraq expert at the Moshe Dayan Center, says that in his final years Saddam Hussein tried to “reinvent himself” after Baathist ideology had been emptied of content and he understood that it could no longer help mobilize the masses.

“He began attempts to strengthen the religious component, visited holy sites, launched a campaign of Quran study with prizes for those who learned the Quran, and the names of battles became Islamic names. But in the end, those who supported him were Baath Party members who benefited from the perks of power.”

In the Soviet Union too, before the Soviet empire disintegrated, there was no ideology left that could continue to mobilize society. In their homes, the masses mocked the fossilized general secretaries of the Communist Party, the absurd theories students were required to study at universities, and the empty slogans recited by television announcers and party officials. Very few were prepared to defend the Communist Party and its values when perestroika burst into Soviet life in the late 1980s.

Salazar’s Portugal, which sanctified imperialism and colonialism, had also lost touch with reality. Cymerman says that one of the decisive factors leading to the Carnation Revolution was the wars the regime was fighting in Africa — in Mozambique, Angola, and Guinea — to which thousands of Portuguese soldiers were sent.

“Wonderful people would go to war and come back with severe shell shock. They came back as different people. I remember thinking to myself, ‘I don’t want to take part in these wars; they have nothing to do with me.’ The wars themselves were very, very violent. They used terrible things there, including napalm and all kinds of things in Africa. Enormous racism. Those wars were the turning point, the ‘game changer’ that caused the revolution.”

The core of the Islamic Republic is still in place… At least 20%-30% of the population – members of the security forces, officials, clerics, and others – are still very loyal to this regime

The core of the Islamic Republic is still in place… At least 20%-30% of the population – members of the security forces, officials, clerics, and others – are still very loyal to this regime

Smagin estimates that today at least about 20% of the Iranian population is still very loyal to the regime, among other things for religious and ideological reasons. “I am actually impressed by the pro-regime demonstrations now taking place in several cities in Iran. Of course, this is ordered from above — but it is one thing to mobilize participants in peacetime, and another during wartime, when they may be harmed during bombings.

“It is not so easy to force people into the street just like that. The core of the Islamic Republic is still in place and has not gone anywhere. The killing of Ali Khamenei, mass demonstrations of support in Pakistan, the downing of American aircraft in Kuwait (even though it was friendly fire) — all these things are being used to mobilize the regime’s support base.

“Yes, at least between 20% and 30% of the population — members of the security forces, officials, clerics, and others — are still very loyal to this regime.”

With the internet shutdown in Iran still ongoing, it is very difficult to extract information about the current mood among regime loyalists, who support it for ideological-religious or economic self-interest reasons. It is unclear to what extent the war — unlike anything Iran has experienced, as noted, since the 1980s — is managing to change their views.

Nor is it known whether the views of anti-regime protesters are changing in light of the heavy bombings, which strike not only regime targets but also oil reserves and desalination facilities — in other words, civilian targets. Supporters of the Iranian opposition abroad are convinced that most Iranians favor regime change but fear violent repression, arrests, torture, and murder, and are therefore waiting for the right moment.

The lesson from Iraq and Syria

Despite the heavy attacks on centers of power in Iran, it is still unclear how far the US is prepared to go to topple the Iranian regime. This goal ranks first from Israel’s perspective, and Trump certainly would not object to boasting about bringing down the Iranian regime — something he has spoken about several times.

If the air attacks fail and significant protests do not materialize, would Trump be prepared to go all in?

If the air attacks fail and significant protests do not materialize, would Trump be prepared to go all in?

But in the event that the air attacks fail and significant protests do not materialize, would he be prepared to go all in, as George W. Bush did in Iraq, and pour massive military forces into Iran to subdue the regime and seize Tehran and its institutions of power? If the answer is “no,” the regime — even if battered and bruised — could survive.

“In 1991, the West was not interested in toppling Saddam. And how was that expressed? In the fact that they allowed him to use the air force against the Kurdish and Shiite uprisings and suppress their attempts to overthrow the regime,” Bengio says.

“At that time, the Shiites almost pulled off a coup; the Shiite uprising almost reached Baghdad, and then, when the regime was on the verge of collapse, they allowed him to use his air force because they feared the Shiitization of Iraq, and strategically decided not to topple Saddam’s regime.”

US president Barack Obama also decided in 2013 not to topple Syrian dictator Bashar Assad, despite the red lines he himself had set. Assad — with the help of Russia, Iran, and pro-Iranian militias — managed to remain in power until the end of 2024, even though he controlled no more than 40% of Syrian territory.

Thus, both Saddam in 1991 and Assad after 2011 survived for years despite sanctions, internal weakness, and decay — not because of their strength, but because of the West’s strategic decision not to topple them.

That decision stemmed from fear that the situation might deteriorate, or from an unwillingness to deepen involvement in the Middle East until a stronger rival had emerged. Both absorbed heavy blows, though apparently not as severe as those the Iranian regime is now taking.

Smagin believes that even if the regime does not fall now, it has already been weakened very significantly. At the same time, its death throes could last a relatively long time. “The regime has already begun to wobble — not necessarily the institutional structure itself, but its functional capacity. When leadership changes occur so quickly, they will struggle at the crossroads of making important and difficult decisions.

“The launching of UAVs, for example, could go on forever, but the more significant process is the internal changes within the country alongside the erosion in the quality of human capital. At the same time, total disintegration depends on many factors, including a rift among the ruling elites. At this stage, it is not something one should count on.”

How much longer can the regime hold on?

It is very difficult to compare the Iranian regime’s situation with that of other autocratic and dictatorial regimes around the world, Podeh says. “Every country is a case unto itself. Iran is also different in the sense that it has so many minorities, and each of them could theoretically rebel, which could make things harder for the regime. Right now, that is not happening.”

On the one hand, it seems that none of the conditions that brought down other authoritarian regimes exist in Iran right now: The military has not yet defected or broken away from the regime, millions of Iranians still believe in the ideology it promotes, the regime is prepared to use extreme violence against protesters and crush them in order to survive, and the West has not yet decided whether it is committed to the final objective — the fall of the Iranian regime.

Furthermore, this is a regime that prepared for decades for the present moment of fateful struggle against the “Great and Little Satan” – the US and Israel.

And yet, it is hard to ignore the conditions prevailing in Iran today: the country’s severe economic crisis, which will only worsen because of the war; the scant, almost nonexistent support from its allies, Russia and China; the dire state of its proxies across the region, from Lebanon to Yemen; the disappointment and bitterness among broad sections of the population toward the regime and its performance in almost every sphere of life; and of course, the heavy blows it continues to absorb every day.

It is entirely possible that the countdown began even before the war broke out. Still, one must also prepare for the possibility that the Iranian regime will continue to fight with all its might, and that its collapse will stretch over a not-insignificant period — during which it will still pose a very great danger, both regionally and globally — until it finally falls.

Are you relying on The Times of Israel for accurate and timely coverage of the Iran war right now? If so, please join The Times of Israel Community. For as little as $6/month, you will:

Support our independent journalists who are working around the clock under difficult conditions to cover this conflict;

Read ToI with a clear, ads-free experience on our site, apps and emails; and

Gain access to exclusive content shared only with the ToI Community, including weekly letters from founding editor David Horovitz.

2026 US-Israel war with Iran

© The Times of Israel