Weakened by war, Iran’s regime faces its toughest challenge yet

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. DUBAI—Iran’s 12-day war with Israel and the U.S. last June broke the regime’s carefully nurtured image of invincibility, many ordinary Iranians say.

Now the aftermath is helping to fuel a wave of protests over the past two weeks that has left at least 500 people dead as the Islamic Republic attempts to regain control. Footage seeping out of the country shows mass protests are continuing despite the crackdown. Human-rights-group assessments say security forces have already gunned down hundreds, and possibly thousands, of protesters.

President Trump has repeatedly threatened to attack Iran if deadly force is used, and on Tuesday aides are scheduled to brief him on specific measures the U.S. can take to respond to the killings. Iran’s leaders have weathered similar storms before.

This time, the regime is in a far weaker position. The ayatollahs’ rule was shaped by the bloody eight-year war that Saddam Hussein’s Iraq launched in the aftermath of the 1979 Islamic Revolution. The social compact that endured since that trauma was that Iranians would acquiesce to hardship and restrictions in return for a strong state that protects them from foreign attack.

That assumption came crashing down when Iranian-backed Hamas and Hezbollah attacked Israel in 2023, triggering a regional war that brought death and destruction into the heart of Tehran last summer. Israeli strikes across Iran destroyed much of its military leadership, and the follow-on U.S. bombing campaign struck a heavy blow against Iran’s nuclear program.