Transcript of Iran on the Brink

Over the past week, massive protests have erupted across Iran, calling for economic reform, and an end to the regime.

In recent days, a full picture of the government's crackdown on the protesters has emerged, garnering worldwide condemnation.

We don't want to see what's happening in Iran happen.

And threats of action from President Trump.

When they start killing thousands of people, and now you're telling me about hanging, we'll see how that works out for them. It's not going to work out good.

From the New York Times, I'm Rachel Abrams, and this is The Daily. Today, my colleague Farnaz Fashigh on what's driving the protesters and why the Iranian regime has never been closer to collapse. It's Wednesday, January 14th. Farnaz, thank you so much for joining us.

Thank you for having me.

Farnaz, As you have been covering Iran for decades, and we at the Daily Turn to you during these huge moments of disruptions, eruptions, which is what it feels like we are in right now in Iran. We're talking to you Tuesday afternoon at about 1: 30 PM, I'd like for you to start off by characterizing what we are seeing on the ground right now.

For the past week, we've seen nationwide protests in cities big and small across different demographics erupt all across Iran, with a singular demand for the end of the Islamic Republic's rule. This is coupled with an external threat from the United States and Israel, that there might be a military strike on Iran and an economy that's in tailspin, which is creating a very unique and difficult challenge for the government because it's facing a a perfect storm. But we're also seeing the government brutally responding to these protests and violent crackdown unfolding with thousands of people killed and injured and bodies are piling up at the morgue and at the cemetery as reports of the killings trickle out.

As you said, it is a perfect storm of things that the regime is dealing with in terms of threats. I want to start with the protests themselves and what's going on inside the country. Can you Can you talk a little bit about what's driving people to the streets?

People are just fed up racial. They feel like they've got nothing to lose, that this government is either unwilling or incapable of bringing the change that people want to see in their lives, ranging from social freedom to political freedom, and of course, the economy, which is fueling these protests. Now, we have to remember that Iran's economy has been in shambles for years. President Trump reimposed sanctions on Iran, targeting its oil revenues and international banking structures in 2018 when he exited the nuclear deal between Iran and the world powers. In the fall, the United Nations Security Council reimposed UN sanctions on Iran through a mechanism known as Snapback, related to Iran's standoff with Europeans and the United States over the nuclear program. From then, the currency started falling even further than it had before. But on December 28th, the real plunge to an all time low against the US dollar. It unleashed this wave of anger because when the currency freefalls, it has a direct impact on inflation and on the prices of everyday goods, including food items. Inflation is now around 60%. Prices of everyday goods such as cooking oil, rice, eggs, like staples of an Iranian grocery basket, suddenly tripled overnight.

So this wave of protests that we're seeing now started in Tehran's bazar, which is really the pulse of Iran's economy, the bazar is the equivalent of the stock market here, right? So when the bazars go on strike, it really can paralyze the economy. And the reason the bazar is went on strike was because the real was plungging against the dollar, the prices were fluctuating and they were facing too much instability. From hour to hour, they had to adjust the prices of what they had to buy and what they had to procure and what they had to sell because they didn't know within a few hours what the price of US dollar against the real was going to be. There was this sense that we want to put pressure on the government and the central bank to try to stabilize the currency because we just can't to operate this way. Then it spread. It first spread to working class areas, to small towns that are underdeveloped, that are economically on a lower level. It percolated that way for about a week.

How did the government respond to all of this growing unrest?

The government initially responded with a more conciliatory tone with the President, Massoud Pesejkian, saying, You're all my children. The protesters have a legitimate reason to protest. We understand and we feel bad. Then he moved very quickly to take measures that he thought would contain and appease Particularly the bazar. He sacked the governor of the central bank. He also announced a new currency policy. Then the government announced that it was giving every Iranian a monthly a stipend of $7, which because of the inflation, it could only buy you a bottle of cooking oil. But the measures that he was taking not only did little to appease people, but they also had an opposite effect. So it reinforced this feeling that the people who are in charge don't really know what they're doing and things are not going to get better. And that fueled more anger. That sparked more outraged. Moment was building for people to come out in larger numbers and say, enough is enough.

We're talking about a crisis that is largely sparked, it sounds like, from this spiraling economy. But I think that a lot of people who are listening to this are going to remember another protest just a few years ago that started over women's rights. There was a question then, too, about whether these protests, whether this unrest would topple the regime. Obviously, that did not happen. But can you talk a little bit more about why, more broadly, Iranians are unhappy with the government that goes beyond the economic reasons you've just laid out?

The Iranian society is very different from the government and clerks that rule it. The majority of people are a lot less religious than what the state wants and what state has enforced. They are not ideological, the ideology of the Islamic Republic of the 1970s, where we're anti-American, we're anti-imperialist. That has faded in generation after generation. And the younger generation, as we've seen in videos coming out in protests of the women-led uprising that you mentioned, want a different a life. They are super plugged in on social media. They see how the rest the world is living, how their counterparts in other countries, not just in Europe and the US, but in Turkey, in Dubai, in other Muslim countries, they have social freedom, they have economic prosperity. And they're saying, why not us? Iran is a very resource-rich country. It has oil resources, energy resources. What I hear from many Iranians is that this is not a government and a system that we deserve. We have to remember that over the past two decades, there have been waves of pro-democracy protests happening in Iran, starting with the Student Activist Movement in 1999, the Green Movement in 2008, the women-led protests and uprising in 2022, all of them grassroots and mobilized and organized by activists and leading opposition figures inside the country, such as Iran's most prominent human rights activist, Nargesse Mohamadi, who's a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, who's currently in jail, and many people look up to her as a leader of this pro-democracy movement.

We see all of these forces at play on the streets across Iran. In videos that we're seeing coming from the protests that have gone viral, we hear crowds chanting, Death to the Dictator, dictator. Death to the Oppressor, Whether be it King or the Supreme Leader, Clerics Get Lost. We're also hearing crowds chant, Long live the Shah, a reference to the last monarch of Iran, Mohamed Rizashah Pahlavi, who was toppled in the 1979 Revolution, in what seems to be a nostalgic call for an era that Iranians remember pre the revolution. We're seeing young men and women, crowds forming in different parts of the capital in Tehran and other cities, fist in the air, chanting, Freedom, freedom..

It sounds like this is really the culmination of a deep disconnect between the Iranian people and its leadership, which at least, as you said, initially, seemed sympathetic to the movement and its concerns. But clearly, we know that the situation has turned very bloody and very hostile and violent. I wonder, when did that switch happen and what have we seen in terms of the violence that's gone on on the ground?

The change of rhetoric from the government started when the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah And he delivered a public speech.. Labeling protesters as rioters and saying they were the agents of the United States and Israel.

And they were destabilizing the country working for Iran's enemies..

Iran's chief judiciary also said that there would be no mercy for anyone arrested and justified the crackdowns by pointing out to widespread vandalism and burning of public properties and cars and even attacks on mosques and police stations that they had seen..

Now, now, now.

Then on Thursday, when the crowds swelled in the streets, and the cries for freedom grew louder, Please shut up.

Please shut up. Please shut up.

Please shut up. The government unclugged the Internet and plunged the country into total darkness. They blocked incoming and outgoing international calls, making it really difficult for anyone outside to get visibility about what was really going on. Cell phone reception inside the country has also been disrupted in what seems to be an effort to try to stop people from organizing and mobilizing protests. By Sunday, a picture was emerging that a massacre was unfolding in Iran. I've been able to communicate to protesters, to doctors, nurses, and people who've been on the ground through satellite internet connection that they may be able to find. Everyone that I spoke to who's been out to protest has seen someone get shot and killed in front of him. Two people told me that they saw snipers in two different parts of the city shooting down at the crowds. A friend who was in central Tehran described a horrific scene of security forces gunning down young people, a young crowd of men and women with machine guns and people falling on top of each other. Nurses and doctors that I've been able to connect with described absolutely horrific scenes unfolding at hospitals.

People shot at close range in the head, in the torso, from the back.. The video that went viral was of an Iranian wildlife photographer, Sadeq Parvizadeh. His face is bloody, blood dripping from his face, and he's addressing the camera saying,. To the security forces, how can you fire your own countrymen? Killing a person is like a game for them. I swear to God, we're also citizens of this country. We have pain. Videos we're seeing from Tehran's Morgue show bodies in bags piled in the parking lot and on the ground. And families wailing and screaming as they're going through them, trying to identify their loved ones.

This is a level of violence and cruelty That I haven't seen in the 30 years that I've been covering Iran.

What you are describing for an is just horrific and inconceivable, I think, to a lot of people, just these scenes of absolute carnage all over Iran. I wonder whether the brutality of this response is working for the regime in terms of actually the protests, or whether it perhaps is having an opposite effect on people and what they're willing to do in the face of all of this opposition.

The situation is very fluid. The protests have attracted international attention, pressure on the Iranian government, and of course, the unpredictable variable of whether the United States is going to take military action against Iran.

We'll be right back. Farnas, at the beginning of this conversation, we talked about internal forces on Iran and external forces on Iran. I want to go external now. Can you talk about what has happened outside of Iran that has led this moment and had such an impact?

Remember that Iran has had a really tough year. In June, Iran had an intense 12-day war with Israel when Israel launched surprise attacks on Iran's military structure and took out its military command chain and nuclear scientists. Iran was able to strike Israel with a barrage of ballistic missiles, but that war exposed Iran's weakness in terms of being able to defend itself. The war, of course, culminated with the United States getting involved and bombing and severely damaging Iran's nuclear facilities. Another dynamic at play here is that Iran's regional standing has changed. It's militant allies around the region that it helps arm and fund, like Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza have been decimated and weakened by Israel. Iran had counted on these groups, particularly Hezbollah and Syria, the base that it had in Syria, as a way to exert pressure and as a forward defense, that it would say, Well, if you attack me, I can also fire and create problems across the region. In that sense, Iran has really been weakened.

How should we be accounting for all of that? The embarrassment, the evident vulnerability, is that on the minds of these protesters that we're seeing out on the streets now?

Of Of course, I think that all of this feeds into the momentum where it emboldens people taking to the streets thinking, Maybe this is the moment.

We've talked about how one big open question right now is how the United States is going to respond. President Trump has said on multiple occasions he's willing to take action in defense of the protesters. On Tuesday, even, he put a post on Truth Social, urging people to continue protesting. He said that they will to pay a big price, referring to the regime. What do we know about how the regime is thinking about the president and his threats?

Iran's leadership is taking the threats and rhetoric coming from President Trump very seriously. They, of course, have the experience of the US bombing the nuclear facilities. But also what happened in Venezuela really rattled them because there was this sense that President Trump is not loving and he'll actually carry out what he says. From my conversations with a few government officials, we know that Iran's National Security Council conducted an emergency meeting to talk about how they would prepare. I know that Iran's armed forces have been put on the highest alert possible, anticipating an attack. The government has said that if the US attacks us, we are going to retaliate forcefully against American targets and ships and military bases in the region, and we will also attack Israel. It seems like they're preparing for war.

There's also some broader context that we should not neglect here about the relationship between President Trump and Iran, which has for years been extremely antagonistic. During the first Trump administration, President Trump killed Iran's top general. That led to an Iranian assassination plot against President Trump. But I've also been having a lot of conversations more recently with colleagues in the newsroom who cover the administration about how, if at all, any of that that I've just described plays into Trump's decision making. They've told me a range of answers that this could be about regime change right now. It could also be about oil, but it is also about power and how Trump exerts it. I wonder what you make of all of this, Farnas, just trying to put together all of this context history and the latest comments we've seen from the President. What is your assessment about why the United States is considering some of this action?

Well, we don't know for sure what President Trump's motivations are. We don't even know if he's going to go ahead and topple the Iranian regime. He has said previously that the US does not want to engage in nation building and regime change anymore. But it's also possible that President Trump sees some benefits to eliminating the Iranian government's rule because it would end nearly five decades of animosity between Iran and the United States. It would also remove a government that has been hostile to not just the United States, but also to Israel. There's also a slight chance that this could help realign the Middle East in ways that could benefit and secure American interests. Of course, Iran is an oil-rich country, so there's also the energy factor there, too. But we also know from history, including recent history, that military interventions in the Middle East carries enormous risks. I was a war correspondent in the Middle East. I covered the Afghanistan war and its aftermath, Iraq, Syria. We've seen that the US can win the military war because of its military might, but it can't win the long war or the long peace. That stability and a smooth transition have been elusive in other places where the US intervened, namely Iraq.

The United States' own history with Iran is also checkered In 1953, the United States intervened and toppled a democratically elected government of Prime Minister, Mosaddiq, and reinstalled the Shah through a CIA coup. And many will tell you that that killed the path that the country was on toward becoming a democracy or a Republic. Within a few decades, it exploded in an Islamic Revolution. Usually, regimes and governments are toppled either by defections and coups inside or by military interventions. We haven't seen any major defections among the military ranks of Iran's armed forces. We haven't seen defections among the political class. So right now, there's no sign that something's going to happen from within. For all the reasons that we have discussed, a military intervention to topple the government, could actually bring about years of instability.

What might that instability look like for an OZ?

Well, I think for one thing, the fight for what Iran's future might be, what various opposition groups that are very divided and don't have a unified vision even currently. So how would that play out? There are ethnic minorities in Iran that have aspirations for separatism, for federalism. There are also forces in the region, including the Islamic State terrorists, including militant Islamic forces that might, like they did in Iraq, like they did in Syria, might see a power vacuum in Iran and pour into the country and use that as a power base. Also, we have to also remember that the Iranian government does have a support base of about at least 10%. It does have armed Revolutionary Guards and paramilitary force that are loyal to it. You could see also a scenario where they would form armed insurgencies and fight whatever is the next government. These are scenarios that are not fantasies, and it's important to keep a clear eye and sober view of what the options are and what the outcomes be.

Farnas, you have seen and covered decades worth of uprisings in Iran, and I wonder what you think it would do to the Iranian psyche and to the people who are in the streets right now. It's such great personal risk if ultimately nothing really changes in Iran and the status quo remains.

The current uprising in Iran has created a sliver of light and hope for Iranians inside and for the diaspora diaspora, watching what's unfolding in their country. I think for people to feel they're so close to change and to freedom and for it to be crushed would be devastating. Would be heartbreaking. But I don't think it would be the end of the aspirations of the Iranian people. I think no matter how much force the government uses and the level of crackdowns, it can crush protests periodically, but it can't kill the dream as it hasn't been able to in previous protests. The protests have built upon each other over the years. What I hear this time, and what I see, is that the Iranian people have lost their fear.

Farnazh, thank you so much.

Thank you for having me.

We'll be right back.

Here's what else you need to know today. On Tuesday, six federal prosecutors in Minnesota resigned in protest over For the Justice Department's push to investigate the widow of Renee Good, the protester killed by an ICE agent last week. At least one of the prosecutors, Joseph Thompson, reportedly also objected to the Department's refusal to investigate the shooter. Johnson and another prosecutor were leading the sprawling fraud investigation that has roiled the state in recent weeks. Bill and Hillary Clinton are refusing to testify in the Congressional investigation of Jeffrey Epstein, escalating a month-long battle with the Republican Representative James Comer of Kentucky, who chairs the Oversight Committee and who said he would hold the couple in contempt. The strategy to push the Clintons to testify reflects Comer's overall approach, deflect focus from President Trump by redirecting it to prominent Democrats who also associated with the convicted sex offender and his longtime companion, Ghislaine Maxwell. Today's episode was produced by Mujdj Sady, Rochelle Banja, and Jessica Cheung, with help from Ricky Nowetsky. It was edited by Michael Benoît and Patricia Willens. Contains music by Diane Wong, Marion Lozano, and Pat McCusker, and was engineered by Alyssa Moxley. It for The Daily.

I'm Rachael Abrams. See you tomorrow.