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Alexis Madrigal: Welcome to Forum. I’m Alexis Madrigal.
The Iranian regime has been in control of the country for four and a half decades. In recent years, there have been a series of protests, each met with some level of government repression. This time, though, according to human rights activists, the government has killed not dozens or hundreds, but thousands. It also shut down the internet for weeks.
The country is beset by economic problems, but the regime clearly retains a substantial security force. After Donald Trump sent troops into Venezuela and kidnapped the country’s leader — remember that? — and then threatened longtime European allies in an effort to gain possession of Greenland, it’s become more clear than ever that American foreign policy and the use of force are wildly unpredictable.
For now, U.S.–Iranian negotiations on nuclear facilities will resume on Friday. But in the near future, what role will our impulsive president play in that country’s internal affairs?
To help us understand, we’re joined first by Nate Swanson, director of the Iran Strategy Project at the Atlantic Council. Thanks for joining us.
Nate Swanson: Thank you. Happy to be here.
Alexis Madrigal: We’re also joined by Sahar Razavi, associate professor in the Department of Political Science and director of the Iranian and Middle Eastern Studies Center at Cal State Sacramento. Thanks so much for joining us.
Sahar Razavi: Thanks for having me back on.
Alexis Madrigal: Sahar, let’s start with you. We had these massive protests that began at the end of December. The Iranian government shut down the internet. What do we know about what’s happening on the ground?
Sahar Razavi: Protests have almost completely stopped in the streets. Unfortunately, the pattern of repression in Iran shows us that it can be very effective at getting people off the streets. That does not, however, equate to the uprising itself being over or people feeling as if things have gone back to normal.
Everything I’m hearing from people on the ground and from reports is that everyone is carrying a sense of trepidation — a sense of heaviness, a sense of grief. People are kind of moving like zombies in some areas where there has been a lot of killing, going through the motions but not feeling as though things are back to normal.
We don’t have a good sense of exactly how many were killed. As you mentioned, the investigation is still ongoing. The counting is still happening, and it may take a very long time for us to find out — if we ever do. At this point, the street protests have died down, but each uprising, each wave, has created, in my opinion, medium- to long-term consequences. I don’t think this one is any different.
Alexis Madrigal: Thinking back to the previous large wave of protests — the Women, Life, Freedom protests — what were the consequences of that moment?
Sahar Razavi: After Women, Life, Freedom, there was what has been called an uneasy entente between the public and the government. Hijab enforcement became a key example of that. At first, the government said it was going to implement a much stricter program when it came to hijab, and then it stopped enforcing it altogether in most cities.
In Tehran especially, most women either were not covering by choice and no one was enforcing it, or they were covering out of caution — thinking, well, it’s not being enforced now, but it could be. I could be the one they make an example of. So hijab enforcement in public became much more lax, and it stayed that way up until this uprising.
Alexis Madrigal: Nate Swanson, you’ve worked on Iran issues for most of your career. How do you see these different waves of protest, and how would you contextualize this most recent one?
Nate Swanson: Yeah, thanks. As you said, I’ve spent most of my career on Iran. My formative moment once I entered government was the 2009 Green Movement protests, and that really became foundational for me.
Since then — protests in 2017, 2019 — I was at the White House in 2022 and 2023 when the Women, Life, Freedom movement was happening. But these feel different for a couple of reasons.
First, the sheer scale of the crackdown. We don’t know the exact numbers, but the government itself has submitted a minimum of 3,000 deaths — at one point saying 5,000. Compare that to 2022, when it was around 550. During the Green Movement, it was fewer than 100. The student protests in 1999 saw four deaths.
Now we’re looking at exponentially higher numbers. You didn’t have images of body bags lining the streets before. That’s fundamentally different.
Second, Trump has very clearly inserted himself into the middle of these protests in a way that’s unique. I don’t think that was necessarily intentional, but it’s created a completely different dynamic and helps explain why we’re in the situation we’re in now.
Third — and I’m curious what others think — it feels like there are no solutions left for the Iranian government to prevent this from happening again. The protests themselves have changed. In 2009, they were about regime reform. Now, at least for people on the streets, they feel much more focused on regime change.
I don’t see how the government can respond. Food prices were up about 75 percent last year. Inflation has been over 30 percent for something like six straight years. The president was quoted in The New York Times about a month before the protests saying, “We, the elected government, cannot meet the demands of the Iranian people.” That’s a staggering statement.
All of this comes together into a unique moment. It seems like they’ve quelled this round of protests, but going forward, it feels like things are going to be different — and potentially more frequent.
Alexis Madrigal: Sahar, for those who haven’t been paying close attention — especially given how difficult it was to know what was happening because of the internet shutdown — do we know whether the nature of these protests was different? For example, were protesters trying to take over state institutions, or was this indiscriminate killing? What can we say about the nature of the protest and the repression?
Sahar Razavi: I think it was a combination. There was a lot of indiscriminate killing, and that killing was used specifically to instill fear so there would be fewer protesters.
Early on, during the communications blackout, there was a video aired on state television — one of the few videos that emerged — showing piles of body bags in a hospital courtyard, with people searching through them to identify loved ones. It was heartbreaking. People asked why the government would air this, since it clearly implicated them. In my view, it served a very clear purpose: discouraging people from coming out and sending the message that if you protest, this could be you or your family tomorrow.
There was indiscriminate killing, but there were also reports of targeted violence. To your question about whether people were trying to take over government institutions — I didn’t see that. I did see reports of shrines, mosques, government buildings, police stations, and Basij patrols being burned. There were reports of police officers in Isfahan being set on fire or beheaded. This was serious violence, and I think the nature of the protests was different from the past. And I want to be clear that responsibility for the violence lies primarily with the Iranian government. They mobilized the coercive apparatuses of the state against protesters. But we also need to be clear-eyed about how the demands have become more fundamental with each wave. As Nate mentioned, twenty years ago the demands were primarily reformist. Now they are calling for a total transformation of the system.
Alexis Madrigal: I think you picked up on what I was getting at — the difference between street protests and something closer to revolution. Did this feel like a revolutionary moment, or at least one with that potential, leading to such repression?
Sahar Razavi: Yes. People reported that it felt like a war zone — a war between the people and the government. I heard from people I personally know whose loved ones were sitting in parks just observing protests and were detained. Those detaining them were speaking other languages, suggesting the government brought in militia forces from its proxy network.
That helps explain the sheer scale of the brutality, which is unprecedented in the history of the Islamic Republic — and, in my opinion, in modern Iranian history. This is the most violent crackdown we’ve ever seen. There are reasons for that, which we can discuss later, but yes — it is different.
Alexis Madrigal: When you hear opposition leaders say people will remember this for decades, if not centuries, it really underscores how much of a break this feels like from past repression.
We’re talking about the situation in Iran and escalating tensions with the United States following a month of massive protests. We’re joined by Nate Swanson, director of the Iran Strategy Project at the Atlantic Council, and Sahar Razavi, associate professor of political science and director of the Iranian and Middle Eastern Studies Center at Cal State Sacramento.
After the break, we’ll also be joined by Jason Rezaian, director of Press Freedom Initiatives at The Washington Post and author of Prisoner: My 544 Days in an Iranian Prison.
We want to hear from you. What are your concerns about what’s happening in Iran, and how do you think the U.S. should respond? Call 866-733-6786 or email forum@kqed.org.
I’m Alexis Madrigal. Stay tuned.
