https://time.com/7345092/iran-protests-death-toll-regime-crackdown/

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5820140&forum_id=2Reputation#49577345)

https://x.com/JasonMBrodsky/status/2009823747306598466

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5820140&forum_id=2Reputation#49577718)

Iranians across the country are chanting slogans in support of Reza Pahlavi, whose father, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, ruled the country for decades.

The chants come as the tone of the protests, which began with outrage over a falling currency and soaring prices, is shifting from economic concerns to attacks on the legitimacy of the theocratic regime itself. Protesters shouting antiregime slogans filled streets in Tehran on Thursday night in the largest demonstrations in years. Videos showed burned out cars and a mosque.

“Long live the Shah,” shouted protesters in a shopping center in Tehran, as others set fire to a nearby government building, according to a video verified by Storyful, which is owned by Wall Street Journal parent News Corp.

“This is the last battle,” thousands chanted at another march elsewhere in the capital, “Pahlavi will return.”

The 65-year-old Pahlavi’s prominence is a departure from previous bouts of protest, when the heir to the controversial dynasty was rarely referenced. His father, who ruled Iran from the 1940s, was widely despised in Iran for his autocratic rule, his political repression and what critics saw as his subservience to the U.S.

Few analysts think Pahlavi has a real path to the throne or leadership in Iran. His improved reputation in recent years says more about the mounting discontent with the Islamic Republic than it does about a genuine desire by Iranians for a return of the monarchy, analysts said. Many Iranians see him as everything the current regime is not: pro-Western, secular and capable of ending Iran’s economic isolation.

“Over the past decade, Pahlavi’s popularity has increased, reflecting not just nostalgia, but a sharp contrast of what the past was and what the future could be in Iran,” said Behnam Ben Taleblu, Iran senior director at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington think tank. “This rise in popularity correlates with increasing secularism and nationalism.”

Some Iranians responded to Pahlavi’s call to join swelling protests against the government Thursday night. He urged more to take part Friday.

“Be assured that victory belongs to you,” said Pahlavi, who is based in the U.S.

Pahlavi was 18 years old and in the U.S. training to be a jet fighter pilot when the revolution that ousted his father unfolded. After his father died in exile in Egypt in 1980, Pahlavi declared himself the new shah but failed over the following decades to build a cohesive Iranian opposition, with many Iranians continuing to revile his dynasty.

Three midlevel Iranian government officials, reached over the past week to discuss other issues, brought up unprompted that they privately longed for the return of the Pahlavis. As the latest round of protests erupted in the capital, one of them said he wanted his king back and hoped he could restore Iran’s international standing following a bruising conflict with Israel in June.

There are limits to Pahlavi’s influence. He says he wouldn’t rule as a shah and wants to help Iranians transition to a secular democracy, but he lacks an organized support network inside Iran. President Trump, who has repeatedly threatened to intervene if the government fires on the protesters and has admired Iranians’ eagerness to shake off the regime, has said he isn’t ready to meet him yet.

Iran’s opposition movement remains deeply fragmented. Many Iranians—even those calling for regime change—still firmly oppose the return of the deposed dynasty.

“The Islamic Republic is so bad people will accept anything in replacement, and he offers a simple solution,” said Javad Chamanara, an opposition activist and member of Iran’s Kurdish minority who favors a federalist system in Iran. Pahlavi is seen as a divisive figure among ethnic minorities, which make up close to half of Iran’s population, because of the monarchy’s past refusal to grant them some autonomy, he said.

Iran does have other opposition figures, including human-rights activists. Shirin Ebadi, the Iranian Nobel Peace Prize laureate, called on her fellow citizens to rally for freedom and democracy.

“We are witnessing the collapse of the hegemony of the Islamic Republic,” Ebadi, who lives outside Iran, said on her official Telegram channel Friday. “All we need to do in these final days is hold each other’s hands and believe that this dark night is coming to an end.”

The Islamic Republic is more vulnerable than it has been in years. Its economy is in tatters because of sanctions and the collapse of its currency. The 12-day war with Israel devastated its nuclear and missile program and laid bare the limits of its military capabilities.

Negotiations between Tehran and Washington to restart talks over its nuclear program are deadlocked over the regime’s insistence on the right to enrich uranium, which the U.S., Europe and Israel fear could be used to build a bomb.

The antigovernment demonstrations that began in late December have mobilized a wide spectrum of Iranian society, from oil workers to bazaar merchants, students, rights activists and ethnic minorities.

There are some similarities between the current protests and the popular unrest that led to the toppling of the shah. Widespread economic grievances were also a catalyst for the revolution, with bazaar merchants playing an important role.

In the late 1970s, secular and religious Iranians joined forces against the shah. Key to the uprising’s success was the charismatic leadership of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, an exiled cleric, and the participation of the Shiite religious establishment. Mass demonstrations forced the shah and his family to flee in January 1979.

Iran’s current leaders possess a more sophisticated apparatus to monitor and crush opposition than the shah. The waves of antigovernment demonstrations that swept Iran in 2009, 2017, 2019 and 2022 shook the regime but were all ultimately repressed.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who has ruled the country since 1989, told a gathering of supporters Friday that he had no plan to cede power.

“Everyone should know that the Islamic Republic will not retreat,” he said.

Internet access has been almost completely interrupted since late Thursday, according to Netblocks, the watchdog group. Iran also shut down online access during the 2022 protests. More than 2,000 people have been arrested and three dozen killed, according to the group Human Rights Activists in Iran. Another group, Iran Human Rights, later put the death toll at 51.

Iran’s Islamist leaders haven’t yet deployed their full force against the continuing protests, in part because they fear Trump could follow through on his promise to intervene if protesters are killed, said Aniseh Bassiri Tabrizi, an Iran expert with the Chatham House research group.

“We are not yet in a situation in which regime stability is at stake, although that could obviously change drastically and suddenly,” she said. “If the protests continue and further escalate, it is likely the regime will start again using repressive force.”

Write to Benoit Faucon at benoit.faucon@wsj.com and Margherita Stancati at margherita.stancati@wsj.com

https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/iranians-are-rallying-around-the-son-of-the-former-shah-as-protests-swell-5ef0b03f?gaa_at=eafs&gaa_n=AWEtsqe9GH_BW7xh1G4NenIEUcYCpgMNUoMZRZ3TgNqqMwisUJSYzPljEo2n34in_G4%3D&gaa_ts=6961c4a2&gaa_sig=SAhYZG2csc6S5nCU8Mb6ldCMDDYsW0RJBWSglgb9fFZfsTPYM-vIcERlWk7FuYrDtZaXiwZTGVtIIYSONeV8EA%3D%3D

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5820140&forum_id=2Reputation#49577741)

*leaves*

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5820140&forum_id=2Reputation#49577884)

https://www.pizzint.watch/nothingeverhappens

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5820140&forum_id=2Reputation#49577886)