DEADLY Riots in Iran: IRGC Demands Leader’s Immediate Resignation!

Iran’s Streets Are Burning, and the Regime’s Most Feared Force Is Showing Cracks

TEHRAN — What began as an economic revolt over a collapsing currency and the price of bread has become something far more dangerous for the Islamic Republic: a crisis of obedience inside the very security machine built to defend it.

Across Iran, protests that erupted after the rial plunged in late December have evolved into one of the most serious challenges the clerical regime has faced in its 47-year history. Markets have gone dark. Funerals have turned into demonstrations. Rooftops have become stages for anti-government chants. And behind the sealed doors of military offices and command centers, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps — long regarded as the regime’s iron spine — is reportedly confronting a question once considered unthinkable: whether the supreme leader himself has become a liability.

The unrest began with a number: the exchange rate. In late 2025, Iran’s currency fell to historic lows, deepening a financial crisis that had already battered ordinary families. The collapse quickly moved from currency screens into kitchens. Bread became more expensive. Cooking oil grew scarce. Wages lost value before workers could spend them. In a country with some of the world’s largest oil and gas reserves, many citizens found themselves unable to afford basic food.

For years, Iran’s leaders had blamed hardship on sanctions, foreign enemies and the sacrifices required to preserve the Islamic Revolution. But by the end of December, that explanation had lost much of its power. The Grand Bazaar in Tehran — a historic force in Iranian politics and a key base of support during the 1979 revolution — reportedly shut down. From there, demonstrations spread to Isfahan, Shiraz, Mashhad, Hamadan and Qom, the religious heartland of the Islamic Republic.

The slogans changed quickly. Protesters were no longer asking only for cheaper food or economic relief. They were calling for the end of the system itself.

The government answered with force.

By mid-January, rights groups and news agencies were reporting mass casualties from the crackdown. The Associated Press reported on January 13 that HRANA, a U.S.-based human rights organization, had counted at least 2,571 deaths and more than 18,000 arrests, making it Iran’s deadliest unrest in decades. Reuters later reported that an Iranian official acknowledged at least 5,000 verified deaths, while HRANA continued to document additional cases under review.

The numbers remain contested and difficult to verify, partly because Iranian authorities restricted communications during the worst violence. But the trend is clear: the crackdown was vast, lethal and politically destabilizing. HRANA said by February that confirmed fatalities had reached 7,015, including 6,508 protesters and 226 children, with thousands of additional cases still under review.

Other reports put the toll far higher. TIME, citing senior Iranian health officials and hospital-based records, reported that as many as 30,000 people may have been killed during the January 8-9 crackdown, though it noted that the figure could not be independently verified.

For Iran’s rulers, the immediate goal was familiar: crush the streets before the streets could become a revolution. But this time, the violence appears to have carried a cost inside the regime itself.

The IRGC was created to protect the Islamic Revolution. Over decades, it has become far more than a military force. It controls missiles, drones, intelligence networks, foreign proxy operations and large parts of Iran’s economy. It is a state within the state, with commanders who own businesses, command militias and wield influence across the government.

That is why any sign of division inside the IRGC matters.

According to the supplied transcript, some senior commanders began quietly signaling after the January bloodshed that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei should step aside, not because they had embraced democracy, but because they feared the regime’s survival was now at risk. The more security forces fired into crowds, the more funerals became protests. The more bodies appeared in hospitals, the more ordinary Iranians crossed the line from fear into fury.

This is the nightmare scenario for authoritarian governments: not simply protest, but protest that makes repression less effective.

Iran’s leaders have faced nationwide unrest before. The Green Movement in 2009 challenged a disputed election. The 2019 protests erupted over fuel prices. The 2022 “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement, sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini in morality police custody, shook the regime’s image at home and abroad. Each time, the state survived through a combination of violence, arrests, internet restrictions and exhaustion.

But the latest unrest is different in scale and context. Iran’s economy is weaker. The public is more disillusioned. The country is still reeling from war, sanctions and international isolation. And the regime’s security elite has more to lose if the system collapses chaotically.

The international response has also intensified. In January, the European Union designated the IRGC as a terrorist organization after the crackdown on protests, imposing sanctions and travel bans on people linked to the force. The Financial Times reported that the EU move followed thousands of reported protest deaths and represented a major shift by European governments that had previously resisted the designation.

Inside Iran, the pressure has spread beyond the streets. Reformist figures have been arrested. Reuters reported in May that Iran executed a man convicted of killing a police officer during unrest, while HRANA raised concerns over due process and access to independent counsel. The execution highlighted the regime’s continuing effort to use courts, prisons and death sentences to suppress dissent long after street battles fade from view.

But fear cuts both ways.

Reports cited in the transcript describe government officials moving personal wealth out of the country, state media disruptions, defections and anonymous testimony from insiders who say they witnessed orders to fire on civilians. Such details are difficult to independently confirm in real time, but they fit a broader pattern visible in moments of regime crisis: people inside the system begin hedging, distancing themselves from decisions, and preparing for a future in which today’s rulers may no longer be protected.

That is what makes the IRGC’s position so consequential.

If the Guards remain united behind the supreme leader, the Islamic Republic may still have the tools to survive. It can arrest, execute, censor and wait. It can blame foreign enemies. It can use militias and courts to break protest networks. It can make daily life so dangerous that families choose silence over resistance.

But if the IRGC concludes that defending Khamenei is no longer the same as defending itself, Iran enters a different phase.

Military institutions in authoritarian systems rarely abandon power out of conscience alone. They move when they believe the ruler has become a threat to their own survival. They may seek a controlled transition, replacing one leader with another while preserving the security state. They may present such a move as reform. They may promise stability, order and national unity.

That would not satisfy the protesters.

In city after city, according to accounts of the demonstrations, Iranians have chanted not for a new supreme leader but for an end to supreme rule. Some have revived monarchist slogans. Others have shouted that their enemy is at home, not in America. Retirees, young men, market traders, oil workers and telecommunications employees have all reportedly joined waves of resistance. The movement is fragmented, but its emotional center is unmistakable: a rejection of the Islamic Republic’s claim to rule in the name of sacrifice.

Khamenei’s response has been defiance. Reports say he blamed the unrest on foreign enemies and described protesters as harmful to the country. Iran International reported in January that Khamenei had moved into an underground shelter after warnings of possible U.S. airstrikes, a move later picked up by other outlets.

For protesters, the image was potent: the supreme leader underground while citizens faced bullets above.

The regional stakes are enormous. Iran is not just another authoritarian state under pressure. It is the center of a network that stretches across the Middle East. The IRGC’s Quds Force has supported Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, armed groups in Iraq and Houthi forces in Yemen. If the Islamic Republic weakens or fractures, that network could lose money, weapons, coordination and morale.

Israel is watching. The United States is watching. Gulf states are watching. Russia and China are watching, too, knowing that a collapsing Iran could produce both opportunity and chaos.

For Washington, the dilemma is familiar but dangerous. Supporting the Iranian people rhetorically is easy. Managing the consequences of a fractured Iranian state is not. A weakened regime could become less capable of projecting power abroad, but also more unpredictable. Hardliners might lash out. Rival factions could compete for control of missiles, intelligence services and oil assets. Protesters could face even worse violence if the regime believes it is fighting for its life.

This is why the current crisis cannot be understood only as a protest movement. It is also a succession crisis, a security crisis and a legitimacy crisis.

The transcript describes one possible path: IRGC commanders pressuring Khamenei to resign or accept a transition, perhaps to preserve the institution while sacrificing the man at the top. But that path carries its own dangers. If the Guards install another insider, protesters may reject it as a cosmetic change. If hardliners block any transition, the bloodshed could deepen. If the system fractures unevenly, Iran could enter a prolonged period of instability.

What is already clear is that something fundamental has broken.

A regime can survive economic pain. It can survive sanctions. It can survive foreign pressure. It can even survive protests if its security forces remain loyal and its people remain divided. But when citizens lose fear and enforcers begin to doubt the wisdom of enforcement, the foundation starts to shift.

That does not mean the Islamic Republic is certain to fall. History is filled with regimes that seemed finished and then endured. Iran’s rulers have shown a brutal capacity for survival. The IRGC has money, weapons, prisons and decades of experience crushing dissent. The opposition, while courageous, remains exposed to extraordinary danger.

But the old bargain has weakened. For 47 years, the Islamic Republic told Iranians that obedience was safer than rebellion. The streets are now testing that claim. So are the commanders who once enforced it.

Whether this moment becomes a revolution, a massacre, a palace coup or a managed transition remains uncertain. But the question haunting Iran is no longer whether the regime faces anger. It does.

The question is whether the men with guns still believe the leader they protect is worth saving.