VISE TIGHTENS

The Israelis calculated that eliminating dozens of senior military commanders and battering military and security institutions would encourage Iran's restless population to rise up and overwhelm the beleaguered state

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Iranians have taken to the streets to protest the collapse of the country's currency and surging inflation, with many calling for an end to the Islamic Republic. Yet the government's response has differed from earlier waves of unrest. Whereas Iran's rulers were quick to suppress the 2009 Green Movement and the 2022 Woman, Life, Freedom uprising, the security forces were slow to react as the current protests intensified. Rather than brutally cracking down, President Masoud Pezeshkian initially responded with belt-tightening reforms to free up funds for subsidies to the poor.

But this stopgap didn't hold. While the poor may have been mollified, those in the middle rungs of society bore the costs and joined the protests in greater numbers. What started as an expression of economic discontent soon became a political uprising. Only after protests erupted across the country on January 8 did the regime clamp down in earnest.

Why was the reaction to political dissent so different this time? The current protests are taking place in the shadow of Iran's 12-day war with Israel last June. Iranian officials are still reeling from the conflict and operating on the assumption that it could resume at any time. That threat looms larger than domestic political unrest, because Israel's battering of Hezbollah and the collapse of Bashar al-Assad's regime in Syria have left Iran with little deterrence against foreign intervention.

Iran's worsening economy has also been a decisive factor.