Iran's uprising is comparable to the storming of the Bastille

Iran's Islamic regime looks to be tottering. In recent weeks, hundreds of thousands of protesters have taken to the streets to express their anger at worsening economic conditions, sparked by international sanctions that have seen their currency collapse and the cost of basic goods shoot up.

- MARK ALMOND

At least 40 protesters demanding regime change have been killed so far in violent clashes with police, and 2,200 arrested. Faced with what is fast becoming one of the biggest challenges ever to Iran and its clerical leadership, the ayatollahs - in a rare moment of weakness - pulled the plug on the internet, as government buildings in Tehran were set on fire.

Of course, the Islamic Republic has survived protest waves in the past. In 2009, allegations of election fraud sparked massive street protests and a hugely brutal response by Ayatollah Khamenei's security forces. In 2022, more than 500 people were reportedly killed in protests after the death in police custody of a young woman, Mahsa Amini, who had been arrested for refusing to wear the obligatory headscarf.

But this time, it feels different.

Not least since the war with Israel and the United States in June last year, a cultural revolution among people born after 1979 has seen the abandonment of the obligatory headscarf by many women, not all of them young, in the big cities. It's a visible sign of the Islamic regime's weakening control.