Version imprimableRadical Socialist Statement [Jan 16, 2026]
Solidarity with the Iranian Protesters: Resist Regime Change Attempts by US-EU-Israel
Radical Socialist stands in solidarity with the mass uprising in Iran against brutal state repression, and deteriorating national economic conditions triggered by the collapse of Iran’s official currency and skyrocketing inflation. The ongoing wave of protests began on 28th December 2025 in the Grand Bazaar within Tehran, and soon spread outside the national capital to all the total 31 provinces across Iran. Contrary to the disinformation propagated by Western media and Iranian state agencies, the protesters are primarily comprised of ordinary Iranian citizens who have generally been in the forefront of previous upsurges also. They have all been battered by the soaring costs of basic necessities like food and medicines, unemployment, rampant corruption, glaring economic inequalities and by the denial of cultural and political freedoms by a deeply undemocratic, indeed a theocratic state, that has institutionalised a fundamentalist and sectarian interpretation of Shia Islam.
The trigger for the current turmoil in Iran has been the depreciation of the Rial, Iran’s official currency, by approximately 84% in the aftermath of the 12-day war with Israel in June 2025. This has further weakened Iran’s economy, and accelerated the pauperization of the middle classes. As of December 2025, inflation had reached an alarming 42.2%, with food prices increasing by 72% and medicine costs rising by 50% over the previous year. The recent economic reforms introduced by Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian have done little to curb corruption such as the manipulation of the multiple exchange rate system by its privileged clients, and signal a general unwillingness by the government to deviate from the status quo. The erosion of popular support for the Islamic Republic is indicated by the fact that the ongoing protests were initiated by the merchant classes or the bazaaris that historically formed the support base of the clerical regime.
The economic sanctions imposed by the West with the backing of forces such as the CIA and Mossad with the express aim of toppling the ruling Iranian government must be forcefully condemned. But these sanctions have been there since 2011 and it is the structural weaknesses of the political economy of Iran that has hugely benefitted the ruling elites and a substantial part of their social and political base, that has played the major role in fomenting repeated popular upsurges. The Iranian government’s corrupt and repressive policies, include the imposition of austerity measures, reductions in workers’ wages, and crackdowns on dissent, while nearly one-third of the country’s total wealth remains concentrated in the hands of wealthy oil tycoons and oligarchs. Iran also has the lowest minimum wage in the MENA (Middle East and North Africa) region, and nearly 70% of the population lives below the poverty line. Therefore, to characterize the current popular unrest as wholly manufactured through foreign intervention is wrong. The very scale and geographical spread of the protests and the brutality of the government response shows that to believe that this upsurge is primarily engineered by a ‘Western (Israel/US) conspiracy’ greatly ignores, where it does not dismiss, the genuine grievances of the Iranian people, as well as provide justification for the Islamic Republic’s violent crackdown entering its third week.
The current protests come as part of an historical sequence of nationwide uprisings that have gripped Iran since 2017, with the last major revolt occurring in 2022 after the execution of a 22 years old Kurdish woman, Mahsa Amini, while in three-day police custody. That then resulted in a massive public backlash and gave rise to the ‘Woman, Life, Liberation’ movement, one of the largest social movements in Iran’s recent history. Over 550 people were then killed by Iranian security forces. Similar to the 2022 uprising, large numbers of women, youth, students, trade unions, and members of the working class have joined the protests, demanding an end to their prolonged economic misery and oppression. In Arak, workers occupied the factories. The Iranian regime has responded with violent crackdowns on the demonstrations, involving indiscriminate firing, arbitrary arrests, shutting down of offices and universities, an indefinite internet and communication blackout, threats of execution, and judicial reprisals. Although official figures remain unverified, the Human Rights Activists in Iran (HRAI) also known through its Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), estimates that more than 2,500 people were killed during the protests, with approximately 18,000 detained by Iranian security forces. The Iranian State Media has also begun broadcasting the pictures of those killed in the protests to deter ordinary citizens from joining the demonstrations.
The Islamic Republic justified its violent excesses by labelling the protesters as terrorists or CIA-Mossad agents instigating regime change. Provocative statements by Trump, and several other US and Israeli politicians have also given credence to the claims of foreign involvement in fueling the unrest. Diasporic elites and the few ugly monarchists in Iran’s opposition are openly calling for US intervention to overthrow the theocracy and reinstate the Pahlavi dynasty, a prospect that has apparently for now been rejected by Trump. On the other hand, many on the Left view Iran as an anti-imperialist force that is ravaged by years of economic isolation imposed by the West. This has led them to either support the Iranian state narrative or downplay the genuine public anger against the government. Reticence towards Iranian resistance by sections of Left has only sharpened in the aftermath of the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza by Israel, the US attack on Venezuela, and Trump’s threats of regime changes in Latin America and annexation of Greenland. Some commentators now argue that Iran should revise its defence doctrine, and pursue nuclear weapons as a deterrent against possible U.S. and Israeli bombing. The right of the Iranians to choose their own government appears mostly as a postscript or is entirely dismissed because ‘the time is not right’. This is the same logic used by the Iranian state to routinely suppress the labour movement, which involves amplifying external threats, and forging a spurious narrative of national unity between the workers and the ruling classes.
We would like to reiterate that the democratic aspirations of the Iranian people cannot be dismissed as secondary to geopolitical considerations. The economic hardships of ordinary Iranians are only going to increase with Trump’s imposition of 25% tariff on countries with commercial ties with Iran. India has immediately kowtowed to the US, and has stalled the exports of rice to Iran. India is Iran’s biggest exporter of rice, and this latest move will surely exacerbate food inflation in Iran. In such a scenario, public resentment toward the Iranian government is unlikely to abate anytime soon, notwithstanding the Islamic Republic’s attempts to crush the uprising through brutal repression. Ordinary Iranians have vehemently rejected foreign intervention and any top-down regime change, while simultaneously opposing the rule of the Islamic Republic as articulated in the now popular slogan “Death to the Dictator.” This sentiment is also reflected in recent statement released by the ‘Workers’ Union of Tehran and Suburbs Company’ which states;
‘…the path to the liberation of workers and toilers does not lie in the path of a leader carved from above the people, nor in reliance on foreign powers, nor through factions within the government. Rather, it lies in the path of unity, solidarity, and the creation of independent organizations in the workplace and on a national level.’
Only the Iranian people have the right to choose their government. Supporting their rights does not amount to endorsing the imperialist project of destabilizing Iran. We urge progressive and democratic-leaning people everywhere to fight the unjust economic sanctions imposed by the West on Iran; to unequivocally oppose and condemn the ugly machinations of the West and of Israel and the US in particular; and to extend our solidarity to the Iranian masses in their struggle for freedom and change.
