In the winter of 2025 to 2026, weeks before the war, protests over the collapse of the currency spread across Iran and turned against the Islamic Republic itself. The state put them down with gunfire, mass arrests and a shutdown of the internet that lasted months. The war that followed changed the ground under both sides: the state treats dissent as collaboration with the enemy, and the opposition is split over whether foreign bombs can bring freedom.
The wider confrontation, its history and each side's full account: Iran's war with the United States and Israel.
Where it stands · September 2026
Courts continue to sentence those arrested in January. A café chain owner was jailed and stripped of assets for backing the protests. A court sentenced one of twin sisters arrested at 19 to death and the other to 25 years. Amnesty International accused Iran of crimes against humanity in the 2022 crackdown. Hundreds of thousands rallied across the country. Iran executed a man convicted of spying for Israel and closed the French Language Center in Tehran.
What the dispute is about
Who speaks for Iranians. The state says it does, and points to the millions who mourned the leader killed by foreign bombs. Its opponents say a government that must shoot and hang to stay in place has answered the question itself. Between them is a population that has protested in 2009, 2019, 2022 and 2026, each time over a different spark and each time against the same system, and that also does not want to be bombed or ruled from abroad.
