At the beginning of this year, news of the "arrest" of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro filled the front pages of newspapers. Since his political debut in 2006, he has been an outspoken opponent of US dominance in the Western Hemisphere.
In 2006, he was foreign minister, six years later he became vice president, and a year later he replaced his recently deceased predecessor, Hugo Chávez. As the chief diplomat of the "Bolivarian" republic, he turned Venezuela's back on the US and turned towards its geopolitical enemies: the Soviet Union, the Arab states, and most recently China.
One of the key security allies of the Chavista regime (according to the founder of "21st-century socialism"), which was also involved in Venezuela's trade in oil, gold, and other raw materials, was Iran. In the last weeks of last year, Iran experienced a new wave of protests, which could lead to a scenario in which its supreme spiritual leader, Ali Khamenei, follows Maduro's trajectory.
The king returns?
The alliance between Iran and Venezuela is not accidental, but it is not ideological either. Both nations are supporters of Russia, and in the case of the South American power, also China. Some neoconservative authors also include North Korea in this de facto anti-American alliance, which is why they are called CRINK – an acronym for "China, Russia, Iran, North Korea."
Today, only the first-named members of this "axis" can be considered world powers, but at the regional level, smaller players also play key roles. At the beginning of the year, the Americans brought the only associate member of CRINK in the Western Hemisphere to its knees, but a similar development can also be expected in the case of Israel's only challenger in the Middle East.
It is indisputable that the Jewish state is striving to acquire superpower status, in which it is greatly assisted by the US and the Jewish lobby there. Several Arab and Islamic leaders have thus abandoned their hardline anti-Zionist stance and leaned toward Donald Trump's project: the Abraham Accords.
No one has yet offered Tehran the possibility of Trump's "deal" – recognition of Israel in exchange for economic concessions from the West – and in light of the steps taken by the Shiite theocratic government, it does not seem willing to accept it. The coordination of militant groups such as the Palestinian Hamas, the Lebanese Hezbollah (which also operates in Venezuela), and the West Yemeni Houthis proves that the Islamic Republic of Iran is the last opponent of Israeli "superpower status."
That is why top officials, led by the Ayatollah, fear the developments that began on December 28 last year. Protests by young adults broke out in Tehran's Grand Bazaar, initially showing signs of Generation Z protests. Last year, these Gen Z demonstrations changed the government in Bangladesh and Nepal, threatened the stability of Indonesia and Mexico, and probably also reached Iran.
However, despite the quiet support of the "collective West," the demonstrators, who were concentrated mainly in several parts of the metropolis of Tehran and in the provinces of Hamedan, Kom, and Lorestan, did not shout very democratic slogans. The most common chant heard in the streets was "javid shah," meaning "long live the shah," referring to Reza Pahlavi, the current head of the dynasty that ruled Iran until 1979.
The slogan "this is the last fight, Pahlavi will return" is also often repeated, as are "death to the dictator" and even "death to the three corrupt: the mullahs, the communists, and the MEK." To clarify, the title mullah is used by scholars of Shiite Islamic law (its counterpart is hypothetically the Sunni imam), while MEK is one of the abbreviations for the People's Mujahideen Organization, a revolutionary left-wing party whose leadership is in exile.
Since its inception in 1979, the Shiite revolution has relied on self-appointed student committees for the enforcement of moral law—militias known as basij. These originally captured and publicly beat people who dressed "immorally," but later grew into a large organization of law enforcement officers subordinate to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (the quasi-army of the theocratic regime).
In violent clashes since December 28 last year, nearly 30 demonstrators and at least two members of the Basij have been killed. Protesting monarchists set fire to several official vehicles belonging to the regime's forces and a number of police stations, seriously damaging the image of the theocratic government.
Certain non-public forms of pressure can also be observed from the outside. On January 4, the protests were joined by a "large-scale" cyberattack that partially crippled the websites of the government and security forces. On January 6, however, Israeli analysts rejected the idea of regime change, with portals such as Ynet News and Channel 12 TV reporting that "the regime does not appear to be in danger."
Similarly, on January 4, several US C-17A military aircraft were moved to European bases, including Ramstein in Germany. One of the aircraft allegedly participated in Maduro's abduction, which the Shiite theocracy is almost certainly watching with concern.
Common complaints
However, the protests did not start as "political"; the initial trigger was the economy – year-on-year inflation rose to 42.2 percent, the Iranian rial devalued to 1.47 million rials per US dollar, basic foodstuffs have become virtually unaffordable for the middle class, and the water crisis continues to loom in the background.
In November, The Standard reported on the discord between the regular army (Armen) and the Revolutionary Guards, which resulted in thousands of military commanders renouncing their allegiance. They did not promote significant democratic slogans, but rather the "lion and sun," the emblem of Pahlavi's Iran.
The Persian protesters themselves (as well as the Kurds in the northwest and the Baluchis in the southeast) surprisingly reject the goal of their own government, which wants to be a superpower in the Middle East. This is suggested by another of the demonstrators' slogans: "Neither Gaza nor Lebanon. My life for Iran."
Equally worrying for the Shiite government are the widespread protests in the city of Qom (Persian: Qom). Although Khamenei, as head of state, is based in Tehran, the council of so-called grand ayatollahs (the most important Islamic scholars) is based in this city. It was also the first center of student resistance against Mohammad Reza Pahlavi in 1979, led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
On January 2, the prominent analytical portal Rerum Novarum pointed out the increase in violence since the beginning of the year, as a result of which the government deployed the Anti-Terrorist Special Forces (NOPO), which also suppressed protests after the killing of activist Mahsa Amineh in 2022 and 2023.
"NOPO is known for its harsh tactics, and its commander is under US sanctions for participating in violent interventions," explained analysts, who pointed out that the protests had exceeded the second level on a kind of "unrest scale." Reaching the third level would activate the Revolutionary Guards in the streets of Tehran and other Iranian cities.
"Iran is not, at least for now, on the brink of collapse. The unrest in 2022 was more widespread, and the IRGC appears to have effectively suppressed today's unrest," the portal added. On the same day, counterterrorism units ensured public order in most Iranian cities. However, protests flared up again in the following days and are still ongoing at the time of writing.
It is also noteworthy that the United Arab Emirates was attempting to play a superpower game at the same time, namely in Yemen. Since 2014, the southernmost country on the Arabian Peninsula has been internally divided between the predominantly Shiite western part (controlled by the Houthis) and the eastern part, historically known as South Yemen, which is now ruled by the Presidential Council, supported by Saudi Arabia and other states.
The southern coastal strip is held by the Southern Transitional Council (STC), which was supported by the Emirates. However, they ended their support after proxy skirmishes with the Sudanese air force, and the STC began to withdraw from its newly conquered positions.
Civil war is also raging in Sudan itself, Israel recently supported separatists in northern Somalia, over whom the government has long had no control, Syrian armed forces (former jihadists) are encircling cities held by Kurdish SDF forces, and the entire wider Middle East region is clearly returning to the period of unrest of the Arab Spring.
The fact that even a seemingly "minor" event can further undermine the already crumbling stability of the Shiite regime is evidenced by a report from the Revolutionary Guard's Fars News agency on January 6. Iranian "partisans" in the city of Malekshahi in the predominantly Kurdish province of Elam, who had been fired upon with live ammunition by the Revolutionary Guards just three days earlier, shot and killed Guard Lieutenant Ehsana Akadžání.
After this "minor incident," the Guard has an excuse to expand its own actions against civilians, and the spiral of violence will continue to accelerate.
Israel thus remains the only stable player on the Middle East scene. Although Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly been threatened with being overthrown by street protests—which have been going on since the end of 2022 and, contrary to the expectations of his Likud party, continued even during the war with Hamas—he is currently leading his sixth government.
His talent lies not in winning a majority in elections, but in negotiating post-election coalitions. In this respect, he resembles Trump and his "art of the deal," which is one of the reasons why their cooperation is so warm. However, even Netanyahu did not face three thousand simultaneous protests – unlike Khamenei. In terms of stability, the winners are not only Israel, but also "Bibi's" governments.