Despite the horrific crimes and savage massacres carried out by the regime, one fundamental difference sets the January 2026 uprising apart from the movements of the past eight years: the machinery of overthrow has decisively shifted forward. Never before has the Islamic Republic’s inevitable lack of a future been felt so clearly or so tangibly as it is today.

Those who remember the regime’s mass killings of the 1980s, and who lived through the 1988 massacre, knew well that when the government, now at the end of its fourth decade, perceives a serious existential threat, it turns to bloodshed. This is because the nature of the regime remains identical to that of Khomeini’s rule. In this uprising, Khatami, Pezeshkian, and the entire reformist camp, in a grotesque display of complicity with Khamenei’s order to kill, showed no hesitation. They openly called for an all-out war against the “enemy” in the streets.

The criminal regime unleashed barrages of gunfire, using automatic weapons, machine guns, alongside machetes, knives, and handguns. Protesters and ordinary civilians alike were targeted: passersby, residents, and even spectators standing on balconies and rooftops. Shops were set ablaze, and eyes were deliberately gouged out. This level of brutality and savagery emptied the streets of most cities across the country, effectively imposing a state of martial law enforced by roaming gangs of blade-wielders chanting “Khameni’s name.”

At the height of the protests, media affiliated with the far-right faction repeatedly promised imminent foreign assistance. Trump escalated his rhetoric from “Locked and Loaded” threats to explicit calls for the seizure of government buildings. Then, following an SMS sent by Araqchi (regime’s foreign minister) to Witkoff, he claimed that the killings in Iran had stopped and that the regime would not carry out 800 planned executions. Meanwhile, reports emerged that Araqchi and Larijani (Khamenei’s adviser) rushed to the capitals of Arab states and Turkey, delivering Khamenei’s message of desperation and urging those governments to lobby Trump on his behalf.

Germany, the regime’s largest traditional trading partner, spoke openly of a possible collapse of the government within weeks. The bankrupt regime has no answers to the accumulated demands that led to this uprising. The scenes of corpses and the shocking scale of the crimes, revealed in just a matter of days, have convinced Western governments that no future can be imagined for this regime.

What is now being heard from Washington is a growing sense that Trump himself may be crossing his own red line, the very kind of negligence for which he once harshly criticized former U.S. President Obama over Syria. At the same time, the White House continues to send contradictory messages through the Persian-language social media accounts of the State Department, revealing the intense pressure exerted on Trump by competing lobbies from all sides. The case, clearly, is not yet closed.

Trump has spoken of finding a replacement for Ali Khamenei, possibly from within the regime itself. Yet the fragile structure of power in Iran, despite its many layers of repression, cannot tolerate any alteration to its hierarchy.

To the people’s accumulated anger has now been added the grief and crushing pressure of losing loved ones in this uprising. There should be no doubt that the January 2026 uprising, even if not yet decisive, has delivered a deep and fundamental blow to the regime’s core. The eventual eruption of the Iranian people’s rage will bring this system to an end. The popular uprising of recent weeks has proven one thing clearly: this time, the wait will not be long.