According to Dr. Ali Fathollah-Nejad, the death toll must be assumed to be in the four-digit range. Compared to the protests of 2022, the scale of the demonstrations has increased fivefold. Approximately one million people took to the streets across the country. This, he argued, represents the greatest threat to the regime since its founding.
Nevertheless, a regime change is not currently in sight. The apparatus of repression consists of several hundred thousand members of the Revolutionary Guards, along with millions of other loyal forces. In addition, the regime retains control over the regular military, which has also been deployed to suppress the protests.
Dr. Fathollah-Nejad considers U.S. military strikes against the infrastructure of the Revolutionary Guards to be possible; such actions could further contribute to the destabilization of the regime.