After 35 years of ruling Iran, Ali Khamenei is quickly running out of options.
The 86-year-old supreme leader is facing his toughest challenge yet. Protesters chanted “Death to Khamenei” instead of the regime’s traditional “Death to America.”
Protests against him have entered their third week and have spread to 340 locations in all 31 provinces of Iran. Rights groups said some 192 people had been killed as of Sunday morning, but the true toll was obscured by internet outages.
The rebellion has swept through economically battered small cities in Iran’s poorest provinces, which were supposed to be the regime’s support base.
There is a key difference from the 2009 Green Movement, which focused on Tehran, and the 2022 protests sparked by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who was beaten to death by Iran’s “moral police” for not wearing a headscarf.
Khamenei has used violence to suppress dissent and was successful in 2009 and 2019, when protests were more geographically concentrated.
People in the capital and major cities are angry again in this new uprising, but the scale of demonstrations in small, poor cities shows how widespread the anger can be, which cannot be suppressed without causing thousands of casualties.
The regime has made clear that demonstrators face threats of execution or the use of military weapons.
But the ayatollah expressed doubts about the military and police’s willingness to murder Iranians.
The Daily Telegraph revealed on Friday that he had handed control of the operation to the fanatical Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, signaling fears that traditional security forces could collapse if forced to gun down their own people in mass killings.
This leaves him with fewer options to stop the protests, none of which guarantee the regime’s survival.
Image source: Reuters
Khamenei could try to ease tensions through meaningful reforms.
He could release political prisoners, allow free assembly and even hold a long-delayed referendum on the future of the Islamic republic.
But the supreme leader is constrained by his own ideology. He spent decades consolidating power around the principle of “velayat-e faqih” (guardianship of the jurists), the idea that clerical rule was divinely-ordained and non-negotiable.
To hold a referendum on the legitimacy of this system would be to admit that it required popular approval, thus undermining the theological basis of his authority.
Any major concessions could also be interpreted as weakness, potentially accelerating rather than quelling the uprising.
The middle path involves cosmetic changes — firing President Masoud Pezeshkian or other officials, announcing economic reforms, promising an investigation into the killings — while keeping the power structure intact.
This approach has worked before, buying time and dividing the opposition by appearing responsive to protesters’ grievances. But this time, the top leader himself is the focus of anger, making scapegoating subordinates less effective.
The protests originated from businessmen protesting the currency collapse caused by regime policies and corruption, rather than individual politicians who might have been thrown under the bus.
Moreover, a ministerial reshuffle is unlikely to quell the anger that drives people to the streets and risk death at the hands of guards.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian could be a scapegoat – Abedin Taherkenareh/EPA/Shutterstock
However, rather than calm tensions at home, Khamenei may launch attacks abroad to rally nationalist sentiment.
He could explain his repressive actions as wartime security measures, as he did during the 12-day war between Israel and Iran in June that left Iran’s military infrastructure severely damaged.
Iran’s participation in naval exercises with Russia and China could signal that Iran may attack U.S. assets or Israel.
But Iran’s military infrastructure was severely damaged during the 12 days of war. Donald Trump also made it clear that U.S. retaliation against Iran would be devastating.
As people protested over the affordability of bread, wartime patriotism seemed insufficient to end the demonstrations.
Protesters’ chants focused on domestic failings — “Poverty, corruption, inflation. We will work until we overthrow” — rather than hatred of the United States or Israel.
Wahid: Protests have spread to all 31 provinces of Iran
It is highly unlikely that Khamenei will flee to Russia, as some ousted leaders such as Syria’s Bashar Assad have done.
At 86, he is in poor health but ideologically committed to defending the Islamic Republic. His entire adult life – from the king’s imprisonment to the supreme leadership – was defined by revolutionary commitment.
He saw himself as God’s representative on earth, which made exile unthinkable.
Moreover, Russia, mired in the war in Ukraine and economically strained, may decide that supporting a collapsing regime is not worthwhile. The deposed Khamenei is a liability in Moscow, not an asset.
The most dangerous path Khamenei could choose is reportedly one he has previously considered: a race to develop nuclear weapons.
Iran insists its nuclear program is purely civilian but has the technical capabilities to enrich uranium to weapons-grade levels within weeks if Khamenei gives the order.
This choice carries catastrophic risks. Israel has made clear it will launch military strikes to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, possibly with U.S. support.
After years of economic mismanagement, tyranny and fanaticism, Khamenei is running out of good options.
The most likely path for the supreme leader remains an escalation of violence — mass arrests, show trials, executions and the deployment of overwhelming force by the Revolutionary Guards.
But whatever he does next could lead to the collapse of his regime or an escalation of violence so severe that his security forces turn on each other.
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