According to an analysis by Ella Rosenberg and Sogand Fakhari of the Jerusalem Center for Foreign and Security Affairs, the current wave of protests in Iran is not another routine episode of unrest. It is a direct response to the country’s most severe economic collapse since 1979.
Iran’s currency has plummeted, inflation is soaring, and the minimum wage has fallen to roughly $100 a month. As a result, around 60% of Iranian citizens now live below the poverty line. This economic implosion has turned daily survival into a central political issue, pushing broad segments of society toward open defiance.
Social media has become the regime’s primary battlefield. For the first time, the authorities have lost their near-total control over the flow of information, allowing images, testimonies, and coordination to spread faster than repression can contain them. The state’s longstanding preference for military investment over civilian welfare, combined with infrastructure failures and ongoing regional military confrontations, is compounding public anger.
The analysts argue that these pressures are converging into a systemic crisis. Economic despair, digital exposure, and eroding legitimacy are reinforcing one another in ways the regime has not faced before. The conclusion is stark: the key question is no longer whether the Islamic Republic will face the risk of collapse, but how it can attempt to survive amid deepening distrust, shortages, and unprecedented digital transparency.