The foreign intervention Iranians want is the lifting of sanctions, experts say Submitted by MEE staff on Mon, 01/12/2026 - 19:07 The protests in Iran have grown increasingly violent, but most Iranians don't see the US and Israel as their saviours Cars burn during protests in Tehran, Iran, on 8 January 2026 (West Asia News Agency via Reuters) Off The now nearly three-week-old protests in Iran stem from immense economic pressure and frustration with the government, but given that Iranians have felt Israel's wrath and also seen what the US did in Venezuela, their demands are not for foreign intervention, a slate of experts explained on Monday. While there may be some voices that are outliers, most Iranians are looking for the international community to help lift the crippling US sanctions and begin a new path forward, the scholars said on a panel hosted by the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. "I think that [the] vast majority of Iranians would welcome a deal that lifts the shadow of war and invites the removal of sanctions," Mohammad Ali Shabani, editor of the Amwaj newsmagazine, told the panel, adding that most Iranians accept that the Islamic Republic is not going to be there forever. "And in fact, what we have seen over the past 20 years is that its survival is almost extended by sanctions," Shabani said. Shabani pointed to Iran's middle class as a potential driver for political change in the country, but US sanctions over the last two decades have been "hollowing out" the middle class, and in turn, with it, organic political change. Ellie Geranmayeh, senior policy fellow and deputy head of the Middle East and North Africa programme at the European Council on Foreign Relations, echoed a similar sentiment about homegrown political change. "I think too often in the West, we are forgetting that [Iranian civil society] exists, and that those people have not been necessarily calling for foreign intervention through military strikes, and they have not been calling for a turn of violence by the protesters," Geranmayeh said. "That coalition exists. There is a political arm to it. There is a civil society, a human rights part to it. And so those are some of the people we should also be focusing on and looking at how they are organising on the ground under extremely severe and repressive conditions." She added that often, also unseen by the West, are "gifts to the people" by the Iranian government that follow major upheavals. Following the 2009 Green Movement, Tehran demonstrated some flexibility by allowing former president Hassan Rouhani to run on a reform-minded campaign, Geranmayeh argued. "In 2019, with the predominantly economic-led protests, they were still able to respond by using the coffers and the purse of the system to continue with the subsidies for the poorest. In 2022, with the Women, Life, Freedom protests, the protests led to a process of change and flexibility on social issues to do with the mandatory hijab," she said. Today, however, the off-ramps are far more limited. "The system may have hit a ceiling in what it can do under the current supreme leader," Geranmayeh said. That said, despite the record size of the protests, they are not likely to end with a wholesale government overthrow, because they do not currently have a leader, Vali Nasr, professor of international affairs and Middle East studies at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, told the panel. Iranians rally in support of government as Tehran blames US and Israel for violence Read More » "They're actually a genuine eruption of popular anger [but] without leadership and direction and organisation, such protests - not just in Iran but elsewhere in the world - are very difficult to sustain," he said. Reports that the exiled son of the deposed shah of Iran, Reza Pahlavi, is directing the protests are unfounded, Nasr added. "He didn't start these protests. He didn't lay the agenda for them. He actually came in late." So does Pahlavi retain any kind of role in Iran? Protesters calling for the shah to return "is about sticking it to Khamenei", Shabani said. "That's in my own personal assessment [and] not interpreting the wishes of 90 million people," he added. "I think the number one question people need to think about when they consider his role is, where are the people inside Iran? Why are they calling on some guy who hasn't been in Iran in 47 years, sitting in Virginia, for change inside Iran?" he asked. Shabani then raised the case of reformist political leader Mostafa Tajzadeh, who has been in Evin Prison since 2022, as an example of people within Iran who are capable of spearheading opposition, as opposed to Pahlavi, who is a relative stranger to Iran. "And incidentally, guess who bombed Evin in June 2025, killing 70 people? Israel. So these people are literally having their lives threatened both by Iran and Israel." US and Israel US President Donald Trump has made it clear that he is now examining military options for Iran in light of the protests, particularly after what he described as a "very successful" and unprecedented bombing of Iran's nuclear sites in June. Israel has made no secret of the fact that it wants to collapse Iran entirely and have the US aid in that effort. "I think there is a danger that [Trump] does decide to strike in a way that sends a strong signal that he's acted, and that he's importantly not like [former President Barack] Obama, where he sets red lines and doesn't act through," Geranmayeh said. 'This time, the United States thought Iran is weak and its back is to the wall, and President Trump feels comfortable to threaten intervention' - Vali Nasr, Johns Hopkins University "But there is a real danger that then there's a follow-up by Israel and strikes that then bog down the US further and further," she added. Trump may make do with an Iran that is open economically to the US, and an Iran that is integrated with the Arab world and brings stability in the region, Geranmayeh argued, making Washington's end goal quite different from Israel's. As for Trump's claims that he cares about the lives of protesters and that is why he's considering military intervention, Nasr argued that Iranian security forces likely clamped down "much more aggressively and brutally" after that statement to "finish this off quickly". Nasr says that the Iranians realise the Trump administration is tempted by regime change, and this time Iran does not have the regional strength it previously had - or a nuclear programme that the US is interested in negotiating - to dissuade the US from bold action. "This time, the United States thought Iran is weak and its back is to the wall, and President Trump feels comfortable to threaten intervention." But whenever there is a foreign or external threat during this kind of unrest in Iran, the regime does in fact change by moving back "towards its factory settings" and empowering the hardliners in the country, Shabani told the panel. "If you dismiss unrest in Iran as a foreign plot, I think that's just an Islamic Republic talking point. But then if you dismiss that after a devastating war, with a US administration that is so stridently and openly, explicitly trying to undermine the Iranian state, and with Netanyahu openly saying he wants to get rid of the entire public, if you then go out and say, well, hold on, there cannot possibly be any any foreign interference - I mean, that's quite naive," he explained. There are also other nuances to consider. Friday's torching of 25 mosques and 20 banks by protesters, as reported by Iranian authorities, may turn some of those out in the streets against each other, despite sharing the same grievances. While hundreds of protesters have been killed, the government has also said that at least 100 members of the security forces were killed. Funerals for both sides were broadcast on state television. "Imagine that protest in the United States killing 100 police officers. That's quite violent, right? So this is a new dynamic," Shabani said. "It's a two-way kind of confrontation. People are fighting back. So when people see this destruction, people who are again, not necessarily supporters of the Islamic Republic, but who fear instability, which may be a total lose-lose scenario, especially having seen Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan... they don't want a situation of complete security collapse and instability." 'Air strikes one of many options' At least 192 people have now been killed in the largest protest against the Iranian government in over three years, according to Iran Human Rights, a Norway-based NGO. According to the US-based Human Rights Activist News Agency, 544 people have been killed during the demonstrations over the past 15 days. Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, appeared to respond to Trump’s threats in a social media post on Monday. Iran warns it will strike Israel and US bases in response to attack on Tehran Read More » Writing in Farsi, he said: “Let that fellow who sits there with arrogance and pride, judging the whole world, also know that the tyrants and the arrogant of this world, such as Pharaoh, Nimrod, Reza Shah, Mohammad Reza Shah and the like, were overthrown when they were at the height of their pride; he too will be overthrown.” As political tensions rose, Iran entered its fourth day of a near-total internet blackout. Internet monitor NetBlocks said the country remained in a “national internet blackout”, with only limited and unstable connectivity. Araqchi said that internet service would be restored in coordination with security authorities. United Nations secretary general Antonio Guterres voiced concern over reports of “violence & excessive use of force” in Iran and called on authorities to “exercise maximum restraint & refrain from unnecessary or disproportionate use of force”. He also pressed Tehran to restore internet access. In Washington on Monday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed that Trump spoke with tech tycoon Elon Musk to discuss access to his Starlink satellites in Iran, but did not elaborate further. She said that US military intervention in Iran remains under consideration. "I think one thing President Trump is very good at is always keeping all of his options on the table, and air strikes would be one of the many, many options that are on the table for the commander in chief," Leavitt told reporters. "Diplomacy is always the first option for the president. He's told all of you last night that what you're hearing publicly from the Iranian regime is quite different from the messages the administration is receiving privately, and I think the president has an interest in exploring those messages," she added. "However, with that said, the president has shown he's unafraid to use military options if and when he deems necessary, and nobody knows that better than Iran.” Iran protests News Post Date Override 0 Update Date Mon, 05/04/2020 - 21:19 Update Date Override 0