Name: Why Iran’s Leaders Face a Dangerous Moment
Uploaded: 2026-02-15T21:53:05.000Z
Duration: 11 min 57 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Violence on the streets, threats from abroad.

The Islamic Republic of Iran is being squeezed.

The Iranian regime is running out of options and the people are running out of patience.

The Islamic Republic is out of tools other than force.

Regimes that rely entirely on force, they can last for quite some time, but

it really does change the nature of their relationship with the population that they govern.

The more people you kill, the more resentment there is.

Some estimates put that death toll possibly in the tens of thousands.

The other thing that makes these protests different is that they had initially an economic trigger, but

There's a real sense of hopelessness in Iran right now.

This time, people had simply had enough and they wanted the regime gone.

It's facing a US president unlike any US president that it's had to face in its 47 year.

President Trump has warned Iran to make a nuclear deal with the US or face military strikes.

They should want to make a deal and know the consequences if they don't.

Iran says it has agreed with the US to continue talks to de escalate and avoid a military confrontation.

Talks are ongoing, but there's little doubt that the government has been weakened.

These protests will keep coming up and the regime will keep having to put them down by force.

And at some point, you may see an end to the republic as we know it.

So how did Iran get here and what comes next for its leaders and the millions of Iranians hoping for change?

At the head of the theocracy, you have the Supreme Leader.

He isn't the only decision maker, but he's the final decision maker.

You actually have quite a lot of debate within the Islamic Republic between the different political factions.

I think the government, right, faces a perfect storm.

They have a great many problems, from the political to the serious economic issues that they face.

The economy has been in a bad way for a long time.

There have been sanctions and policies that have caused inflation for many years.

For more than four decades, Iran's standoff with the west has meant heavy sanctions on almost every aspect of its economy.

Double digit inflation in Iran is not unusual.

It's been a kind of chronic hallmark of the economy for some time.

The real is compounding inflationary pressures.

The ongoing disparity came to a head in December 2025 when one US dollar became worth almost 1.5 million rials.

That's devastated the spending power of ordinary Iranians.

The rial has declined in value more than 98% since 2018.

People who considered themselves middle class, they now find themselves poor.

And the regime has proved consistently unable to reverse this.

Falling oil revenue is worsening the situation.

Brent crude, the global benchmark, fell to around $60 a barrel in 2025.

they're still almost $100 below what the International Monetary Fund says Iran's government would need to break even.

All of these oil producing countries look closely at the extent to which oil is able to cover their budget allocations.

There is already a problem with cheap oil in the market that often drives concerns about budget deficits.

And Iran has that problem with or without sanctions, because under sanctions, it can still sell oil, and

Sanctions were reimposed in 2018 during Trump's first term, and contributed to a sharp drop in exports.

When Joe Biden became president, however, enforcement eased and flows boomed again, with much of it moving to China via a fleet of shadow tankos.

But this hasn't necessarily meant more cash for the Iranian economy, because sanctions have such a chilling effect.

By discounting oil significantly, it can kind of incentivise or encourage buyers.

While the Iranian government blames much of this on Western sanctions, analysts contend corruption and mismanagement have played a role as well.

The existence of sanctions has meant that some major economic players inside Iran, including the irgc, have benefited from them.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, a branch of the armed forces, has filled the gap left by failed companies or foreign ones that have exited the country.

Sanctions create the opportunity through smuggling, through scarcity, and they create the opportunity for corruption.

Allies linked to the Supreme Leader and the IRGC have amassed an investment empire far beyond the borders of the Islamic Republic.

The IRGC receives kickbacks on a lot of deals that are going on.

Often, if you're trying to do business with an entity in Iran, you're inevitably going to come up against someone from the irgc, either current or former.

They really have their tentacles spread throughout the Iranian system.

The corruption and neglect are seen as having left Iran facing a growing environmental emergency.

In Tehran at the start of the autumn, there were reports of some taps running dry.

The amount of water in dams and reservoirs was dropping to record lows.

The government hasn't really been able to manage this.

This was an extraordinary thing for someone to say.

So the ecological problems that Iran faces right now are acute, they are severe, and

they've already started to impact industry and the economy.

On top of this, there is international pressure.

Moments ago, Israel launched Operation Rising Lion.

Israel, having long feared a nuclear armed Iran, struck several facilities believed to be enriching uranium.

Israel targeted the nuclear program, but it also targeted civilian population centers, including Tehran.

So it affected a big chunk of the Iranian population.

Up until recently, the nuclear program did have broad support.

But as successive waves of sanctions were implemented on Iran, there is a public backlash.

Iran's nuclear program dates back to the 1950s, and the government has long maintained its purpose was peaceful.

The US joined Israel in striking Iran's nuclear program, and that has really been humiliating for the Iranians.

Iran, the bully of the Middle east, must now make peace.

Iran's geopolitical position has been enormously weakened.

Iran was the one country to welcome the hamas attacks of October 7, 2023, and

it thought that it would weaken Israel, would strengthen the position of Iran.

While there's no evidence to suggest that Tehran helped plan the attack, the regime framed it as a gain for its allies.

The axis of resistance, a coalition of states and militant groups intent on countering Israeli and US influence in the region, is now shattered.

In Gaza, Hamas has been reduced as a serious threat.

Hezbollah in Lebanon has been decapitated.

And in Syria, President Assad was toppled by a Sunni power which is very much opposed to Iran.

Although the loss of ally has further isolated Iran, other Gulf nations don't necessarily welcome the collapse of its government.

Iran is a competitor for most of the Gulf Arab states, not an economic competitor, but

politically, ideologically, for influence.

They're worried about the kind of significant instability and power vacuum that the collapse of the Islamic Republic would leave and what impact it would have on them.

It's this crisis of legitimacy that lays at the heart of Iran's turmoil.

The Islamic Republic has been struggling with its legitimacy for a long time.

Most of the people who live in Iran today were not alive at the time of the revolution.

They don't share the experiences of the Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, and his generals, his clerics.

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Why Iran’s Leaders Face a Dangerous Moment

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