Iran’s leadership is under pressure as protests continue

By CARA ANNA and DANICA KIRKA

LONDON (AP) — Iran’s leadership is under incredible pressure as the largest protests in years against the Islamic theocracy shake the country.

Government hard-liners have threatened to attack the U.S. military and archrival Israel over support for the demonstrators, though for now President Donald Trump says Iran has signaled it wants to negotiate with Washington.

There is no sign that a Venezuela-style U.S. military intervention is coming.

Here’s a look at the fragility at the top as the protest death toll rises into the hundreds in the crackdown and as connections to the outside world remain cut.

In this frame grab from footage circulating on social media from Iran showed protesters once again taking to the streets of Tehran despite an intensifying crackdown as the Islamic Republic remains cut off from the rest of the world in Tehran, Iran, Saturday Jan. 10, 2026. (UGC via AP)

In this frame grab from footage circulating on social media shows protesters dancing and cheering around a bonfire as they take to the streets despite an intensifying crackdown as the Islamic Republic remains cut off from the rest of the world, in Tehran, Iran, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026.(UGC via AP)

A protester holds a burning poster of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei during a rally in support of the nationwide mass demonstrations in Iran against the government, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026, in Paris. (AP Photo/Michel Euler)

A man burns a photo of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei during a protest at the Iranian Consulate in Milan, Italy, Monday, Jan. 12, 2026. (Claudio Furlan/LaPresse via AP)

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In this frame grab from footage circulating on social media from Iran showed protesters once again taking to the streets of Tehran despite an intensifying crackdown as the Islamic Republic remains cut off from the rest of the world in Tehran, Iran, Saturday Jan. 10, 2026. (UGC via AP)

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Leaders are weakened by war

Iran’s leadership and military were badly weakened in the 12-day war with Israel in June and by U.S. airstrikes against the country’s nuclear facilities during the conflict. Several military leaders were killed, air defenses were nearly wiped out, and the missile stockpile shrank.

The 86-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has ruled since 1989 and holds ultimate power, was out of sight for days during and after the war. He has no successor, a source of further uncertainty for the theocracy and Iran’s people.

Experts say Iran’s establishment has always had pragmatists who might be willing to concede certain things to Washington. “But they’re really marginalized,” said Siavush Randjbar-Daemi, senior lecturer at the University of St Andrews in Scotland. “The problem again remains that finding a Delcy Rodríguez -like figure within the Iranian establishment is very hard,” referring to the Venezuelan vice president-turned-interim leader following the U.S. removal of Nicolás Maduro.

Meanwhile, Iran’s reformist President Masoud Pezeshkian has little power to make the sweeping kind of economic or other changes that protesters want.

The U.S. now has the chance to apply pressure on Iran’s leadership at the weakest point in the Islamic Republic’s 47-year history, said Kamran Matin, an associate professor of International Relations at the University of Sussex.

Iran has few friends

The war last year also highlighted Iran’s diminished regional clout, especially after Israel took aim at Tehran’s armed proxies during the war in Gaza: Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, Houthi rebels in Yemen and other armed groups in Syria and Iraq.

Globally, Iran remains isolated. One ally, Russia, is distracted by its war in Ukraine. China, a buyer of Iranian oil, on Monday expressed hope the Iranian government and people are “able to overcome the current difficulties and maintain national stability.”

International concerns remain high over Iran’s battered nuclear program, which Tehran has long insisted is for peaceful purposes even as Western powers worry about the highly enriched uranium that’s necessary for creating a nuclear weapon.

After Iran’s negotiations with the U.S. deadlocked, the United Nations in September reimposed sanctions that freeze Iranian assets abroad, halt arms deals, and penalize any development of Iran’s ballistic missile program, among other measures.

The economy is struggling

The sanctions were another blow for Iran’s economy. In late December, Iranians already trying to stay afloat saw the currency, the rial, plunge to a record low of 1.42 million to the U.S. dollar. Prices of food and other necessities shot up, pushing traders and shopkeepers in major markets in Tehran to take to the streets.

That anger swiftly turned into a broader challenge to the theocracy, and leaderless protests ignited in other cities.

While decades of state repression have limited any organized opposition groups inside Iran, its people repeatedly over the years have turned to the streets and risked bloody crackdowns when they feel something they have long put up with — the harsh enforcement of wearing headscarves, or crushing inflation — has gone too far.

Looking ahead

Many Iranians watched the U.S. military’s capture of Maduro earlier this month, and wondered if their leader might be next.

But on Sunday, U.S. lawmakers sought to cool such expectations, even after Trump repeatedly pledged to strike Iran if protesters are killed. U.S. Sen. Mark Warner, vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, noted to CNN that popular discontent with the U.S. role in the 1953 coup in Iran helped lead to the 1979 Islamic revolution that brough the current theocracy to power.