This interview, conducted by Professor Costas Douzains for the Greek weekly newspaper Epohi, features Dr. Leila Faghfouri Azar and was originally published in Epohi’s special supplement on the Iranian uprising (24–25 January 2026). In the conversation, Faghfouri Azar discusses the dynamics of protest in Iran, patterns of social stratification, the state’s response, and the prospects of U.S. military intervention.
Costas Douzinas (CD): Can inflation and repression create an opposition alliance beyond the dominant forces of Iranian society?
Leila Faghfouri Azar (LFA): The recent protests, which began in late December 2025 in response to rising inflation and the unprecedented collapse of the national currency, have been both geographically widespread and socially diverse. Within days, they brought together groups with different grievances into a more unified oppositional voice, even as participants faced extreme and deadly repression. In this way, the protests reveal what might be described as a revolutionary condition grounded in material reality, where economic hardship and long-standing political discontent converge to produce collective action that cuts across the usual social and ideological divisions in Iranian society.
Whether inflation and repression can give rise to a durable opposition alliance beyond the dominant forces of society remains uncertain. Yet there are signs that this wave differs qualitatively from earlier episodes. Most strikingly, the Islamic Republic’s own rhetoric has shifted: state media unusually reported the initial protests in Tehran’s Grand Bazaar and acknowledged the severity of the economic crisis, of course without recognising the legitimacy of the protests themselves. This rare acknowledgement highlights both the urgency of the economic situation and its capacity to mobilise people, which appears to have threatened the regime enough to provoke an unprecedentedly violent crackdown.
CD: Which social strata and which political forces participate in the resistance?
LFA: The current wave of protests began in Tehran’s Grand Bazaar, a space that traditionally represents the conservative section of the private sector, business owners, and key economic actors. Their early participation marks a notable departure from previous protest cycles. Protests have been the recurring element of social and political life in the past four decades. They often could bring together different social groups around specific political or social grievances. Nevertheless, it is unusual for actors linked to the bazaar to initiate collective dissent rather than joining protests at later stages. As the protests spread, they drew in a broader range of social strata, converging across class, political affiliation, ethnicity, and generation, but under qualitatively different conditions. Rising inflation and the collapse of the national currency have acted as powerful unifying triggers, as they draw in groups such as segments of the middle class whose material security has been sharply eroded. If economic deterioration continues (as appears highly likely given the government’s weakness, institutionalised corruption, and the ongoing impact of decades-long international sanctions) economic grievances may become a sustained driver of mobilisation alongside long-standing demands for political freedom, equality, democracy, and an end to ideological and political repression.
CD: How is such large-scale public participation achieved? Can it continue after such repression? What is the role of the internet on the one hand, and of old and new organizations and networks on the other?
LFA: Large-scale public participation has not emerged overnight. It is the cumulative outcome of decades of struggle, sacrifice, and resistance to massacres and repression, during which social and political demands have been repeatedly voiced, suppressed, and rearticulated. Prolonged political exclusion and the systematic refusal to recognise social and political demands have entrenched deep grievances. These pressures have been compounded by severe economic hardship, stemming from the state’s inability to address the devastating effects of long-term sanctions. Together, these factors have produced a deep structural divide between society and the regime. This is accompanied by a widespread sense of despair, dispossession, and lack of future shared across generations, classes, political groups, and ethnic communities, which in turn lowers the threshold for mass participation.
Whether such massive participation can be sustained after intense repression remains uncertain. Yet the scale of participation reflects the depth of these underlying conditions rather than short-term organisational capacity alone. The internet plays an important but ambivalent role: while perhaps less a direct tool for organising on the ground, it provides visibility to people’s resistance, reveals the diversity of social actors and their demands, and partially disrupts censorship. At the same time, it amplifies or fabricates voices which sometimes are detached from people’s everyday realities. In addition, both older social networks and newer, more informal forms of organisation remain crucial, as they help embedding protests within relations of trust and shared experience that are difficult to dismantle through state repression alone.
CD: In what ways does the government deal with the protesters (police, media, institutional initiatives)?
LFA: From the very first days after the 1979 Revolution, Iranian state has relied on a combination of brutal repression and controlled concessions to manage protests. It has deployed extreme measures, including killings, waves of mass executions, and pervasive securitisation to intimidate dissidents and protestors. At the same time, censorship and surveillance have been used to prevent organisation, control information, and limit the visibility of dissent. Occasionally, the government has offered promises of minor reforms, but these gestures are consistently inadequate and untimely, serving more as performative tactics than meaningful change. Over decades, such strategies have also prevented the emergence and institutionalisation of independent unions, civic organisations, and long-term initiatives. In the absence of these organisations, the opposition has remained largely fragmented and hence incapable of enforcing adequate strategies in critical moments.
CD: What does mainstream public opinion say about the events?
LFA: As of January 8, 2026, when demonstrations reached their peak in Tehran and other cities across the country, Iran witnessed an unprecedented total shutdown of communications, including the internet, cell phones, and landlines. This has made it nearly impossible to gauge mainstream public opinion regarding the events from within the country. Nevertheless, certain facts are clear: the protests have been met with massive and brutal repression. Footage of body bags in Tehran central cemetery provides some of the most telling evidence. Estimates from both opposition sources and the regime itself indicate that thousands of people have been killed. While the precise contours of public sentiment remain obscured by the information blackout, the scale and intensity of the state’s violent response underscore the profound stakes of the ongoing unrest.
CD: What is the difference from previous uprisings and especially from the one in 2022?
LFA: The 2022 uprising marked a significant rupture with earlier protest cycles. It was distinguished by its expansive social base, spanning generations and ethnicities, as well as by its feminist and non-violent grounding. Crucially, it articulated an explicitly emancipatory horizon. Its central slogan, “Woman, Life, Freedom,” drew on existing Indigenous liberatory movements in the Middle East, most notably Rojava. Grounded in this ethical and political framework, the uprising articulated a positive, utopian counter-vision; one that stood in direct opposition to the patriarchal, necropolitical, and domination-centred logic and apparatus of the Iranian regime. Uniquely in post-revolutionary Iran, this women-led movement transformed symbolic resistance into tangible gains. These included the effective dismantling of the morality police, the widespread rejection of compulsory hijab, and women’s reclamation of bodily autonomy and public space. In this sense, the movement resembled abolitionist struggles, including civil rights movements, by targeting the everyday operation of oppressive institutions and rendering the black letter of the law a dead letter through collective social resistance.
The recent wave of protests has been primarily oriented toward rejecting the clerical rule. It has been marked by more masculine political symbolism and, in some cases, by appeals to monarchist alternatives, despite their deeply patriarchal and exploitative historical record. Although the movement has erupted with remarkable intensity and has already faced extreme state violence and mass killing, it has yet to articulate a clear or liberatory vision for the future. This absence leaves its longer-term trajectory and consequences uncertain.
CD: What is the popular mood towards a possible American intervention?
LFA: Public attitudes toward potential American intervention are divided. On one end of the spectrum are those who support external military involvement, notably monarchists and loyalists of Reza Pahlavi, the former crown prince of the deposed monarchy. In addition, decades of state repression, economic collapse, and pervasive despair have led some people to view both the government and the opposition as incapable of achieving meaningful change. Out of trauma and hopelessness, they may support, or at least not actively oppose, American intervention.
On the other end of the spectrum are those who firmly reject intervention. This group ranges from individuals primarily concerned about further violence and destruction to politically vocal actors, most notably democratic and independent leftist voices committed to an autonomous struggle for equality and freedom. They fear that foreign military intervention would replicate the disastrous outcomes seen in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and elsewhere, producing neither liberation nor justice but only further destruction and dependency. In this context, opposition to intervention is not motivated by any loyalty to the current regime, but by a principled conviction that Iran’s path to liberation must emerge from domestic, independent struggle rather than external, neocolonial intervention.
CD: What role do developments in the Middle East play since the start of the war in Gaza and especially since the Trump era began in delegitimizing the government or rallying around it?
LFA: Developments in the Middle East, particularly since the war in Gaza and the beginning of Trump’s second administration, have had a complex and polarising effect on how Iranians view their state. Some Iranians harbour deep resentment toward the regime for deploying anti-imperialist and pro-Palestinian rhetoric to justify domestic repression in the name of resisting imperialism. In certain cases, this strategy has produced cynicism or even hostility toward the Palestinian cause among those most disillusioned with the regime. Pro-Western actors, including Pahlavi supporters, have sought to exploit this sentiment. They portray Trump, Israel, and allied forces as the only actors capable of saving Iranians from their own government by framing the regime as a shared enemy.
By contrast, democratic and independent leftist voices continue to support the Palestinian cause while rejecting foreign, neocolonial intervention. They view the ongoing genocide in Gaza as a stark warning that Trump, Israel, or any forces aligned with them cannot deliver liberation for Iranians. They understand the liberation of the Iranian people as deeply entangled with the liberation of Palestinians and other oppressed people in the Middle East. Meanwhile, some pro-state, anti-imperialist leftists have used the situation to rally support for the government, often overlooking its continued domestic repression. In doing so, they deepen the divide in public sentiment and intensify hostility toward the independent left.
CD: What is the role of Pahlevi and on the other hand of left-wing/communist organisations?
LFA: Pahlavi and his supporters, bolstered by extensive media propaganda and the backing of neo-colonial actors, most notably Israel and the United States, have increasingly occupied public space. They promote a pro-monarchy narrative that appeals to those in despair; one that fosters the belief that external intervention is the only solution to Iran’s crises. The functioning of their narrative, however, exists alongside a substantial pro-state constituency. As is typical in authoritarian systems, it drives the mobilisation of state forces to form a strong and unified front, particularly when threatened by the prospect of foreign intervention or regime change.
At the opposite end of the political spectrum are democratic, independent left-wing, and feminist forces. With Pahlavi reinforcing neo-colonial interventions on one hand and providing the state with excuses to push brutal responses to demonstrations and popular uprising on the other, the independent opposition must emphasise collective autonomy, social justice, and the long-term struggle for freedom. This is while they have to consistently reject both Pahlavi’s false promises and the regime’s oppression. In this context, Pahlavi’s role is less about seizing state power and more about weakening the independent opposition by forcing it to resist both state authoritarianism and foreign, neocolonial manipulation simultaneously.
CD: Is there a political organisation that could take power if the regime collapses?
LFA: As a result of decades of systematic and brutal repression, targeted killings of dissidents, political leaders and intellectuals, and the deep divisions within the opposition, no political organisation exists that could immediately assume power if the regime collapses. The only genuine potential lies with the people themselves, particularly democratic, independent left-wing, feminists, and pro-freedom, equality-oriented actors and forces. These groups formed the main body of the popular resistance during the 2022 uprising. Despite massive state violence and attempts at co-optation or sabotage by imperialist and neo-colonial actors, they managed to sustain their struggle, forge unity, and create a pluralistic framework grounded in the values of life, equality, and liberation. If these forces survive both the regime’s violent repression and neocolonial interventions, they could establish robust indigenous foundations to pave the path toward liberation. Their success in resisting state violence, producing collective agency, and reclaiming public space in 2022 provides clear evidence of this potential.
Genuine questions:
1) I get it that “some Iranians harbour resentments toward the regime for deploying pro-Palestinian rhetoric” but the regime has also actively supported Hamas’ resistance (or this is just Western propaganda?). Don’t Iranians – and Iranian leftists in particular harbour resentments towards the regime for this too?
2) Aren’t there also feminists who support US intervention and see Israel as an ally or people like Masih Alinejad are completely unrepresentative of Iranian feminism?
3) most importantly, what are concretely suggesting those who, no doubt for good reasons, oppose US intervention? That protests continue until either they are completely suppressed or until the regime is overthrown from within? How can this be achieved? What should we, in the West, do/advocate for? In other words, what it means concretely that “the potential lies with the people themselves, particularly democratic, independent left-wing, feminists, and pro-freedom, equality-oriented actors and forces”? What it means concretely “If these forces survive both the regime’s violent repression and neocolonial interventions, they could establish robust indigenous foundations to pave the path toward liberation”? What if they don’t survive? What should we do from here to make sure that they survive? Basically, how do we prevent the regime from slaughtering the movement before it reaches its ‘indigenous’ potential, without relying on external intervention?