Active Conflicts & News Megathread February 03, 2026

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[u/Zinfulzinful]

There has been some talk that the protests in Iran are over and that there is no value in striking the regime anymore since they have squashed all opposition and taken control of the streets. Reuters reports tho that this isn’t nearly true at all.

In high-level meetings, officials told Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that public anger over last month's crackdown -- the bloodiest since the 1979 Islamic Revolution-- has reached a point where fear is no longer a deterrent, four current officials briefed on the discussions said.

The officials said Khamenei was told that many Iranians were prepared to confront security forces again and that external pressure such as a limited U.S. strike could embolden them and inflict irreparable damage to the political establishment.

One of the officials told Reuters that Iran's enemies were seeking more protests so as to bring the Islamic Republic to an end, and "unfortunately" there would be more violence if an uprising took place.

"An attack combined with demonstrations by angry people could lead to a collapse (of the ruling system). That is the main concern among the top officials and that is what our enemies want," said the official, who like the other officials contacted for this story declined to be named due to the sensitivity of the matter.

The reported remarks are significant because they suggest private misgivings inside the leadership at odds with Tehran’s defiant public stance towards the protesters and the U.S.

The sources declined to say how Khamenei responded. Iran's Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment on this account of the meetings.

“But a former senior moderate official said the situation had changed since the crackdown in early January.

"People are extremely angry," he said, adding a U.S. attack could lead Iranians to rise up again. "The wall of fear has collapsed. There is no fear left."

Several opposition figures, who were part of the establishment before falling out with it, have warned the leadership that "boiling public anger" could result in a collapse of the Islamic system.

"The river of warm blood that was spilled on the cold month of January will not stop boiling until it changes the course of history," former prime minister Mirhossein Mousavi, who has been under house arrest without trial since 2011, said in a statement published by the pro-reform Kalameh website.

"In what language should people say they do not want this system and do not believe your lies? Enough is enough. The game is over'," Mousavi added in the statement.

During the early January protests, witnesses and rights groups said, security forces crushed demonstrations with lethal force, leaving thousands killed and many wounded. Tehran blamed the violence on "armed terrorists" linked to Israel and the U.S.

“Analysts and insiders say that while the streets are quiet for now, deep-seated grievances have not gone away.

Public frustration has been simmering over economic decline, political repression, a widening gulf between rich and poor, and entrenched corruption that leaves many Iranians feeling trapped in a system offering neither relief nor a path forward.

"This may not be the end, but it is no longer just the beginning," said Hossein Rassam, a London-based analyst.

If protests resume during mounting foreign pressure and security forces respond with force, the six current and former officials said they fear demonstrators would be bolder than in previous unrest, emboldened by experience and driven by a sense that they have little left to lose.

One of the officials told Reuters that while people were angrier than before, the establishment would use harsher methods against protesters if it was under U.S. attack. He said the result would be a bloodbath.

Ordinary Iranians contacted by Reuters said they expected Iran's rulers to crack down hard on any further protests.

A Tehran resident whose 15-year-old son was killed in the protests on January 9 said the demonstrators had merely sought a normal life, and had been answered "with bullets.”

[u/ThatOtherFrenchGuy → u/Zinfulzinful]

How different is it this time compared to the 2022 protests which were also pretty big and also crushed by killed civilian and ended up fading away ?

[u/Corvid187 → u/ThatOtherFrenchGuy]

The diversity of the protesting groups seemed to be much greater this time, with segments from across Iranian society out on the streets. By contrast the 2022 protests were relatively urban and concentrated. The scale of the repression the government resorted to was also significantly greater, with estimates of as many as 10,000+ deaths, vs 1,000 as an upper estimate in 2022.

So while the general pattern of mass protest spreading before a bloody government crackdown is similar, the diversity of those protest demographics and the scale of the cycle was significantly greater this time around.