Iran’s protest slogans have shifted from Shia imagery and reformist appeals in 2009 to open calls for the return of the Pahlavi monarchy, reflecting a deep loss of faith in the Islamic Republic’s electoral politics and in the long-framed divide between reformists and hardliners.
Iran’s protest slogans have shifted from reformist appeals in the 2009 Green Movement demonstrations to more prominent calls to reinstate the monarchy ousted in 1979, transcending Tehran's central political divide between moderates and hardliners.
In 2009, many demonstrators chanted “Ya Hossein, Mir Hossein,” framing a disputed election in the language of religious legitimacy and around Mir Hossein Mousavi, a former prime minister who challenged the vote.
Sixteen years later, clips shared from protests and even holiday gatherings at historic sites suggest that a growing share of Iran’s street chant repertoire has shifted to a different refrain: “This is the last battle, Pahlavi will return.”
What unfolded in between is not only a story of anger, but of the shrinking space for incremental change and a widening search for alternatives.
How Iran moved from religiously-coded reformist slogans to open monarchist nostalgia matters for one reason above all: it suggests a growing segment of society no longer sees the Islamic Republic’s internal factions as a route to change.
Act 1: A political arena that emptied out
Official election statistics are contested, but they still illustrate a trend. Authorities said roughly 40 million of about 46 million eligible voters participated in 2009, around 85%.
By July 2024, officialdom reported about 24.5 million votes from roughly 61.5 million eligible voters, or around 40%.
That arithmetic captures a political migration. The eligible population rose by roughly 15.5 million, while the number of participants fell by roughly the same amount.
Whatever the true figures, the gap points to a public that increasingly signals disengagement through abstention – and, at times, through the street.
Act 2: two wings keeping the system airborne
In the mid-2000s, Iran’s political class was roughly divided into a left-right dichotomy. Around that time, a newer identity – “principlism” – took shape on the right.
Khamenei, in public remarks, cast the competing camps as two wings with which the country could fly, a formulation many critics interpret as meaning the system could manage dissent by channeling it into controlled competition. He also set out red lines which political discourse could not challenge: the constitution and the revolution’s principles.
After the 2009 protests, Khamenei went further, recalling that he had once told then-President Mohammad Khatami that if a “leftist current” did not exist, he would need to create one – so that the overall outcome of factional rivalry would remain “moderate.”
The subtext was hard to miss: the contest was permissible, even useful, so long as it protected the system.
Act 3: Mousavi – an internal feud packaged as salvation
Many Iranians voted for reformist president Mohammed Khatami in 1997 hoping for gradual reform. Eight years later, that hope had thinned. Officially, Khatami won with more than 20 million votes in 1997; by 2005, the combined votes for the three main reformist candidates were about 10 million.
In 2009, the system’s left wing returned with Mousavi, known as “Imam Khomeini’s prime minister” from the early post-revolution years. The title stemmed from Khomeini’s direct intervention to keep Mousavi in office during the 1980s, overruling then-president Ali Khamenei, who opposed his appointment.
For many young protesters, the title meant little. For the leadership, it carried older grudges. Mousavi’s return also carried a signal to Khamenei: an internal rivalry was being revived.
Mousavi, however, largely kept his challenge inside the Islamic Republic’s own vocabulary – careful not to turn an internal power struggle into a repudiation of the system.
During the campaign he expressed nostalgia for the 1980s – often remembered for repression and war – calling it the revolution’s “golden era.”
In his first statement after the disputed vote, he cast the crisis not as a failure of the Islamic Republic itself but as a betrayal by “untrustworthy custodians” who had weakened what he called “the sacred system,” and he described the protest movement as rooted in religious teachings and devotion to the prophet’s family.
That tension – between street anger and a leadership that still sought legitimacy within the system – was visible even then.
The death of a young female protestor, Neda Agha-Soltan in June 2009 was captured on video and blamed by activists on security forces, becoming a global symbol of the crackdown. But the movement’s most prominent political figure continued to welcome the return of religious slogans as proof of fidelity to the 1979 revolution.
Act 4: The purple interlude
In 2013, Hassan Rouhani entered with a promise to ease sanctions and improve livelihoods. Reformist figures backed him. The Obama administration reached the nuclear deal with Rouhani’s government, and the economy saw partial, temporary relief.
But the political bargain remained fragile. The government pursued subsidy reforms, and in 2016 Donald Trump’s election in the United States shifted the trajectory again. The sense that electoral choices could reliably improve daily life began to erode further.
Act 5: ‘Reformist, principlist – the game is over’
In January 2018, protests that began as economic anger produced a slogan that cut to the core of the “two wings” model: “Reformist, principlist – the game is over.” The chant did not merely condemn one faction; it rejected the system’s entire managed spectrum.
Alongside it came another first in modern protest cycles: open monarchist sentiment, including “Reza Shah, may your soul rest in peace.” He was the founder of the Pahlavi dynasty and served as Shah of Iran from 1925 to 1941.
Act 6: Nostalgia hardens and symbols return
Months later, in spring 2018, a mummified body was reportedly discovered during construction in Rey – near the site of Reza Shah’s former mausoleum, destroyed after the revolution. The episode fueled speculation and fascination, and it landed in a society already primed to argue about the Pahlavi legacy.
Act 7: Bloody November of 2019
The November 2019 fuel-price protests were met with a deadly crackdown that rights groups say killed hundreds. Reformist figures – who had often positioned themselves as aligned with protester grievances – were widely seen as cautious at best, critical at worst.
What stood out in the slogans was not only rejection of Khamenei and the Islamic Republic but a sharper turn toward affirmative alternatives: “Iran has no king, so there’s no accountability,” and “Crown Prince, where are you? Come to our aid.”
Act 8: Woman, Life, Freedom
After a young woman, Mahsa (Jina) Amini, died in morality police custody in 2022, protests erupted nationwide under the rallying cry “Woman, Life, Freedom.” The uprising also expanded the language of protest: chants in local mother tongues spread widely, and debates surfaced more openly among opposition currents.
One new wrinkle was the emergence of anti-monarchy chants – “Neither Shah nor clergy” – in apparent response to the growing visibility of pro-Pahlavi slogans. Other chants expanded the targets to include several left-leaning political currents at once.
Act 9: Nowruz 2025
By Nowruz 2025, videos showed crowds – especially younger people – gathering at historic sites associated with pre-Islamic and national heritage, chanting in support of the Pahlavi family. The geographic spread, from the northeast to Pasargadae, suggested the sentiment was not confined to one city or social niche.
Act 10: Late 2025 and early 2026
In late 2025, the suspicious death of human rights lawyer Khosrow Alikordi in Mashhad drew attention after recordings circulated suggesting he supported the Pahlavis.
At a memorial, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi attempted to speak but was met with pro-Pahlavi chants; supporters and critics disputed how representative the chanting crowd was.
Around the same time, the official account linked to Tractor S.C. in Tabriz urged fans to chant in Azeri Turkish against the Pahlavis at matches – an unusual institutional intervention in a politically charged argument.
Then, as Tehran protests began early in January, footage again showed prominent pro-Pahlavi and pro-monarchy slogans.
Chants were even reported at universities, traditionally a center of anti-monarchy politics, showing how far the protest soundscape has shifted.
Accuracy over arithmetic balance
In a race, fairness means everyone starts at the same line; it does not mean the referee forces the same finish. Applied to journalism, the principle is similar: reflect what is most widely heard and most central to the event, without “subsidizing” less prevalent slogans to manufacture balance.
Iran’s protests generate hundreds of chants. No report can list them all. The professional task is to identify what is both meaningfully connected to the protests and demonstrably widespread. Treating a marginal slogan as equal to a dominant one is not neutrality; it is editorial interference – especially in a media environment where a single influencer can rival a legacy newsroom’s reach.
If journalism is to remain relevant, it has to prioritize honest reflection over curated symmetry: equal opportunity for voices to be heard, not equal outcomes engineered on the page.
The fate of the Iranian economy is increasingly shaping debates about the country’s future, one that may prove decisive regardless of how its current political struggles unfold.
Public frustration over rising living costs has once again spilled into protests across the country, shining a harsh light on how state resources are allocated and managed.
The fate of the Iranian economy is increasingly shaping debates about the country’s future—one that may prove decisive regardless of how its current political struggles unfold.
Public frustration over rising living costs has once again spilled into protests across the country, shining a harsh light on how state resources are allocated and managed.
As demonstrations continue, economic indicators are emerging as a central measure of both state capacity and public confidence.
That tension is visible in Iran’s draft budget for the next fiscal year, beginning on March 22. The document offers a snapshot of priorities at a moment marked by military confrontation, diplomatic strain and widening economic pressure.
A budget shaped by security concerns
According to the draft, the government has projected just 1,850 trillion rials in oil export revenues for itself—equivalent, at the official exchange rate, to roughly $2 billion.
By contrast, allocations tied to military and security institutions account for at least 16 percent of total budgetary resources, while the share of oil export revenues linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is estimated to be several times larger than that of the civilian government.
Funding for religious institutions is projected at close to half of the government’s oil income.
At the same time, projected tax revenues have risen by 63 percent, signaling a heavier burden on households and businesses amid high inflation and weak purchasing power.
Taken together, the figures raise questions about how effectively state revenues are being translated into economic stability or improved living standards. They also complicate expectations that external relief alone—such as sanctions easing—would be sufficient to reverse economic decline.
An economy with untapped potential
Official data underscore the scale of resources involved.
Even under extensive sanctions, Iran’s crude oil export revenues over the past five years have totaled approximately $193.5 billion.
Yet over roughly the same period, Iran’s gross domestic product has contracted sharply, falling from around $600 billion in 2010 to an estimated $356 billion in 2025. The divergence between export earnings and overall economic output has become a central puzzle for analysts.
According to Iran’s Central Bank (CBI), the country earned $65.8 billion from exports of oil, petroleum products and gas in the last fiscal year, while total general government revenues projected in the new budget amount to about $45 billion.
Growth, allocation and the missing link
In purely arithmetic terms, current energy exports alone exceed projected state revenues, even before accounting for taxation, domestic fuel sales or other income sources.
The structure of Iran’s economy further complicates comparisons with other sanction-hit or conflict-affected states. Services account for more than half of GDP, and non-oil exports remain substantial, according to the CBI—a markedly different profile from countries such as Iraq, where non-oil exports account for less than 10 percent.
These figures suggest that Iran’s economic capacity, diversification potential and revenue base remain significant, even under constraint.
The unresolved question is not one of resources alone, but of how those resources are absorbed, allocated and converted into sustainable growth.
As protests continue and political outcomes remain uncertain, the condition of the economy—more than any single diplomatic or security development—is likely to shape Iran’s trajectory in the years ahead.
Prolonged economic exhaustion and a broader loss of confidence in the Iranian state after historic military and foreign policy setbacks in 2025 means 2026 may be the Islamic Republic's hardest ever year.
Popular unrest is not unfolding in isolation. It comes amid sustained external pressure, legal constraint and strategic exposure that have narrowed the Islamic Republic’s room for maneuver.
The protests are best understood not as a discrete domestic episode, but as the internal manifestation of a broader convergence: sanctions enforcement, legal isolation, military attrition and fiscal strain now intersect more directly with the regime’s ability to manage society.
At the center of this convergence lies a structural tension.
Tehran has long prioritized the maintenance of its coercive apparatus as the ultimate guarantor of regime survival, assuming it could continue to fund and mobilize those forces even as the wider population absorbed economic pain. The present unrest tests that assumption.
The question is no longer simply whether the state can repress protest—it has done so repeatedly—but whether it can sustain that approach under prolonged economic pressure.
The war that reshaped Iran’s strategic landscape
In June 2025, the Islamic Republic faced sustained direct military action against core elements of its nuclear and missile infrastructure, followed not by rapid diplomatic de-escalation but by heightened scrutiny and enforcement.
While Tehran avoided immediate escalation beyond the conflict, the war unsettled long-standing assumptions about deterrence, sanctuary and escalation control.
In its aftermath, the state’s survival was framed domestically as vindication. Yet continuity did not amount to recovery. Vulnerabilities exposed by the war could not be addressed simply through rebuilding or rhetorical reaffirmation.
Iran’s leadership has often equated endurance with strategic success. In this case, endurance masked erosion. The post-war environment became more constrained, not more permissive.
Sanctions and their toll
The reactivation of pre-2015 United Nations sanctions through the snapback mechanism in September 2025 constituted a second rupture—less visible, but no less consequential.
These measures reimposed binding legal constraints independent of the JCPOA framework.
Whatever Tehran’s posture toward negotiations, its obligations under revived Security Council resolutions and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty remain formally intact.
Iran’s refusal to comply with inspection-related understandings, alongside renewed threats to withdraw from the NPT, reflected a strategy of legal brinkmanship. But brinkmanship has limits.
Snapback has proven difficult to circumvent, constraining access to finance, insurance and energy markets. Even states inclined to engage Iran have struggled to shield it from the broader effects of renewed enforcement.
These constraints have translated into economic pressure. The protests now visible across Iran are therefore not only political acts; they are also the social consequence of legal and economic containment.
Missiles and strategic trade-offs
Under this pressure, Tehran has prioritized strategic reconstruction, particularly in its ballistic missile program. Facilities linked to missile development and solid-fuel production have shown signs of renewed activity, even as nuclear infrastructure remains under close scrutiny.
This reflects a belief that missile capability can restore leverage by raising the costs of external pressure.
Missile reconstruction aims to reconstitute coercive leverage and recover lost influence. Yet the strategic context has shifted. Measures once tolerated as incremental are now interpreted as preparatory, intensifying scrutiny and compressing decision timelines.
The domestic trade-offs are significant. Resources directed toward military-industrial reconstruction are resources unavailable for economic stabilization or social relief.
Iran’s rulers appear to have judged that sustaining coercive capacity outweighs the risks of popular discontent—a calculation that depends on continued loyalty within the security apparatus, even as economic conditions worsen.
A narrowing set of options
During the war, US President Donald Trump publicly raised the prospect of regime change—not as declared policy, but as a conceivable outcome should Iran prove unable to govern or stabilize the country.
While ambiguous, the remarks widened the range of interpretations available to Tehran.
As protests spread, that signalling evolved. In early January, Trump warned that violent suppression of peaceful protesters would provoke an American response. The emphasis shifted from missiles and enrichment to repression itself.
Taken together, these statements suggest a growing linkage in US rhetoric between Iran’s internal conduct and its external confrontation, though how far this would translate into policy remains uncertain.
For a system long reliant on compartmentalization—treating internal repression and external escalation as separate domains—this rhetoric further narrows room for maneuver.
Repression now carries not only domestic costs, but potential external risk.
Resilience—and its limits
None of this points to inevitability. The Islamic Republic has weathered previous crises, including acute pressure in 2009 and again in 2022, through repression, fragmentation of opposition and strategic patience.
Those precedents caution against linear narratives of collapse.
Yet the present unrest differs in one important respect: it is embedded in sustained economic degradation rather than episodic political mobilization. Repression can suppress protest, but it cannot substitute for economic viability indefinitely.
In 1978, prolonged disruption in Iran’s oil sector did not immediately bring down the state, nor did repression collapse. What faltered was the state’s capacity to function as revenues declined and administrative coherence eroded.
The parallel should not be overstated. But it underscores a familiar pattern: regimes rarely fail at the height of coercion; they falter when the material foundations of governance erode to the point that authority can no longer translate power into control.
Whether the Islamic Republic is approaching such a threshold remains uncertain. What is clearer is that its margin for error has narrowed. The 12-day war did not end Iran’s confrontation with its adversaries, it reshaped it.
The unrest now visible across the country is not separate from that confrontation—it is one of its most consequential domestic expressions.
Unlike his predecessors who largely stayed silent in the early days, Donald Trump issued an unusually blunt warning over the killing of demonstrators in Iran, a message Tehran appears unable to dismiss lightly given its speed, tone, and source.
On the second day of protests, he condemned the Iranian government for firing on demonstrators. On day six, he went further, warning that if the killing of protesters continued, US forces “will come to their rescue.”
This amounts to the fastest and most explicit reaction by an American president to a wave of unrest in Iran in the past 45 years. The question is whether this posture translates into concrete diplomatic steps or credible military pressure—or remains a largely symbolic deterrent message.