US Senator Tom Cotton voiced support for President Donald Trump’s position on Iran, adding the rulers in Tehran have been a menace to the United States for the last 47 years.
“I support President Trump’s strong stance against the ayatollahs, who have tormented their own people just like they’ve killed Americans for 47 years,” the Republican senator from Arkansas posted on X on Friday.
UK MP and ex-security minister Tom Tugendhat said Iran has mounted “more than 20” attempted assassinations and attacks in the United Kingdom over the past decade, adding that what happens inside Iran has a direct implication for what happens in the UK.
“A lot of the groups that call themselves Free Palestine, a lot of the outfits that are connected to antisemitism that, sadly, we've seen exploding in the last two, three years, have got connections to the Iranian state, the Iranian regime,” he said. “So for all those reasons, what happens in Iran, I'm afraid, has a direct implication on what happens in the UK,” Tugendhat told LBC News on Friday.
Tugendhat said UK agencies are heavily focused on operations by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in Britain and across Europe, leaving them “busy, distracted from other things.”
Komala of the Toilers of Kurdistan, one of the five major parties in Iran's Kurdish regions, says the country's latest wave of protests marks a decisive phase, calling for broad unity among social and political forces as economic, social and political grievances increasingly converge.
In a statement, Komala of the Toilers of Kurdistan said the new wave of protests that began with strikes by merchants and shopkeepers in Tehran and spread nationwide reflects a deep, accumulated crisis within the Islamic Republic’s political and economic system, rather than a temporary reaction.
It said growing support from workers, teachers, students, women, drivers and other low-income groups shows protests have moved beyond fragmented demands to a more political and structural challenge.
Calling for independent organization and conscious solidarity, Komala urged closer unity among Kurdish parties, saying such cooperation could help shape a credible alternative rooted in freedom, equality, social justice and the right to self-determination.
The party is one of the five major Kurdish parties of Iran that were influential in the past strikes of Kurdish shopkeepers and workers. However, the statement is not expected to trigger any strikes or protests unless it is supported by other parties, experts tell Iran International.
US Congressman Carlos Gimenez voiced support for demonstrators in Iran, saying “freedom for the brave men and women of Iran.”
“Freedom for the brave men & women of Iran! The evil dictatorship must be relegated to the ash heap of history!” the Republican House member from Florida posted on X on Friday.
No one can say with certainty whether the current protests will spiral into a revolution. But analysts tell Eye for Iran it is becoming harder to ignore signs that Iran’s theocracy may be entering a period of repeated crises that challenge its ability to function as a state.
Some analysts now warn that Iran may be entering the early stages of regime collapse — not through a single dramatic event, but through a slow erosion of state capacity.
What makes this round different is not only the fury in the streets. It is the growing uncertainty within the clerical establishment, which is leaning more heavily on coercion while projecting less confidence than before.
The protests began with the plunging rial. They have since widened into a broader test of whether the government can still manage a country living in constant crisis. Demonstrations that started in Tehran’s electronics markets have spread across provinces, bazaars and campuses, with chants increasingly aimed at the ruling system itself.
Live fire and deaths have fueled anger, while rare scenes in a religious city like Qom and other cities show crowds refusing to retreat.
A system running out of answers
Shayan Samii, a former US government appointee said the anger goes beyond economic hardship — it reflects a belief that the future has narrowed.
“They are upset because the value of their currency has gone down the drain,” he said. “There is nothing to look forward to.”
That sense of closure, he argued, is what pushes ordinary Iranians to take risks despite repression — a difficult dynamic for a state that relies heavily on deterrence and coercion.
Journalist and author Arash Azizi described protests appearing not only in major cities but in towns once seen as politically quiet.
“There is discontent everywhere,” he said — but protesters “lack leadership” and “lack organization.”
Without that, he warned, unrest can erupt and fade without producing structural change, even as each round leaves the system more brittle.
From an intelligence perspective, Danny Citrinowicz, former head of the Iran branch in Israeli military intelligence, said the deeper issue is not simply mismanagement but the absence of any workable path forward.
“The main problem the regime has is that it has no silver-bullet solution to the economic problems in Iran,” he said. Even if authorities find temporary fixes, “the problem will stay.”
Economic calm, in other words, may only pause — not resolve the crisis.
Cracks inside the ruling class
It is not only public anger that is shifting, said Alex Vatanka of the Middle East Institute but the mood among elites themselves.
“I have certainly not ever seen this level of hopelessness inside the Iranian regime,” he said.
That kind of discouragement, he added, can be more consequential than unrest alone, opening space for miscalculations and internal rivalries that become harder to contain.
Former US State Department official Alan Eyre cautioned against assuming outside forces can engineer rapid political change.
“Regime change is wildly improbable in Iran right now,” he said — warning that intense external pressure could strengthen hard-liners or push Iran toward greater militarization.
His remarks followed comments by Donald Trump that the United States was “locked and loaded” if Iranian authorities kill protesters — language that energized some activists while raising fears of escalation among others.
Why this wave feels different
Bozorgmehr Sharafeddin, head of Iran International Digital, argued that this round cuts deeper because it points to a crisis of state survival rather than policy error.
“This protest is not about inflation,” he said. “This is about the collapse of the Iranian economy.”
He also noted that international reaction came immediately — a contrast with earlier cycles when global attention arrived more cautiously and later.
Across the conversation, one theme recurred: the state still has the means to suppress dissent — but it is doing so with increasing uncertainty about what comes next.
Protesters are directing anger at the foundations of clerical power, not merely the officials administering policy. Reform promises carry less credibility. And senior figures themselves acknowledge problems they cannot easily fix.
That does not guarantee revolution and it does not mean collapse will come overnight. But analysts say a government that relies primarily on coercion while showing visible doubt from within no longer projects stability.
What emerges, they warn, is a system still capable of force yet less certain of itself with every passing crisis.
You can watch Episode 84 of Eye for Iran on YouTube or listen on any podcast platform of your choosing.
UK Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch voiced support for Iranians demonstrating against what she called their “despotic and oppressive government,” describing the protesters as “a beacon of hope for us all.”
“The brave Iranians on the streets protesting against their despotic and oppressive government are a beacon of hope for us all,” Badenoch posted on X on Friday.
“The Iranian regime denies its own people basic liberties while exporting terrorism and instability beyond its borders, threatening the UK and our allies,” she added. “We stand with those risking everything for freedom.”