All of this is conventional wisdom, because it describes what has always been necessary for regime change. So I can't say it's everything we need to know, but I can say that we're seeing some of it now in this country as MAGA begins to crumble.
The main point is to keep pushing.
Truth Social posts aren’t going to make it happen.
Matthew Gould has served as a British ambassador to Israel and deputy ambassador to Iran.
The tragedy of the Iranian people is captured in three remarks this year by President Donald Trump. On Jan. 13, in a week when thousands of protesters were killed, he posted on Truth Social, “Iranian Patriots, KEEP PROTESTING - TAKE OVER YOUR INSTITUTIONS!!!” He promised that “HELP IS ON ITS WAY.”
In the early hours of Feb. 28, as America and Israel launched their attacks on Iran, he encouraged them again in a televised address, “When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will be, probably, your only chance for generations.”
On Sept. 1, he posted again on Truth Social, this time more plaintively. “When are the Iranian people going to rise up and fight?”
The Iranian regime, and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps at its heart, are ruthlessly determined to remain in power. They have repeatedly defied expectations with their success in doing so. And this year has seen them survive two major events that many observers had predicted would bring them down.
The protests that started in December 2025 were the most serious the regime has faced. They began not with middle-class students but with a strike by the shopkeepers in Tehran’s Grand Bazaar. Protests followed in all 31 of Iran’s provinces. A European diplomat reported well over a million protesters on the streets of the capital n Jan. 8. The regime responded brutally and decisively, with at least 3,000 protesters confirmed dead, and credible estimates as high as 30,000. Mass protests alone turned out not to be enough.
Then, on Feb. 28, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was killed in a U.S.-Israeli airstrike. He had been supreme leader for more than 36 years and president for the eight years before that. If a change in leadership were to bring about regime change, this should have been the moment. He had no nominated successor, his son Mojtaba (who was eventually appointed to the post) was badly injured in the same strikes, and for a brief period the country was ruled by an ad hoc triumvirate. Yet once again, the regime proved itself resilient. Power passed to a more hard-line next generation.
So what would it take to topple the regime? Five factors will be key — and none will be easy to achieve.
First, the Iranian people, despite being repeatedly traumatized by violence, will need to take to the streets again. They will need to rebuild the coalition that formed at start of the year, crossing class and region.
The most likely cause of their united protests would be economic hardship — which Iranians blame as much on their own government as on the United States. Inflation is at its highest level since World War II, more than 1 in 5 young people are unemployed, the price of fuel has gone up and there is not enough fuel to go around. A bad winter could push more people onto the streets.
Second, they would need to remain on the streets beyond the inevitable crackdown and internet blackout. The regime will be threatened only if the protests persevere.
So the third requirement will be infrastructure that lets citizens organize even without the internet. During the January protests, when the regime tried to impose a complete digital blackout, Starlink activated free access for Iranian accounts and the Trump administration smuggled thousands of terminals into the country. But the regime responded fast — jamming Starlink’s GPS signal in Tehran with technology probably supplied by Russia or China and hunting down dishes on the ground — cutting connectivity by up to 80 percent. The U.S.-supplied circumvention systems that might have helped protesters had been mostly cut off when the Trump administration shut down foreign aid a year earlier.
Next and perhaps most important of all, the security forces need to wobble. Revolutions succeed when militaries are uncertain. In 1979, the shah of Iran’s army, having fired on protesters for months, finally stood aside. In 2024, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s army didn’t so much defect as evaporate. But so far, despite optimistic predictions, the Iranian military has stayed largely intact. The IRGC and its paramilitary Basij force have remained loyal, tied to the status quo by ideology and economic self-interest.
Finally, the regime itself needs to crumble, which it will if mid-tier officials decide that the old order is finished. This will not happen until they see a future for themselves on the other side. Total isolation gives them no reason to jump ship.
With these conditions met, protests might have a chance, and the regime might finally give way. Without them, no amount of aerial bombardment or White House encouragement will be enough.
If and when that day comes, it will be important that the United States and others are not banking on a smooth or easy transition to a new government. Just as likely will be a period of chaos, a vacuum in leadership and the emboldening of separatist groups at Iran’s periphery, from Kurds in the northwest to the Baluch in the southeast.
More useful than further online exhortations from the president would be if he ordered the creation of a comprehensive plan that can stand ready for the moment it is needed, providing immediate security, humanitarian and reconstruction support. Only then would the message “help is on its way” matter, and the Iranian people could start to build the future that they deserve.
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