Shah caller: Iran’s protests are different this time

Summary

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Podcast Summary: "Shah Caller: Iran’s Protests Are Different This Time"

The Economist Podcasts – The Intelligence
Date: January 9, 2026
Host: Jason Palmer, Rosie Blore
Main Contributor: Greg Karlstrom (Middle East Correspondent)

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Overview

This episode explores the recent wave of protests sweeping Iran, analyzing how they differ from previous uprisings—especially those in 2022. Economist correspondent Greg Karlstrom discusses the economic roots of this unrest, shifting demographics among protestors, and the regime’s increasingly uncertain response. The episode also touches on the symbolic re-emergence of monarchist slogans and what that could mean for the regime, as well as outside pressures and the specter of American intervention.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. What Sparked the Current Protests?

[03:07] Greg Karlstrom:

• The unrest began December 28, triggered by electronics vendors in Tehran striking against currency collapse.
• Protests quickly expanded to cities nationwide despite a government internet shutdown.
• Notable protest chants: “Death to the Ayatollah” and “Long live the Shah.”

Quote:

“These are not the biggest protests we’ve seen in Iran, but they do seem like the largest ones since 2022. And they come at a moment when the Iranian regime looks more fragile than ever.”
—Greg Karlstrom [03:27]

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2. How Are These Protests Different From 2022?

[04:30] Greg Karlstrom:

• 2022 protests followed the death of Mahsa Amini after her arrest for violating dress codes. Those were dominated by women, largely middle class, focusing on social issues.
• Current protests are predominantly driven by economic hardship and led by jobless young men—a group previously more inclined to support the regime.
• The government’s repressive response is the same (intimidation, arrests, shutting off the internet), but this time, they can’t offer even “tactical concessions” like in 2022.

Quote:

“The state doesn’t have any quick fixes for Iran’s economic problem. And so it’s really in a bind right now.”
—Greg Karlstrom [05:51]

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3. The Economic Crisis Fueling the Unrest

[06:25] Greg Karlstrom:

• The Iranian rial lost almost 50% of its value in a year, reaching an all-time low.
• Inflation above 40%—and over 70% for food.
• Blames are placed on US sanctions, but significant problems stem from domestic corruption and an economic model dominated by the military and religious foundations.

Quote:

“It’s not just an issue of sanctions or the west, as Iran’s leaders like to say. It’s also a problem of how they’ve set up the country’s economy.”
—Greg Karlstrom [07:07]

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4. The Regime’s Response: Cash Transfers and Political Paralysis

[07:33] Greg Karlstrom:

• The government ended an exchange-rate subsidy for importers and replaced it with direct cash transfers (10 million rials/month, or about $7–8).
• The measure is largely symbolic, doing little to address real economic pain and fueling further inflation.
• Even the president has said he’s powerless—“I don’t call the shots.”

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5. The Supreme Leader and Regime Stability

[08:59] Jason Palmer & Greg Karlstrom:

• Protest slogans now directly attack Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and call for a return to monarchy, invoking “the Shah.”
• Reza Pahlavi, the 65-year-old son of the last Shah, has called for protest action from within Iran for the first time—some respond out of support, others just to antagonize the regime.

Quote:

“Chanting his name is a way to poke a finger in the eye of the regime and upset them.”
—Greg Karlstrom [09:24]

• Even within regime circles, talk has started about removing Khamenei to save the system—a conversation intensified after the US operation dethroned Venezuela’s Maduro.

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6. Impact of U.S. Actions and External Factors

[11:22] Jason Palmer & Greg Karlstrom:

• While Iranian protesters aren’t demonstrating with expectations of direct American intervention, US threats and actions do influence regime calculations.
• Trump has made veiled threats should Iran kill protestors; this possibility drives regime anxiety about maintaining control, maybe even accelerating internal “palace coup” discussions.

Quote:

“For the regime, what America will or will not do does matter… The specter of American involvement… is sharpening these debates within the regime.”
—Greg Karlstrom [12:30]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the mood of protesters:

  “They are doing it because after half a century of misrule by the Islamic Republic, they’re fed up and they feel like they have nothing left to lose.”
  —Greg Karlstrom [11:41]

• On regime adaptability:

  “The challenge for the regime now is that there’s no easy way out—no quick win or temporary pacification.”
  —Paraphrase of Greg’s key point

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• 03:07 – Summary of protest origins and scale
• 04:30 – Key differences between current and 2022 protests
• 06:19 – Breakdown of Iran’s economic collapse
• 07:33 – Regime subsidy reform and its ineffectiveness
• 09:14 – Focus on Khamenei in protest slogans; Pahlavi’s role
• 10:24 – Internal regime discussions on leadership change
• 11:36 – Influence and limitations of US intervention

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Conclusion

This episode offers sharp insight into why Iran’s 2026 protests are shaking the regime to its core. Unlike past uprisings focused on social issues and led by the middle class, this wave is driven by economic despair among the traditionally regime-supportive young men, leaving authorities with no easy concessions to offer. The opposition’s invocation of the monarchy adds complexity and symbolism, while the ever-present specter of US intervention amplifies nerves at the top. Ultimately, these protests expose not only the fragility of the Iranian political system, but also how quickly internal crises can escalate when economic survival is at stake.

Transcript

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[Jason Palmer]

The economist.

[Rosie Blore]

Hello and welcome to the Intelligence from the Economist. I'm Rosie Blore.

[Jason Palmer]

And I'm Jason Palmer. Every weekday we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world.

[Rosie Blore]

Tensions between China and its near neighbors are a perennial concern. As part of our World Ahead series, our correspondent explains what we might expect to see in the country's behavior this year towards Taiwan, Japan and beyond.

[Jason Palmer]

And Nino Loreiru spent a career studying plasma, that mysterious fourth phase of matter, hoping to harness it for clean fusion energy. Our obituary's editor recounts how that effort was cut short by a long ago classmate. First up, though.

[Greg Karlstrom]

The unrest in Iran started on December 28 when electronics vendors in Tehran went on strike to protest a currency that was in freefall. And last night, those protests grew in size significantly.

[Jason Palmer]

Greg Karlstrom is a Middle east correspondent for the Economist.

[Greg Karlstrom]

Despite a country wide Internet shutdown, videos have emerged of huge crowds on the streets, not only in Tehran, but in cities across the country. Protesters chanted things like Death to the Ayatollah and Long live the Shah, referring to the deposed monarch of Iran. There were videos of protesters setting fires in city centers, attempting to break into government buildings in provincial cities. These are not the biggest protests we've seen in Iran, but they do seem like the largest ones since 2022. And they come at a moment when the Iranian regime looks more fragile than ever.

[Jason Palmer]

We have spent quite some time on the show, Greg, talking about protests in Iran and the degree to which they may or may not change the facts on the ground. How are these different from the ones you know, in particular the 2022 riots that you mentioned?

[Greg Karlstrom]

I think they're different not only in size but in the nature of the protests. Those demonstrations in 2022, they began after a young woman was arrested for failing to observe the state mandated dress code and subsequently died in police custody. And so the demonstrations that followed had a large presence of women, particularly middle class women. The movement was called Women Life, Freedom. And the focus, at least initially, was predominantly on social issues. Whereas what we're seeing now with these protests over the past two weeks, they are driven more by economic grievances. The people who are coming out to protest, at least in the beginning, it's not middle class women, it's jobless young men. And this is a constituency that traditionally has been fairly pro regime, but it hasn't been able to deliver for them. And so those people are angry enough that they are now coming out to protest. That's one difference. And then I think the second big difference is how the state is trying to respond to these protests. Of course, in both cases, it's pulled out its usual repressive toolkit. Shutting off the Internet, sending armed thugs into the streets, arresting people, intimidating people. It did that in 2022, it's doing that again today. But during the protests in 22, it was also able to make some tactical concessions. It stopped enforcing the law around mandatory headscarves for women, pulled the morality police back from the streets. It let people feel like they had won some gains this time. They can't do that. The state doesn't have any quick fixes for Iran's economic problem. And so it's really in a bind right now. Aside from trying to just repress its way out of this, it's really not sure what to do.

[Jason Palmer]

Well, what are the economic problems that in particular these jobless young men are railing against?

[Greg Karlstrom]

We could fill an entire episode with those. But if you look at the headline numbers, the currency has collapsed. The real has lost almost 50% of its value just in the past year. It's trading near 1.5 million on the dollar, which is an all time low. That has obviously fueled inflation, which has been in the double digits for years. It's above 40% right now and it's higher for food. It's 70% or more. Some of this is of course, due to the U.S. sanctions that have been imposed on Iran, particularly on its oil industry. But a lot of it is also structural. It has to do with the political economic model of this regime, which is shot through with corruption. Large parts of the economy are dominated either by the military, the Revolutionary Guard, or by clerics who own large foundations that buy up companies and oversee big chunks of the economy. And so it's not just an issue of sanctions or the west, as Iran's leaders like to say. It's also a problem of how they've set up the country's economy.

[Jason Palmer]

So apart from clearing out the rock, then what could Iran's leaders do to address these problems?

[Greg Karlstrom]

They don't have many good options in the short term. I think it's telling to look at what Masoud Pizzaskiyan, the President. President, has tried to do over the past couple of weeks. The big economic policy that he's announced is basically an effort at subsidy reform. He's doing away with a system where Iran offered a preferential exchange rate to companies that imported food and other essential goods. It's scrapping that system and it's using the money that it saves to do direct cash transfers to Iranians. 10 million reals per person per month, which in principle it's a fine idea. Direct cash transfers are usually the best way to get money to poor people. But what we're Talking about here, 10 million riyals a month, that is worth between seven and eight dollars at today's exchange rate. It's enough to buy a few liters of cooking oil or a bag of rice, but not much else. So it's a pittance. And at the same time, by overhauling the subsidy system, the government is going to trigger even more inflation for food prices. We've already seen prices for a few staples jump over the past few days. So it's not going to make a difference for ordinary people. And some of them find it laughable or insulting that in the face of the biggest unrest in years, this is all the government can come up with.

[Jason Palmer]

So you've talked there about some economic approaches that the President, the government essentially is making. What about the Supreme Leader?

[Greg Karlstrom]

And you're right, that's really the person that matters in the Iranian system. The President himself has essentially said, I'm powerless, don't look at me. I don't call the shots. Ali Khamenei either. The Supreme Leader for almost four decades now, he is the ultimate authority in.

[Jason Palmer]

Iran and he's the one that is being pointed out in these protests, unlike prior ones. Down, down with the Ayatollah and back with the Shah. That that's a confusing message.

[Greg Karlstrom]

Right. We're hearing these calls from people across Iran. You've heard those chants in previous rounds of protests as well. But I think particularly the ones that are focused on the Shah, there are more of those this time. It seems as if reza Pahlavi, the 65 year old son of the previous Shah, the monarch, does have a bit more support now inside of Iran. He urged people to protest last night at 8pm and he's called for similar action tonight. It's the first time that he's made such a call for Iranians to mobilize inside of the country. And people seem to have responded to his call. Some people genuinely support him. Some people probably just think he's the only brand name opposition figure that I can think of. And so I'm going to chant in support of him. And some people just think that chanting his name is a way to poke a finger in the eye of the regime and upset them. So it's not monolithic.

[Jason Palmer]

And so is it working as a finger in the eye of the regime, talking about the return of the monarchy?

[Greg Karlstrom]

It's not just protesters who are talking about trying to bring down Ayatollah Khamenei. It's also people within the Iranian regime who are beginning to talk about this. There is a conversation about should we get rid of the Supreme Leader in order to save the system? You know, should the Revolutionary Guard, for example, try to seize power or should they find another figure from the Iranian political system who might be able to sweep aside the Ayatollah, implement some reforms to appease protesters, but keep the foundations of the regime intact. And interestingly, I think that debate has picked up over the past week since that American raid in Venezuela to capture Nicolas Maduro which looked like a very similar sort of thing. Right. Removing the president in order to leave the rest of the system intact. You have some people in Iran wondering if they should try something similar in their own country. Push the supreme Leader aside and find the new leader for the system.

[Jason Palmer]

I mean, given last year's bombing raids and what have you. Do you think what do the Americans do about or to Iran matters at this point, or even the worry about it, or is this really an internal concern that will shake itself out internally?

[Greg Karlstrom]

I think on many levels it is an internal concern. Iranians are not out in the streets protesting because they want Donald Trump to do something or because they are counting on American support. They are doing it because after half a century of misrule by the Islamic Republic, they're fed up and they feel like they have nothing left to lose. But I think for the calculations of the regime, what America will or will not do does matter and does affect those calculations. We've heard Trump now several times issue threats saying that if Iran kills protesters, that America is locked and loaded and ready to come to their rescue. It's not at all clear what that means. But I think the specter of American involvement, given that America did bomb Iran about six months ago, given what America just did in Venezuela, I think it is sharpening these debates within the regime. They want to keep the edifice of the Islamic Republic intact somehow. And if there is a risk that America is going to act that it's going to do something that will bring down that edifice, that might accelerate this talk of trying to replace the Supreme Leader and replace him with somebody who can keep the foundations intact.

[Jason Palmer]

Greg, thanks very much for joining us.

[Greg Karlstrom]

Thank you. Jason.

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[Rosie Blore]

Many American military officials reckon 2027 is an important date in China's calendar that will mark a centenary since the creation of the People's Liberation Army. And some think it's the time by which China's leader Xi Jinping wants to be ready to invade Taiwan. All of which could mean that this year may be a crucial one. China's certainly been churning out a lot of kit.

[Shashank Joshi]

An extraordinary military display by China to.

[Rosie Blore]

Commemorate China appears to be expanding its military arsenal at a historic pace, according to the findings. But as part of our World Ahead series, defense editor Shashank Joshi discusses whether the more likely scenario is not for fully fledged conflict, but a steady increase in political, economic and military pressure against Taiwan and other foes.

[Shashank Joshi]

The People's Liberation army, the pla. China's armed forces have escalated air and maritime pressure all around Taiwan steadily for several years. In 2025, they conducted live fire drills in the Taiwan Strait. They simulated a blockade of the island. And so the result of all of this is that China could pivot from an exercise or a drill to a real blockade in much, much less time than it would have taken just a few years ago.

[Rosie Blore]

Now, Shashank, there's a lot of attention on what happens in the next year, partly because American military officials seem fixated on the idea that Xi Jinping wants to be able to retake Taiwan by 2027, which is the centenary of the people's liberation. Ar me.

[Shashank Joshi]

So the interesting thing, Rosie, is that if you go to Washington D.C. you'll hear this date a lot. No Chinese official has ever said it. The last director of the CIA, Bill Burns, did say that Xi Jinping had ordered the PLA to be ready by 2027. So it's sort of an American intelligence claim now, it's not pulled out of thin air. It is partly, as you say, the centennial of the PLA's founding. That's probably part of it, but it's also linked to some of these very specific and detailed military timelines the PL has set for itself. So, for example, it wanted to be a mechanised force with proper armoured vehicles and things by 2020. And it achieved that target. It wanted comprehensive modernisation by 2035. And 2027 was a middle target for what they called, and forgive me for the jargon here, they called it intelligentised warfare. What that means, really, Rosie, is AI, information, networks, data, lots of the same thing you see in Western armies. That's the date by which they wanted all that stuff to be ready in the pla.

[Rosie Blore]

So what does all of that mean on the ground? What sorts of tactics might we see the PLA use in the year ahead?

[Shashank Joshi]

Well, I think one of my colleagues called it an anaconda strategy. And essentially the idea is, instead of conducting a full scale amphibious invasion, or instead of conducting strikes, you squeeze Taiwan, you intensify the pressure economically, politically, militarily. And there's all manner of examples of that. So, for instance, China continues to send weather balloons over Taiwan's outlying islands. It continues to send drones over the main island. These are presumably conducting surveillance, but they're also, in a way, exposing Taiwan's weakness. They're showing its inability to respond. I think this year we're also going to see China's aircraft carrier strike groups increasingly travel around the island, circumnavigating it, going east of it, something they never did in the past. And that will wear down Taiwan's air force. And I think the most interesting thing is something we've seen in Europe, which is undersea data cables being cut for mysterious reasons. We have also seen a little bit of that in the waters around Taiwan. So undersea cables, I think, around Taiwan suffered unexplained damage at least 11 times since 2023. I can't tell you for certain, Rosie, the PLA did this or Chinese ships did this, but it wouldn't surprise me if there was some Chinese involvement in experimenting with severing Taiwan's communications from the rest of the world in a way that would paralyze them in a conflict or in a blockade.

[Rosie Blore]

But it's not just Taiwan that's being targeted with these sorts of tactics.

[Shashank Joshi]

Is definitely isn't just Taiwan. So when I think of this jockeying in the grey zone, that whole space under the threshold of full armed conflict in Asia, and I think of 2025, really think of the Philippines and the South China Sea, and what we saw is a confrontation around this place called Scarborough Shoal. It's a contested outcrop, and a vessel from China's coast Guard collided with another Chinese PLA warship during a confrontation with the Philippines. That's just how rough these confrontations were getting. And I think it showed you China's increasingly aggressive naval tactics. What it tells you is that a risk reduction pact that they signed with the Philippines back in August of 2024 just isn't working as it should. And I think as the Philippines takes over from Malaysia as The chair of ASEAN, this club of 10 Southeast Asian countries, they're going to use that as a platform to put much more pressure on China to sign on to something called a code of conduct. But this will, of course, also drag the Americans in because the Philippines is a treaty ally.

[Rosie Blore]

And Shashank feels like a perennial on the show that we've talked about tensions between China and Japan. What kinds of things might we see from the PLA there?

[Shashank Joshi]

There's been a fairly serious diplomatic spat between Japan and China. At the end of last year, Japan's new Prime Minister, Takaichi talked publicly about Japan's potential role in a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. That made the Chinese very angry and they've responded in some very aggressive ways. At the end of last year, Chinese fighter jets locked their radars onto Japanese planes. And that is a very hostile act when it comes to plane on plane encounters because it can signal that you're about to have a missile fired at you. There's also a long standing Sino Japanese dispute over what Japan calls the Senkaku Islands, islands that it controls in the East China Sea. In 2025, China's coast guard set a record for the longest ever intrusion into the Senkaku's territorial waters. They stayed something like 92 hours after pursuing Japanese fishing boats. And the Japanese and experts are concerned that this year, if China wants to put the pressure on, they could, for example, establish a permanent naval presence in the Senkaku. They could try to exploit resources near the disputed waters in those islands as they have done elsewhere in the China Sea.

[Rosie Blore]

And Shashank, you watch this all the time. You're watching this steady change in PLA activity. What are we ultimately going to see at the end of this?

[Shashank Joshi]

Well, I think the answer, Rosie, is we don't know. But it gives the Chinese options. It doesn't preclude them from launching a full scale amphibious assault over the Taiwan Strait to take the island by force at some point before the end of the decade. They are churning out barges on this show, amphibious ships. But the point is by also putting the pressure on below that threshold, they give themselves options, options to harass the island, options to make the island's population feel as if it's unable to defend itself and it has no choice but to unify with mainland China under coercive terms or indeed a blockade that would effectively cut the island off from supplies of fuel, from supplies of food, from communications, and that would ultimately lead to its capitulation. The Chinese may hope without major blood having to be shed. I think the challenge in all of this is America's military is preparing for a potential war over Taiwan. It's building up munition stockpiles, it's changing its posture in Asia and it would know how to respond to a conflict. It's not so easy to respond to surreptitious cable cutting. It's not so easy to respond to harassment by aircraft and ships. And that's the point of this kind of pressure. It's too limited to warrant a military response. But over time it can SAP the morale and the strength of the Taiwanese people. And I think that is what makes it such a difficult challenge to be dealing with.

[Rosie Blore]

Shashank, thank you very much.

[Shashank Joshi]

Thanks for having me, Rosie.

[Narrator (Ann Roe)]

When Nuno Lorero was growing up in the central Portuguese city of Visu, he knew from very early on that he wanted to be a scientist.

[Jason Palmer]

Ann Roe is the Economist's obituaries editor.

[Narrator (Ann Roe)]

That was odd. In his primary school, most little boys wanted to be policemen or firemen. But he knew from the very start, and by the time he got to the end of secondary school, he knew he wanted to specialize in physics. All this time, he was carving out a particular corner of physics that fascinated him, and this was plasmas. Plasma is the fourth state of matter after solid, liquid and gas. In plasma, the electrons and ions make up a sort of soup that's super hot and always on the bubble, it's always turbulent. And this, he decided, would make a fine branch of study, because there was always the possibility that if scientists could manage to effect fusion in plasma, fusion energy could provide the world with cheap, continuous power. This was, however, an incredibly difficult thing to try to do, because plasma goes its own way and does its own thing. The plasma we're most familiar with is the solar wind and the solar flares from the sun, which just burst out, sometimes quite sharply, and cause auroras like the Northern lights and the Southern Lights and disrupt communication satellites. But also we're familiar with turbulence just by looking at the sea and the way the waves move with the water. This is something that is incredibly hard to harness to make energy. And in fact, the only way to do it in a laboratory is to use a device called a tokamak, which is a vessel which can be heated to millions of degrees inside and uses magnets to try to keep the plasma steady. By keeping it steady and at one controlled temperature, there's always the hope that fusion might occur. But in fact, plasma has a mind of its own and does its own thing so that it's extremely difficult to track it. And most of Professor Lurero's life was spent trying to construct mathematical models, kinetic codes that would help him track how the plasma was behaving and see if they were making any progress towards keeping it steady. He fitted right in. At mit, he was rather an elegant character. He didn't wear jeans and a T shirt like a lot of the researchers there. He wore rather stylish jackets and looked quite owlish in his glasses and still had traces of a British accent from the time he'd spent at Imperial. And he was well known as a teacher because he was absolutely Fizzing with energy and love of his subject, he'd walk into a class and immediately start chalking numbers on the board. And he would challenge his students to try to be the best they possibly could be, and not to simply tackle easy problems, but to tackle the hardest possible things, because with plasma physics, that's what they were going to have to do. And he was especially keen on an essay by Albert Camus called the Myth of Sisyphus, which told the story of the Greek king in Greek mythology who was condemned by Zeus to push a boulder up a hill and see it roll down every time. He felt that Sisyphus, even if he kept failing, was still aiming for the heights and was still a happy man and a model to be emulated. In his class. There was another student who no one knows whether he particularly noticed, who was called Claudio Manuel Neves Valente. He was a brilliant student, rather a quiet chap. He was there the whole time that Professor Lurero was there, and he was the top of the class. Nulo Lurero graduated with a 16 out of 20 average, but Valente graduated with a 19 out of 20 average, an extraordinary amount. And he went on to Brown University. But then after a few months there, he seemed to drop out and disappear. Meanwhile, of course, Nuno LouisLourero was taking MIT by storm with his experiment. When Valente next appeared, it was on December 13 last year when he suddenly appeared at Brown University, killed two people and injured nine. After that, still on the run, he appeared in Brookline, Massachusetts, which was where Nuno Lurero was living, and pumped several bullets into him and then fled away and eventually killed himself in another state. There were many motives suggested for the killing of Nuno Lurero. Perhaps it was just professional jealousy, but his very own work suggested a different thought. All over the universe, wherever plasma was, and it was almost the entire universe, there were bound to be turbulences and explosions which could not be explained and which could not be controlled.

[Jason Palmer]

Ann Ro on Nuno Loreiru, who's died aged 47. That's all for this episode of the Intelligence. The show's editors are Chris Impey and Jack Gill. Our deputy editor is Sarah Lornjuk and our sound designer is Will Rowe. Our senior producers are Rory Galloway and Henrietta McFarlane, and our senior creators. Executive producer is William Warren. Our producers are Jonathan Day and Anne Hanna, and our assistant producer is Kunal Patel, with extra production help this week from Emily Elias and Benji Guy. We'll all see you back here tomorrow for the weekend. Intelligence. This week we'll be looking at how much has changed when it comes to how nations honor their fallen soldiers. The idea of no man left behind and everyone getting a proper burial is kind of new. From Vietnam to Washington, we look at the ever evolving efforts to pay respect to those who have paid the ultimate price.