For Iran, another US–Israeli attack would be an 'existential war'

January27, 2026
Seyed Hossein Mousavian

Tehran will respond in a way that eliminates any incentive for restraint, unleashing a conflict that would be impossible to control

Iran is facing a crisis unlike any it has seen in decades. Between domestic unrest, economic instability and heightened tensions with the US and Israel, Tehran is navigating a perilous landscape with profound regional and global implications.
The United States has carried out a major military build-up around Iran, deploying additional naval forces, aircraft, and support assets amid escalating tensions. As one of the most significant US military concentrations near Iran in decades, the move is widely viewed as preparation for a potential confrontation and has drawn sharp warnings from Tehran.
In the first year of his second term, US President Donald Trump has pursued a regime-change strategy in Iran.
Last June, Israel launched a dramatic military campaign based on a strategy known as “top-down government collapse, bottom-up uprising”. Israeli and American planners assumed that by assassinating top Iranian political, military, security and nuclear officials, the population would embrace regime change and flood the streets.
They further assumed that by targeting Iran’s missile capabilities, they would prevent any counterattack, paving the way for a rapid collapse. The June strikes killed dozens of senior Iranian officials, yet the population largely rallied behind the government.
Iran retaliated with hundreds of missile and drone attacks against Israel, delivering significant counterblows. Analysts now agree that these two factors were decisive in the failure of the 2025 operation.
In response, Trump authorised strikes on three key Iranian nuclear facilities, potentially delaying Iran’s nuclear breakout by several years. A temporary ceasefire followed, primarily aimed at protecting Israel from further Iranian missile attacks.
By the end of 2025, however, economic grievances had ignited a new wave of protests, as merchants in Tehran took to the streets to decry the rial’s collapse and soaring living costs. The unrest quickly spread to other cities.
Hijacking protests
This environment created an opportunity for the US and Israel to deploy Plan B, whose strategy could be summarised as “bottom-up uprising, top-down military assault”.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi accused Israeli-affiliated networks of infiltrating the protests, engaging in sabotage, targeted attacks and acts of violence to escalate clashes and increase casualties.
Trump indicated that a surge in civilian deaths could justify US military intervention. Casualties among security forces and protesters were significantly higher than in previous rounds of unrest.
But the US-Israeli strategy to hijack the protests ultimately failed. Public revulsion against violent infiltrators prompted hundreds of thousands of people to join a government-organised rally in the second week of January, signalling opposition to foreign interference. Iranian security forces dismantled internal networks, cut off external communications, and arrested thousands of people, forcing a US retreat from direct military action.
The next potential phase of the US-Israeli strategy may involve an attempt to remove Iran’s top leader - a scenario inviting comparisons to the recent operation in Venezuela.
Trump has publicly stated that the time has come to remove Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, while Republican Senator Lindsey Graham has likened the Iranian regime to the Nazis, noting on X (formerly Twitter): “We cannot allow this historic moment to pass … The downfall of the ayatollah and his regime would be on par with the fall of the Berlin Wall.”
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has warned against such a move, vowing that “an attack on the great leader of our country is tantamount to a full-scale war with the Iranian nation”.
Moreover, US-based pro-Israel hawks have suggested that rather than launching a full-scale invasion, President Trump should revive a 1979 proposal by Admiral James "Ace" Lyons, which calls for seizing Iran’s Kharg oil terminal - responsible for roughly 90 percent of its oil exports - as a way to economically cripple the country and potentially force regime change.
Risk of destabilisation
Several factors will shape Iran’s trajectory in the days and months ahead. The first is domestic governance and social cohesion. Economic hardship, unemployment, corruption and deep social divides remain the primary sources of public unrest.
While the government has regained control for the time being, simmering dissatisfaction could reignite large-scale protests. Political fragmentation among Iran’s four main currents - conservatives, reformists, moderates and nationalists - complicates national cohesion, making broad-based reform and unity essential to long-term stability.
The people of Iran cannot withstand the escalating trend of rising prices and inflation. The most important factor is thus how Iran’s ruling establishment can contain the economic crisis and improve people’s living conditions in the face of crippling US sanctions.
Moreover, the thousands killed and injured in the January 2026 unrest have left thousands of Iranian families in mourning, dealing a devastating blow to the people’s psyche.
The second factor is the US-Israeli drive for regime change. Unchecked hostility from both nations, combined with punishing sanctions, creates an unprecedented level of external pressure on Iran. Trump’s overt calls for regime change in Tehran mark a historic escalation in decades of bilateral relations.
These pressures not only threaten Iran’s security, but also risk destabilising the wider region. It remains to be seen whether Trump will enter into negotiations with Iran for a mutually satisfactory, face-saving deal, while distancing himself from Israel’s policies - or whether he will continue the “surrender or war” approach.
The third factor that will shape Iran’s trajectory involves the capabilities of US allies in the region. Crucially, US-aligned Arab states - including Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Oman and Qatar - have opposed military intervention in Iran, amid fears of regional escalation and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s vision of an ever-expanding “Greater Israel”.
Will Muslim countries allied with the US be able to prevent another war and facilitate a deal with Iran, or will Israel’s ambitions prevail?
The way forward
The fourth factor amid this backdrop, Iran has strengthened ties with Russia and China, joining the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and Brics.
This alignment seeks to provide Tehran with military, economic and political support against western destabilisation efforts, creating a new axis of geopolitical tensions. This will serve as a critical test of Iran’s "pivot to the East" policy, with far-reaching implications for the future of the region.
Last but not least, several of Iran’s key regional allies, often referred to as the "Axis of Resistance", have publicly warned that they would enter a wider conflict if the United States or Israel attacks Iran. Lebanon’s Hezbollah leadership has expressed it would not remain neutral.
Yemen's Iranian-backed Houthi government hinted it was ready to resume attacks on shipping in the Red Sea. Moreover, Iraq's Kataib Hezbollah paramilitary group issued a direct threat in response to any attack targeting Iran, warning a "total war" in the region would be a result.
This suggests that, unlike earlier conflicts where Tehran’s regional allies stayed largely on the sidelines, an attack on Iran now risks activating parts of the "Axis of Resistance" in a wider war.
Some American and European experts told me that Trump has made his decision to carry out a new attack on Iran.
This moment is a "bloody pause" before a potential "regional explosion". For Iran, a next US–Israeli attack would be an “existential war”, eliminating any incentive for restraint and unleashing a conflict that would be impossible to control.
If catastrophe is to be avoided, President Trump must rethink a “surrender-driven strategy” and move toward a "broad, face-saving deal" with Iran - ending 47 years of confrontation before the region is pushed into irreversible war.

 How Israel and the US are exploiting Iranian protests

January 13, 2026

Hamid Dabashi

Genuine rage over economic stagnation is being manipulated to serve western political ends

Since protests erupted across Iran late last year, more than 500 people have been killed, according to data from the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (Hrana), which has been cited by major media outlets worldwide.

The agency reports that most of the dead were protesters, alongside more than 45 members of Iran’s security forces.

While Hrana and western media are not totally reliable sources in this regard, it has nonetheless become apparent that a significant new cycle of protest is unfolding inside Iran. 

BBC Persian in particular appears to be on a UK state-sponsored mission to exaggerate the extent of these protests. It systematically ignores a significant part of the Iranian population that both disagrees with state policies, but refuses to take its cues from Israel or its unleashed stooge, Reza Pahlavi. 

This is yet another example of UK soft power in service of Israel. BBC Persian’s obsessive coverage of the Iranian protests is deeply intertwined with its policy of pathologically ignoring Israel’s genocide in Palestine.   

While Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has publicly acknowledged the ongoing protests, he has noted that there must be a distinction between those who have legitimate economic grievances against the state, and those who are taking advantage of the movement to promote other nefarious goals, such as regime change and the disintegration of Iran. That is the Israeli project.   

By all accounts, this new cycle of protests is both genuine, and heavily manipulated, at the same time. 

Economic crisis

On the first point, the protests are rooted in the deep economic crisis Iran has experienced for decades. These economic troubles are due to two complementary factors: internal state corruption and incompetence, and crippling external sanctions imposed by the US and other countries. As a recent Financial Times headline aptly summarised: “Iran’s currency ‘turns to ash’ as economy spirals.” 

At the same time, this particular crisis is mostly (but not entirely) a manufactured distraction led by Israel and the US. Once again, they are targeting a dysfunctional state - like Lebanon, Syria, Yemen or Venezuela - to sustain themselves in power and distract global attention from the still-unfolding genocide in Gaza. 

Iranians have every right and reason to protest their harsh and untenable economic and political conditions. The impoverished and disappearing middle class has endured extreme hardships, as the working class breaks down under unfathomable deprivation. 

But Israel’s focus on Iran today is triggered by multiple factors. First and foremost, it is a diversionary tactic, aimed at shifting global attention from the ongoing Israeli genocide of Palestinians, and the state’s systematic theft of what remains of the occupied West Bank.

Tel Aviv thinks that the more regional chaos and confusion it generates, the faster the world will forget and move on from the Gaza genocide. 

The second, related objective is the disintegration of Iran into smaller ethnic states, similar to Israel’s designs for other regional countries, such as Lebanon and Syria. Tel Aviv wants to remake the whole region in its own image - that of a garrison state. Its wicked recognition of “Somaliland” is a blueprint for this scenario. 

The issue of the Iranian nuclear programme is a red herring. There was a nuclear agreement between Iran and the outside world, crafted under the Obama administration.

Israel consistently opposed that deal, including through its fifth column inside the US, Aipac. Working against the best interests of both the US and Iran, President Donald Trump swiftly dismantled it upon taking office. Israel is thus primarily responsible for the absence of a nuclear deal between Iran and the outside world. 

Crippling sanctions

Meanwhile, the US remains chiefly responsible for using crippling sanctions as a weapon against Iran’s ruling elite and impoverished masses alike. 

Two reasons underpin the sanctions: trumped-up concerns about Iran’s nuclear programme, and American-European pressure on Tehran to assume a less belligerent and more pro-Israel stance in the region. 

The fact that Israel, while posing as the most ardent nemesis of Iran’s ruling Islamic Republic, is itself a nuclear power engaged in a multi-front battle against its neighbours - particularly against Palestinians, who are trapped in their own homeland - is of course missing from this reading of the region. 

Compared with past waves of unrest, the current protests have not yet reached the scale, significance or authenticity of the 2022 Women, Life, Freedom uprising. That seminal and iconic event is still a matter of scholarly conversations, but the fact that it was an event of colossal significance, precisely because it was led by women, remains undisputed.

The current protests are exceptionally violent, and are certainly not led by women. The Mahsa Amini uprising was perhaps the last genuine, homegrown and authentic protest movement in modern Iranian history - one with global significance. 

In contrast, the latest protests are irredeemably polluted by Mossad agents, with mosques set ablaze to enrage and agitate, giving a pretext for Islamophobic commentary from the likes of JK Rowling. 

The protests are also marred by fake news, which Israel has long employed in an attempt to dismantle the Iranian government for its own ends. According to investigations by Haaretz, TheMarker and Citizen Lab, Israeli hasbara is actively engaged in manufacturing support for Reza Pahlavi, the demented son of the last Pahlavi monarch.

Top Israeli officials continuously encourage revolt against the Iranian state, even as such instigations discredit the resulting unrest. Still, aspects of the latest demonstrations are real and potentially consequential. 

State survival

The Iranian state is now in survival mode. But wrestling with one crisis after another is in the DNA of the Islamic Republic; it basks in them.

In the aftermath of the June US-Israeli attacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities and other civilian targets, the state will ruthlessly crack down on these protests, and it will not hesitate to bring the battle to US regional bases and directly to Israel. The first exchange of missiles in this context will suddenly and radically change the scenario.   

In the meantime, the protests appear to be unfolding in a blind fury. The state has either detained or forced into exile all legitimate and reasonable voices that could have led these demonstrations in the best interests of the nation.

In the absence of peaceful and legitimate options - figures like Mir Hossein Mousavi, Zahra Rahnavard, Mohammad Khatami, Mostafa Tajzadeh or Abolfazl Qadiani - the space is open for illegitimate and opportunistic pro-Pahlavi monarchists and the Mojahedin-e-Khalq, neither of which have any meaningful popular base inside Iran.

And as western media outlets like the BBC and Wall Street Journal continue to manufacture a popular base for the Zionist stooge Pahlavi, the Iranian state is expecting an attack by the US, as Trump has threatened, or Israel, or both.

While the protests started at least in part from inside, former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is on record as saying that Mossad agents have been involved. It’s not clear whether this is genuine, or a psy-op gimmick aiming to unnerve Iranian authorities; either way, it muddies the waters.   

At its core, this movement is not a revolution, but an attempted disinformation coup crudely masterminded by the US and Israel. Modelled on the CIA-MI6 coup of 1953 against an elected prime minister, the Americans can provide the military might, while the British, through outlets like BBC Persian, can supply the fake news. 

The uprising began for real and legitimate reasons, but Israel is trying to hijack it. Just as it stole Palestine to make room for its garrison state, and stole Judaism to justify Zionism, Israel is now attempting to steal another country’s social uprising. All it has achieved is to completely discredit otherwise legitimate protests grounded in the economic and political wellbeing of an entire nation.