Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Araghchi said the government was in full control, as authorities carry out their most severe repression of protests in years. “After three days of terrorist operation, now there is a calm. We are in full control,” Araghchi told US broadcaster Fox News’ “Special Report” program.
Denmark’s foreign minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen and Greenland’s foreign minister Vivian Motzfeldt met the US vice-president JD Vance for talks in Washington. Following the meeting, Rasmussen told a news conference: “I know very well that the future is not about the past, but I think it is important to have the past in mind. We are eager to fulfil our promises. Even though our view on the situation right now around Greenland differs from public statements in the US, we want to work closely with the US, but it must be of course a respectful kind of cooperation.” Rasmussen said the two ministers told their US counterparts that “it is not easy to think innovative[ly] about solutions when you wake up every morning to different threats.” Rasmussen said it was a constructive meeting with the US, but admitted “we didn’t manage to change the US position” so far. “It’s clear that the president has this wish of conquering Greenland, and we made it very, very clear that this is not in the interest of the Kingdom [of Denmark].” France is expected to join the new European military mission to Greenland, Agence France-Presse reported. Germany said it would deploy a 13-strong Bunderwehr reconnaissance team to “explore the framework conditions for possible military contributions to support Denmark in ensuring security in the region”, the German defence ministry said, quoted by AFP. The European parliament leaders issued a statement declaring their “firm” support for Denmark, Greenland and the rules-based international as they “unequivocally” condemned the US ambition to control the semi-autonomous territory. They stressed that “any attempt to undermine the sovereignty and the territorial integrity of Denmark and Greenland, violates international law and the United Nations Charter.” They added that “the security of the Arctic is a strategic priority for the European Union, and we are firmly committed to safeguarding it,” calling for “reinforcing European defence capabilities” to ensure security in the Arctic region.
Donald Trump remains intent on “conquering” Greenland, the Danish foreign minster has said, as crucial talks with US officials failed to solve a “fundamental disagreement” that has led to unprecedented tensions between Washington and a Nato ally. It is “absolutely not necessary” for the US to seize Greenland, a largely self-governing part of the Danish kingdom, the Danish foreign minster, Lars Løkke Rasmussen, said late on Wednesday. “We didn’t manage to change the American position. It’s clear that the president has this wish of conquering Greenland. And we made it very, very clear that this is not in the interest of the kingdom.” Rasmussen urged Washington to engage in “respectful” cooperation over the Arctic island that is controlled by Copenhagen. In a signal of European support, France, Germany and Norway have all said they would contribute troops to a multinational force led by Denmark that would lead to “an increased military presence in and around Greenland, comprising aircraft, vessels and soldiers, including from Nato allies”, the Danish defence ministry has said in a statement. The two sides did agree to create a working group to discuss ways to work through differences as Trump continues to call for a US takeover of the semi-autonomous territory of Nato ally Denmark. “The group, in our view, should focus on how to address the American security concerns, while at the same time respecting the red lines of the Kingdom of Denmark,” Rasmussen told reporters after joining Greenland’s foreign minister, Vivian Motzfeldt, for the talks. The closely watched talks on Trump’s demands to take over Greenland ended in Washington after nearly an hour. The vice-president, JD Vance, and secretary of state, Marco Rubio, hosted the foreign ministers of Denmark and Greenland on Wednesday in what observers worried could be an ambush meant to pressure the Danes into ceding the territory under US economic and military pressure. Earlier, Trump said it would be “unacceptable” for Greenland to be “in the hands” of any country other than the US, reiterating his demand to take over the island hours before the high-stakes talks on its future. “The US needs Greenland for the purpose of national security. Nato should be leading the way for us to get it,” the US president said on social media. The alliance would become “far more formidable and effective” with the territory under US control, he claimed. “It is vital for the Golden Dome that we are building,” he said, referring to a proposed missile defence system. Expert reports suggested it could cost the US as much as $700bn (£520bn) to take over the territory, according to US media, and European officials have played down the likelihood of a direct American attack to take control of the island. As the two sides met, the Danish defence minister, Troels Lund Poulsen, said the country would establish a “more permanent” and larger military presence in Greenland and that it was “highly hypothetical” the US would launch an attack to take the territory. During the talks, the White House continued its social media offensive against its Nato ally, depicting two dogsleds headed toward either the US or Russia and China, with the caption: “Which way, Greenland man?” Trump had previously said Denmark’s defence of the territory was composed of “two dogsleds”. Trump first raised the idea of a takeover of Greenland in 2019, during his first term, but has ramped up his rhetoric significantly since returning to the White House last year, saying the US would take it “one way or the other”. He has jolted the EU and Nato by refusing to rule out military force to seize the strategically important, mineral-rich island, which is covered by many of the protections offered by the two organisations because Denmark belongs to both. Rasmussen and Motzfeldt initially sought the talks with Rubio but the meeting took place at the White House after Vance asked to attend and then to host the talks. Greenland and Denmark have repeatedly pointed out that a 1951 bilateral agreement already allowed the US to massively expand its military presence on the island. Several EU leaders have backed Denmark, pledging their support for its territorial integrity and right to self-determination. The president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, said on Wednesday that the island “belongs to its people”. “For me, it’s important that the Greenlanders know and they know this by the deeds, not only by the words, that we respect the wishes of the Greenlanders and their interests and that they can count on us,” she said in Brussels. France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, said that if “the sovereignty of an EU country and ally were to be affected, the knock-on effects would be unprecedented”. France would “act in full solidarity with Denmark and its sovereignty”, he said. Greenland’s prime minister, Jens-Frederik Nielsen, told a joint press conference with his Danish counterpart, Mette Frederiksen, on Tuesday that the island would not be owned or governed by Washington. “If we have to choose between the US and Denmark here and now, we choose Denmark, Nato and the EU,” Nielsen said, adding that Greenland’s “goal and desire is peaceful dialogue, with a focus on cooperation”. Frederiksen said it had not been easy for Denmark to “stand up to completely unacceptable pressure from our closest ally” but the fact was that “borders cannot be changed by force, and that small countries should not fear large countries”. A Reuters/Ipsos poll on Wednesday found just 17% of Americans approved of Trump’s efforts to take over Greenland and that substantial majorities of both Democrats and Republicans opposed using military force to annex the island. Only 4%, including just one in 10 Republicans and almost no Democrats, said military force would be a “good idea”.
The US has announced the start of the second phase of the Gaza ceasefire, including the creation of a committee of Palestinian technocrats who are supposed to take over the day-to-day running of the territory for a transition period. The announcement was made on social media by Donald Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, but it lacked any detail or names of potential members of the proposed “national committee for the administration of Gaza”. The committee is not expected to begin work until mandated by a “peace board” chaired by Trump, which has yet to be created. Witkoff said the second phase would begin the “full demilitarisation and reconstruction of Gaza, primarily the disarmament of all unauthorised personnel”. The first phase of the ceasefire plan began on 10 October, with the exchange of Israeli hostages held by Hamas and its allies for Palestinian detainees held by Israel. Israeli forces withdrew to a yellow truce line that left them in control of most of the territory. The Israeli bombardment of Gaza diminished but has not ceased. About 450 Palestinians have been killed since the ceasefire began. No agreement has been reached on disarming Hamas. Two groups representing Israeli former hostages and their families had urged the US not to declare the start of the second phase of the ceasefire until the remains of the last hostage yet to be accounted for, Ran Gvili, had been returned by Hamas. Hamas has said it has so far been unable to find Gvili’s body. “The US expects Hamas to comply fully with its obligations, including the immediate return of the final deceased hostage,” Witkoff said. “Failure to do so will bring serious consequences.” Though Witkoff did not provide any details of the proposed Palestinian interim committee, the Egyptian foreign minister, Badr Abdelatty, announced a few hours earlier that an agreement had been reached on all of its 15 members. Abdelatty said the committee would be “deployed to the Gaza Strip to manage daily life and essential services”. The members are expected to be technocrats rather than politicians, but some are believed to have affiliation with the Fatah party, which is dominant in the Palestinian Authority. Two candidates touted as potential heads are Ali Shaath, a former deputy minister of planning in the Palestinian Authority, and Majed Abu Ramadan, the PA health minister. According to diplomats in the region, the work of the Palestinian transitional committee will be overseen by Nickolay Mladenov, a veteran Bulgarian and UN diplomat who has been touring the region holding talks with Israeli and Palestinian officials. Mladenov served as the UN envoy for the Middle East peace process from early 2015 until the end of 2020 and is widely respected across the region. Mladenov in turn would report to Trump’s peace board, which is expected to comprise a group of world leaders. US officials said its membership would be announced in the next few days. Discussions in Cairo on the second phase are said to have also focused on the further withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza, the reopening of the Rafah crossing between Egypt and Gaza and the entry of aid stockpiled on the Egyptian side of the border – as well as a general increase in the flow of goods and aid entering Gaza.
Venezuela’s acting president has claimed that the regime’s release of political prisoners sent a “very clear message” that the country was “opening up to a new political moment”, days after the seizure and rendition of the dictator Nicolás Maduro. Delcy Rodríguez also vowed to continue the releases and accused NGOs that have described the process as slow and opaque of “lying to the world and trying to sell falsehoods about Venezuela”. “The message is very clear: it is a Venezuela opening up to a new political moment that allows understanding amid divergence and ideological political diversity,” said Rodríguez in a speech alongside her brother – whom many believe is in effect running the country with her – the congressional president, Jorge Rodríguez, and the interior minister, Diosdado Cabello, who oversees the regime’s repression. Rodríguez, who had served as vice-president until Maduro’s capture but was kept in power by Donald Trump, added, however, that dissent would only be allowed “with respect for human rights”. “Messages of hatred, intolerance and acts of violence will not be permitted,” she said. She then went on to attack NGOs working with political prisoners, alleging – without providing evidence – that “well-known organisations” were charging detainees’ families for their services. Although Rodríguez did not name any groups, her brother had the previous day explicitly singled out Foro Penal, the highly regarded organisation that estimates there are still about 800 political prisoners in Venezuela and has repeatedly said its work is carried out on a voluntary basis. Many in the country also warn that, despite efforts by the regime to appear more open after the seizure and rendition of Maduro, repression continues, with residents still having their mobile phones searched by armed militias on the streets and afraid to engage in any form of public protest. Local media reported that 15 teenagers were detained on 5 January for “celebrating” Maduro’s capture in the city of Barcelona, about 300km (186 miles) from the capital, Caracas. After a local backlash, the teenagers were released on Tuesday. Since the unprecedented US ground attack on a South American country, a state of emergency has been in force in Venezuela, ordering the “immediate search and capture of anyone involved in the promotion or support of the US armed attack”. “This kind of power reshuffle produces so much administrative chaos and a lack of a clear chain of command,” said Zair Mundaray, the former Venezuelan senior prosecutor. “[The regime] is seeking to project a very civic image, releasing some people, while others are being jailed at the same time,” he added. On Tuesday, Jorge Rodríguez said that the regime was carrying out a “mass process of releases” that he claimed already amounted to more than 400 people – on Wednesday, his sister said the figure had reached 406 – a figure that includes two rounds of releases carried out before Maduro’s capture, on Christmas Day and New Year’s Day. NGOs monitoring political detentions, however, say fewer releases have so far been independently verified. The organisation Justicia, Encuentro y Perdón, for example, confirmed only 157 of the 186 releases announced earlier, and 100 of the 116 that Rodríguez claimed had taken place since last week. NGOs estimate that there are still close to 1,000 political prisoners in Venezuela and are demanding the release of all of them, fully and without conditions. Charges remain in place against many of those who have so far been freed, who are also barred from making public statements. A US state department spokesperson said in a brief statement on Tuesday: “We welcome the release of detained Americans in Venezuela. This is an important step in the right direction by the interim authorities.” There was no confirmation, however, of how many US citizens were released, although the number is estimated to be at least four. In posts on his social media accounts, Trump said the release of prisoners had led him to cancel a second wave of attacks. Last Saturday, he wrote: “I hope those prisoners will remember how lucky they got that the USA came along and did what had to be done. I HOPE THEY NEVER FORGET! If they do, it will not be good for them.” Meanwhile, Reuters reported that the White House had filed for court warrants to seize dozens more tankers linked to Venezuela’s oil trade, though it remains unclear how many seizure warrants the US has sought and how many it has already obtained. The US military and coast guard have seized five vessels in recent weeks in international waters that were either carrying Venezuelan oil or had done so in the past. On Thursday, Donald Trump is due to receive Venezuela’s main opposition leader and Nobel peace prize winner, María Corina Machado, at the White House. Many had expected her to take charge of the country after Maduro’s fall, but she was sidelined by the US president, who instead chose to keep the former dictator’s entire cabinet in place. Bloomberg reported that the acting president, Rodríguez, will send a representative to Washington – on the same day as Machado’s visit – to meet senior US officials: Félix Plasencia, the current head of mission at the Venezuelan embassy in London and a former foreign minister. Venezuela and the US resumed talks last week on reopening embassies in both countries. Also in an apparent effort to appear more open, Rodríguez and the powerful interior minister, Diosdado Cabello – who controls much of the regime’s apparatus of repression – returned to X on Tuesday, more than a year after Maduro censored the social media platform. It remains unclear whether the ban has been lifted for all Venezuelans, who had been forced to use VPNs to access the social media platform.
A family member of Erfan Soltani, the first Iranian protester sentenced to death, has said they have no idea if he’s still alive after the deadline for his execution passed with no word from the authorities. Soltani, a 26-year-old clothing shop employee, was arrested in Karaj, a city north-west of Tehran, last Thursday after participating in protests and was due to be executed on Wednesday, according to rights groups. Since his arrest, the family have received little news about his condition besides a brief, scheduled visit before his expected execution. “I don’t know if he’s alive or dead. I spoke to his [nuclear] family yesterday and all I know is that they were trying to visit him in prison. I haven’t slept in two days,” said Somayeh, a 45-year-old close relative of Erfan’s who lives abroad. Somayeh and other members of the family anxiously stayed up until dawn waiting to hear news, knowing that Iranian authorities typically carry out executions around the morning call to prayers, but dawn came and went without any announcement about his fate. “I can’t stop thinking about Erfan. The uncertainty is killing me,” Somayeh said through tears. “How can anyone have the heart to put a rope round the neck of such a kind child and send him to die?” Soltani has become a symbol of defiance for Iranian activists as authorities intensify their crackdown on a nationwide protest movement. Rights groups say they fear there are many other cases like Soltani’s that are unknown due to an internet blackout in Iran, but that his case highlights the speed at which authorities are sentencing protesters. Soltani was denied access to a lawyer and legal defence, the Norway-based Hengaw Organisation for Human Rights said. More than 18,000 people have been arrested and at least 2,571 killed over the last two weeks, according to the US-based Human Rights Activists news agency (HRANA). Protests first started on 28 December after a sudden slide in the value of the country’s currency and have since spread nationwide and expanded to demands for political reforms. Rights groups have urged Iran to halt the execution of Soltani and other protesters arrested, with Amnesty International expressing fears that Iranian authorities could “once again resort to swift trials and arbitrary executions to crush and deter dissent”. Rights monitors have said Iran often sentences protesters in trials that last minutes. Soltani was given the death penalty just four days after his arrest – a time period that Iranian human rights activists say deprived him of due process. Iran’s chief justice signalled on Wednesday that trials and executions would be swift, telling state media: “We should do it now” to have an effect on protesters. Other judicial officials said protesters would be charged as “enemies of God”, a crime that can be met with the death penalty. Last year, Iran hanged at least 1,500 people, according to the Norway-based group Iran Human Rights. Soltani told his family that he had received a call from Iranian intelligence a few hours before his arrest, which he ignored. Despite threats from security services, he continued to join protests. Somayeh said: “Our Erfan is a kid who is innocent and peacefully wants to exercise his rights. That’s all he did. Joined his compatriots to peacefully protest.” Soltani works in a clothing shop and is passionate about fashion, fitness and Persepolis FC, a Tehran football club. His family described him as “the most loving brother” and his “mother’s best friend”. Somayeh said: “He is someone so dear to my heart, a brave child, a child who would never resort to violence, an incredibly calm and wonderful soul who means more to me than I can put into words. Please, world, help save our child.”
The US and UK have evacuated some personnel from a military base in Qatar amid concerns Washington might soon launch military action against Iran, which Tehran has warned would trigger retaliatory strikes. A US official told Reuters and the Associated Press on Wednesday that the withdrawal was a precaution, while diplomats said that some forces had been advised to leave al-Udeid base in Qatar. Iran struck al-Udeid in June after the US hit nuclear enrichment facilities in Iran, though the strike was telegraphed and largely symbolic. The UK is also withdrawing staff from the US military base in Qatar, the Guardian understands. Iranian officials have warned the US not to intervene in nationwide protests as Donald Trump reviews options for a strike on the country. The US president had previously promised to “rescue protesters” if Iranian authorities carried on killing them. A senior Iranian official said that Iran had told regional countries that host US bases, such as Saudi Arabia and Turkey, it would attack those bases in the event of a US strike. Israeli assessments, according to Reuters, indicate that Trump has decided to intervene in Iran, but it is unclear what form or scale military action could take. Defying Trump’s threat, the Iranian government has signalled that detained protesters will face speedy trials and executions. Iran’s judicial chief, Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei, told state media: “If we want to do a job, we should do it now. If we want to do something, we have to do it quickly. If it becomes late, two months, three months later, it doesn’t have the same effect. If we want to do something, we have to do that fast.” Human rights groups have warned that executions of protesters could take place soon. A 26-year-old protester, Erfan Soltani, was slated to face execution on Wednesday, the first anti-government demonstrator to be given a death sentence. It was unclear whether the execution had gone ahead or not, as authorities typically carry out death penalties at dawn. “I am in complete shock, I keep feeling as if I am in a dream,” Somayeh, a relative of Soltani, told CNN. “People trusted Trump’s words and came to the streets. I beg you, please do not let Erfan be executed.” Trump warned on Tuesday that the US would take “very strong action” if executions of protesters began. “If they do such a thing, we will take very strong action,” Trump told CBS News in an interview broadcast on Tuesday night, hours before the US president was due to be briefed on the scale of casualties inside Iran. Neighbouring countries to Iran, including Turkey, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, have reportedly discouraged the US from intervening in Iran, warning that doing so could ignite a “full-scale war”. That war would “certainly” have severe consequences “not only on the Middle East but on the global economy”, a Cairo-based diplomat told the Associated Press, pointing to a potential response by Iranian-backed militias across the region. A western official also told Reuters that while the unrest in Iran was happening on an unprecedented scale, the government did not seem likely to collapse and Iran’s security apparatus seemed firmly in control. The death toll in Iran has soared as authorities have carried out a brutal crackdown, with 2,571 people killed and more than 18,100 people arrested, according to the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA). Already, the death toll from the two-week protest movement dwarfs any other in Iran since its 1979 revolution. Protesters said there was a heavy security force on Wednesday as authorities carried out a mass funeral for 100 security forces killed in demonstrations. Tens of thousands of government supporters attended the funeral near Tehran University carrying pictures of the Iranian supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and waving the Iranian flag. A presenter chanted as mourners gathered by trucks laden with Iranian-flag draped caskets, stacked three rows high. “All of our problems are because of America, today’s economic problems are because of American sanctions. Death to America!” the presenter yelled. Amnesty International highlighted Soltani’s case and said there were concerns that Iranian authorities might “once again resort to swift trials and arbitrary executions to crush and deter dissent”. Last year, Iran hanged at least 1,500 people, the Norway-based Iran Human Rights group said. Soltani was arrested in Karaj on Thursday, a city on the north-west outskirts of Tehran, at the peak of the protests before the internet blackout. Trump told CBS he was aware a “pretty substantial number” of people had been killed during demonstrations. Iranian state television has offered the first official acknowledgment of the deaths, quoting an official saying the country had “a lot of martyrs”. On Tuesday evening, the state department warned US citizens to leave Iran immediately. Other western countries issued similar travel warnings. In his CBS interview, Trump was asked about the hangings reportedly set to begin in Iran on Wednesday and what he meant by “we will take very strong action”. The president referenced the recent US strikes on Venezuela and the 2019 killing of the then Islamic State leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. “We don’t want to see what’s happening in Iran happen … When they start killing thousands of people. And now you’re telling me about hanging. We’ll see how that works out for them. It’s not going to work out good,” he said. Earlier, Trump had posted a message of support to protesters on Truth Social. “Iranian Patriots, KEEP PROTESTING - TAKE OVER YOUR INSTITUTIONS!!!” he wrote. “Save the names of the killers and abusers. They will pay a big price. I have cancelled all meetings with Iranian Officials until the senseless killing of protesters STOPS. HELP IS ON ITS WAY.” In response, Iran’s UN mission said Washington’s “playbook” would “fail again”. The statement posted on X said: “US fantasies and policy toward Iran are rooted in regime change, with sanctions, threats, engineered unrest, and chaos serving as the modus operandi to manufacture a pretext for military intervention.” Iranian authorities claimed they had regained control of the country after successive nights of mass protests nationwide since Thursday, relaying messages to foreign counterparts that protests had been quelled. After authorities severed communications during the crackdown, Iranians were on Tuesday able to make phone calls abroad for the first time in days. Security service personnel have apparently been searching for Starlink satellite internet terminals, as people in northern Tehran reported authorities raiding apartment buildings with satellite dishes. While satellite television dishes are illegal, many in the capital have them in homes, and officials had broadly given up on enforcing the law in recent years. Activists said on Wednesday that Starlink was offering free service in Iran. Meanwhile, Iranian state media have aired at least 97 confessions from protesters since 28 December, according to HRANA. The group said testimony it had collected from those released showed these confessions were coerced, often after torture. The group says such coerced confessions can lead to severe consequences, including state executions. With Associated Press and Reuters
When asked to predict whether fissures are appearing at the top of the Iranian state that may imply Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s days as supreme leader are numbered, western diplomats adopt a haunted demeanour, perhaps recalling one of western diplomacy’s greatest collective disasters. Before the fall of the Shah of Iran in January 1979, insouciant diplomats based in Tehran were sending cables to their capitals offering total reassurance that Mohammad Reza Pahlavi’s hold on power was utterly secure. In September 1978, the US Defence Intelligence Agency, for instance, reported that “the shah is expected to remain actively in power over the next 10 years”. A state department report suggested “the shah would not have to stand down until 1985 at the earliest”. Sir Anthony Parsons, then the UK ambassador in Tehran, sent a message to the Foreign Office dated May 1978 saying: “I do not believe there is a serious risk of an overthrow of the regime while the shah is at the helm.” Parsons later wrote an anguished book asking whether as British ambassador he could “have anticipated that the forces of opposition to the shah – the religious class, the bazaar, the students – would combine to destroy him”. He concluded that his inability to predict an event that he compared in import to the French Revolution was not due to a lack of information, but from a failure to interpret the information correctly. The experience of 1979 means the intelligence assessments now coming out of western embassies will be starting with a caveat and probably ending with a question mark. In contrast, academic experts on Iran do not see much indication today of the kind of mass defections from the regime that Reza Pahlavi, the former shah’s son, has been predicting. He recently claimed that 50,000 officers in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) were preparing to desert, a claim he has since had to revise. Vali Nasr, author of the book Iran’s Grand Strategy, told the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), a US thinktank: “There is no sign of any defections from within the regime or that it has in any way fractured. I am not certain the balance of forces necessarily lies with the protesters. Crowds win when the other side falls.” Ray Takeyh, senior fellow of Middle East studies at the CFR, agreed, saying: “This is not yet a national movement. There are a lot fence-sitters trying to figure which way they want to go. They will have to feel some degree of immunity to do as they did in 1978.” It is true that before the repression, and before the threats from Donald Trump started, evidence had emerged of differences in approach to handling the crisis, for instance, between the reformist president, Masoud Pezeshkian, and the head of the judiciary, Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Eje’i. On the third day of the protests, for example, Pezeshkian said: “Don’t go after America or blame anyone … It is we who must properly manage our problems; it is we who must find a way to solve the problems.” Even on Sunday, after the crackdown had started, he told state TV: “We hear the protesters and have made every effort to solve their problems.” As the protests spread, and became more radicalised, Pezeshkian’s strategy of self-criticism and legitimising the protests lost out to those saying this was a national security crisis. The opaque true power centres inside Iran – the 86-year-old supreme leader, the IRGC and the Supreme National Security Council – clearly decided the contrition needed to end. No one at the top of government dissented, as far as it is known. It was notable that the main person addressing the crowds in Revolution Square in Tehran on Monday was not Pezeshkian, but Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the speaker of the parliament and a former IRGC commander. Ghalibaf threatened to set the region on fire – a clear warning that if Iran was attacked, the regime regarded US bases in countries such as Qatar as legitimate targets. The foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, by contrast has spent 18 months trying to strengthen relations with Doha, Cairo and Riyadh. Mohammad Ali Shabani, the respected editor of the Amwaj website, said that historically in Iran protests had led to a regime rebalancing in favour of repression. The judiciary chief, for instance, is now calling for swift punishment of the rioters. Some of Iran’s most experienced IRGC figures, including its chief, Hossein Salami, were killed in Israel’s attacks in June, but their ethos remains. It is true that the ease of the Israeli decapitation in June meant the IRGC lost some of its prestige in society, but the new generation of leaders swiftly appointed by the supreme leader are cut from the same ideological cloth. Moreover senior figures in the government have so far cohered around the message that the security forces had no choice but to confront an Israeli-inspired insurrection. The violence that descended on Iran on Thursday and Friday is being portrayed as the 11th and 12th days of the US-Israeli attack in June. With newspapers heavily censored or unavailable, stories that challenge this narrative are not easily available to many Iranians, save through word of mouth. But if it is confirmed that about 2,000 people have been killed, this represents a qualitatively different scale of repression to previous convulsions. There is a palpable sense of shock from officials. There are also private admissions that this is an unsustainable way of governing, and the underlying issues have to be grasped even if reforms involve taking on the banks and IRGC’s dominance of the economy. It is these economic reforms that challenge Iran’s elite that may create a true split at the top of the government – which is why they have always been postponed. Takeyh warned that the status quo was no longer sustainable: “The regime has created a cycle, because the underlying causes of dissent – economic mismanagement, corruption, foreign policy disasters that have cost billions, and the lack of opportunity – cannot be addressed by the regime.” One way or another, it is this impasse, once the mourning is over, that will have to be addressed.