Chuck Wald, a retired U.S. Air Force general, was U.S. European Command deputy commander from 2002 to 2006.

As Iran erupts once again, the clerical regime has stumbled into a historic “self-own.” After decades and billions of dollars spent insisting that organized opposition has no foothold within the country, Tehran’s own propaganda apparatus is now documenting the resistance’s effectiveness in real time.

Immediately following the recent protests that swept the nation, state media — including the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-affiliated Fars News Agency, began casting blame on organized groups, specifically the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK). Fars reported that opposition leaders orchestrated a “chain of protests” via social media, with eyewitnesses describing disciplined units of activists steering crowds toward bold political slogans.

This admission validates the persistence of the “Resistance Units,” the grassroots network credited with transforming localized economic grievances in 2018 and 2019 into full-scale national uprisings. For a regime built on the myth of its own invincibility, acknowledging this organized internal threat is a desperate, if unintentional, testament to the opposition’s reach.

The regime’s failure to suppress dissent is not for lack of brutality. Under Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s 37-year tenure, the use of the gallows has reached a fever pitch. The numbers from 2025 tell a harrowing story:

• Unprecedented execution surge: In 2025 alone, the regime carried out more than 2,200 executions — a figure that more than doubles the toll from 2024.

• A bloody December: In December 2025, Tehran executed 376 people, the highest monthly total in nearly four decades.

• Expanding geography of fear: These executions were carried out across 97 different cities, a deliberate attempt to project terror into every corner of the country.

This surge is not a sign of strength, but of a “religious fascism” at an impasse. Despite the slaughter of over 750 protesters in 2022 and 1,500 in 2019, the Resistance Units have only emboldened their efforts. Their operations, ranging from the destruction of state propaganda to targeting IRGC and the paramilitary Basij facilities, are designed to shatter the wall of repression and prove that regime change is not a distant dream, but a tangible objective.

The clarity of the slogans echoing through Iranian streets today exposes the bankruptcy of the regime’s favorite diversion tactics. Cries of “Death to the oppressor, be it Shah or Leader” and “Neither crown nor turban” signal a sophisticated political consciousness. The Iranian people are not looking to trade one form of autocracy for another; they are demanding a secular, representative democracy.

This sentiment serves as a direct rebuttal to the promotion of Reza Pahlavi as a “managed” alternative. To the merchants and students currently shuttering shops and facing down water cannons, the exiled son of the deposed Shah represents a manufactured distraction, a figure with admitted “bilateral contacts” within the IRGC. The streets have made their verdict clear: the era of the monarch is as defunct as the era of the cleric.

The international community must now align itself with the reality on the ground. The platform championed by the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), anchored in free elections, the separation of religion and state, and equal rights for women and minorities, is the viable path forward.

While the ultimate task of liberation belongs to the Iranians themselves, the global community can tilt the scales. The regime should be held accountable for its deadly response to the protesters that has resulted in at least seven deaths so far. Maximum sanctions must deprive the IRGC of the resources used for internal repression, and legal action must be pursued over the “crimes against humanity” documented throughout 2025.

The clerical establishment has survived for four decades on a tripod of brutality, propaganda, and the perceived absence of an alternative. The first two remain, but the third has collapsed. By their own admission, the regime’s greatest fear has arrived: an organized, democratic resistance on the ground that refuses to be silenced.

As Maryam Rajavi, president-elect of the NCRI, observed: “The continuing uprising by merchants, students, and other sectors of society signals the Iranian people’s determination to be free from religious tyranny. This wretched regime is doomed to be overthrown by the risen populace and rebellious youth. The final word is spoken in the streets by the people and the rebellious youth — those with nothing left to lose. This regime must go.”