Iran’s Priority: Regime Survival at Any Cost

DATED 22 01 2026

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Tehran’s immediate priority remains regime continuity. Current indicators suggest the leadership is not calibrating repression downward in response to U.S. warnings; instead, it is treating external pressure as further justification to tighten control and reinforce its narrative of an externally driven crisis.

Internally, the regime is executing a coordinated containment package across security and judicial arms: IRGC/Basij and police (LEF) deployments, large-scale detentions, staged/forced confessions, severe connectivity restrictions, and accelerated Revolutionary Court processinganchored in a foreign-plot framing designed to delegitimize the protest movement and widen legal latitude for coercive measures.

Externally, Iran is regionalizing deterrence by signaling retaliatory options against U.S. basing and potential host-state enablers, aiming to raise the perceived cost of intervention and encourage Gulf partners to constrain U.S. operational freedom through de-escalatory messaging and risk management.

Analytically, the episode reinforces a standing challenge: regime endurance often reflects state capacity and elite cohesion more than public consent, while potential collapse triggers remain elusive under restricted visibility and contested information. As V for Vendetta captures the strategic relationship between rulers and the ruled, “People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people.” For assessment purposes, the key question is whether—and where—that balance of fear is measurably shifting inside Iran, and whether the state can continue to impose “normalcy” faster than the street can impose change.

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This update assesses Tehran’s response over the past week to sustained domestic unrest amid elevated external pressure. It focuses on regime decision-making, coercive instruments, information and legal warfare, and regional deterrence signaling with emphasis on indicators of regime resilience and constraints on escalation.

INTERNAL SUPPRESSION: SECURITY OPERATIONS + INFORMATION CONTROL

Actors among the rioters killed civilians and security personnel.

Senior officials backed by intensive, well-coordinated state-run outlets describe the unrest as ‘armed terror/riots’ rather than socioeconomic protest, stressing close-range shootings and sabotage attributed to infiltrators. Fars’ Telegram channel amplifies claims by the National Security Secretariat that many fatalities were ‘terrorists/rioters’ and that shooting patterns imply ‘actors among rioters’ killed civilians and security personnel.

To promote the narrative of foreign involvement in domestic protests, Iranian security forces present "evidence" of weapon seizures to validate their claims. In a video from the Fars News Agency, the authorities showcase dozens of confiscated handguns and thousands of rounds of ammunition allegedly smuggled into Khuzestan province. The official commentary explicitly links these weapons to plans for inciting "riots and instability" within Iran.

By broadcasting such footage, the Iranian state apparatus aims to achieve several strategic goals:

1. Patterns of Shooting: Regime's reports often argue that specific shooting patterns imply "actors among rioters" killed both civilians and security personnel. A core element of this narrative is stressing close-range shootings and sabotage attributed to infiltrators. IRGC-affiliated Fars’ Telegram channel consistently amplifies claims by the National Security Secretariat that many fatalities during periods of unrest were "terrorists/rioters" rather than peaceful protesters. By displaying seized weaponry like that seen in the video, the state attempts to provide a physical "smoking gun" to support the theory that protesters—or those hidden among them—are the ones responsible for the bloodshed.

   
   

2. Criminalizing Dissent: This strategy frames civil unrest as an armed insurgency orchestrated from abroad rather than a grassroots movement. By labeling the opposition as an armed threat, the Iranian regime creates a domestic and international pretext for the use of lethal force as a necessary counter-terrorism measure rather than the suppression of legitimate protest

   
   

3. Geopolitical Justification: The focus on Khuzestan, a province with a history of ethnic tensions and proximity to the Iraqi border, allows the state to blame "foreign hands" (Western or regional rivals) for providing the logistics and hardware to destabilize the Islamic Republic.

   
   

4. Deterrence: The display of "intelligence dominance" serves as a psychological warning to opposition groups that their logistics and supply lines are being monitored and neutralized.

PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE: FORCED CONFESSIONS

Forced confessions and psychological operations as a centerpiece of the crackdown

HRANA says Iranian state media aired at least 181 forced confessions cases during the current crackdown period-an unusually heavy tempo compared with how confessions were rolled out across many past protest cycles, and a clear attempt to “prove” the regime’s foreign-directed unrest narrative and justify harsher charges. The Iranian regime utilizes televised confessions as a strategic psychological weapon to de-legitimize protests and monopolize the national narrative.

By broadcasting staged admissions where detainees claim to be foreign-funded "infiltrators" or "rioters" responsible for killing civilians, the state effectively deflects accountability for its own use of lethal force. These high-production videos, amplified by IRGC-affiliated outlets like Fars and Tasnim, serve to criminalize political dissent, intimidate the public through a display of "intelligence dominance," and provide a pre-fabricated legal basis for harsh Revolutionary Court sentences, including the death penalty.

This domestic propaganda, centered on weapon seizures and forced confessions, is strategically mirrored on the international stage by high-level diplomacy; for instance, FM Abbas Araghchi utilizes these 'confessions' in briefings to foreign diplomats to provide a veneer of legitimacy to the regime’s narrative of foreign-funded sabotage

LEGAL WARFARE & JUDICIAL ACCELERATION

Building on the repeated narrative of "confessions" and foreign-funded sabotage, the Iranian regime transitions from media propaganda to a rigid legal and executive crackdown designed to crash the protest infrastructure through the following pillars:

• Judicial Criminalization of Information: The Prosecutor General’s Office has tightened the net on information flows by warning that any cooperation with Iran International—including sending footage or reporting on Iran—constitutes a criminal offense. By framing this as "cooperation with the Zionist regime," the judiciary has created a broad legal basis for mass arrests related to documentation and citizen journalism, effectively equating transparency with treason. The Prosecutor General’s Office, led by Mohammad Movahedi-Azad, has officially warned that any cooperation with Iran International—including the act of sending footage, photos, or witness reports-constitutes a criminal offense. By legally framing the network as an arm of the "Zionist regime," the state classifies citizens who document protests as collaborators with a hostile foreign state, providing a broad legal basis for mass arrests and espionage charges.

  

  
  

• Directives for Expedited Sentencing: To maximize the deterrent effect of the "confessions" shown in state media, Chief Justice Mohseni Ejei has publicly instructed the judiciary to ensure the rapid and "precise" processing of protest-related cases. This directive emphasizes the swift prosecution of both instigators and perpetrators, often bypassing standard legal safeguards to deliver immediate sentences in Revolutionary Courts.

  
  

• Executive & SNSC Security Framing:  Iranian state-run media has explicitly framed the crackdown as a coordinated, whole-of-state security operation, linking police / Faraja, Basij–IRGC, MOIS, and the judiciary, while defending severe internet restrictions as a necessary tool to disrupt “rioter/terrorist” coordination. Strategic messaging attributed to the National Security Secretariat (SNSC) highlights a seamless coordination between the police (FARAJA), the Basij/IRGC, and the Ministry of Intelligence. All argued that restricting or cutting internet access during a “security crisis” is intended to prevent rapid coordination among “rioters/looters” via messengers and social platforms (i.e., a security imperative rather than a civil rights issue).  In parallel, Tasnim has published MOIS operational updates portraying the unrest as armed terrorism, emphasizing arrests and neutralization operations, supporting the narrative basis for coordinated action across security and judicial arms.  The Foreign Ministry’s official messaging has also long emphasized separating “legitimate protest” from “rioters” who allegedly take foreign direction and act “armed,” reinforcing the state’s justification for escalated internal security measures. This unified front is used to justify severe internet restrictions, framing them as a "security imperative" to neutralize the coordinated efforts of "foreign-backed rioters" and protect the country from further "orchestrated instability."

EXTERNAL DETERRENCE & QATARI MEDIATION

Iranian threats and the Qatari role in de-escalation/deterrence

Over the past week, Tehran has escalated to a regionalized deterrence posture designed to make any U.S./Israeli strike appear not as a discrete military option but as a trigger for wider Gulf instability. Iranian messaging emphasizes that neighboring states enabling an attack (bases, airspace, logistics) will be treated as participants in the conflict, with implied retaliation against U.S. forces and critical regional nodes. This threat-based “ring deterrence” is intended to separate Washington from regional partners, constrain U.S. operational freedom, and inject immediate costs into the decision cycle—especially by spotlighting the vulnerability of U.S. assets in the Gulf.

At the same time, Iranian decision-making indicates that the prospect of a looming U.S. military strike does not constrain the regime’s internal crackdown calculus. From Tehran’s perspective, external pressure and internal unrest are treated as mutually reinforcing elements of a single hostile campaign rather than competing risks that require trade-offs.

Consequently, the leadership shows no indication of easing its heavy-handed crackdown; on the contrary, it is pressing forward with mass arrests, coercive interrogations, and information controls while projecting “business as usual” across state -run media, institutions, and economic life. Official narratives emphasize that the unrest, described as instigated and directed by the United States and Israel, has been successfully contained, allowing the regime to simultaneously deter external intervention and reassert full internal control without concession to protester demands.

Qatar is central to this strategy because it hosts Al-Udeid, the largest U.S. base in the region. Reuters reported that some personnel were advised to leave Al-Udeid. This is precisely the kind of signal Tehran benefits from: even limited force-protection moves can amplify the perception that Iran’s threats are operationally consequential, increasing pressure on regional hosts to urge restraint. On the diplomatic track, Qatar’s leadership publicly reiterated support for de-escalation and peaceful solutions in a phone call with Iran’s foreign minister, aligning with Doha’s long-standing role as a mediator/channel manager that seeks to prevent Qatari territory from becoming the focal point of a U.S.–Iran confrontation.

In practice, Doha’s role has two layers: (1) public de-escalation messaging—signaling to Tehran (and to regional audiences) that Qatar is working to prevent escalation; and (2) quiet, high-stakes risk management because any conflict scenario that activates Iran’s “regional consequences” doctrine directly endangers U.S. basing architecture and Gulf maritime/energy stability.

Parallel to Iran’s hard-security response, Al Jazeera has served as a central Qatari soft-power amplifier, supporting a containment-first approach that prioritizes regional stability over political or regime change in Tehran. The network has adopted a dual-track messaging strategy: Al Jazeera English foregrounds economic grievances and sanctions to Western audiences, while Al Jazeera Arabic systematically mirrors the Iranian leadership’s “Fitna” (sedition) lexicon, reframing the unrest as a foreign-backed conspiracy rather than a legitimate civil uprising.

Since mid-January 2026, Al Jazeera has increasingly pivoted to a “normalization” and “order restored” narrative, echoing Iranian state claims that the unrest has been extinguished and presenting regime survival as a fait accompli. Thus reflecting Qatar’s strategic calculus-rooted in gas-field interdependence (North Dome/South Pars), reliance on Iranian airspace and maritime routes, and fear of regional spillover-under which Al Jazeera acts as a tactical communications partner: delegitimizing protest escalation, discouraging Western intervention, and promoting an anti-intervention bloc led by Qatar, Turkey, and Russia as the only “responsible” path to avoid a wider regional war

Early expectations often underweighted the regime’s capacity for coercion under blackout conditions and overestimated the likelihood of decisive elite defection. Current reporting still shows severe uncertainty due to constrained information flows.

Any assessment of Iranian regime stability ultimately runs into an enduring intelligence dilemma: revolutions are easier to explain than to predict, and the analyst’s task is constantly threatened by the quiet seep of wishful thinking into analytic judgment, especially when the subject is a morally polarizing regime and the stakes are strategic.

The search for “trigger events” remains inherently uncertain: internally, collapse scenarios depend less on protest volume than on elite fracture, security-force cohesion, and the regime’s ability to preserve fear and routine; externally, shocks such as an “unpredictable Trump,” renewed U.S. pressure, or a major Israeli strike (as in the 12-Day War) can either accelerate destabilization or, just as often, consolidate the system through siege narratives and emergency repression.

What has become clearer in the past week is that Tehran is prepared to pursue survival at any cost—even under concurrent external threats and domestic unrest—and will not hesitate to deploy the full spectrum of coercion, legal warfare, and information control to preserve continuity.

Iran is also a polity shaped by repeated upheavals-from the Tobacco Protest and the White Revolution to the 1979 Islamic Revolution-and by recurring modern protest cycles (1999 student protests, 2009 Green Movement, the 2017–18 Dey protests, 2019 “Bloody November,” and the 2022–23 “Woman, Life, Freedom” uprising).

Yet the question of whether the next upheaval becomes a revolution and what, precisely, will ignite it will likely remain elusive for intelligence communities. The “eye of the storm” is not only Tehran’s streets, but the analyst’s own mind: a space where bias, mirror-imaging, and the seduction of a desired outcome can distort probability into prophecy.

In that sense, the most honest conclusion is also the most sobering: the regime’s durability is not a sign of legitimacy, but of capacity; and the next trigger, whether domestic rupture or external shock, will remain difficult to identify in advance, precisely because the line between signal and narrative is where wishful thinking most easily takes root.

As V for Vendetta frames the relationship between rulers and the ruled, “People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people.” For analysts, the challenge is to assess, without romanticism or bias, when that balance of fear is truly shifting in Iran, and whether the state’s apparatus can still impose “normalcy” faster than the street can impose change.