How Iranian Protests Are Reported by the Mainstream Media

According to the New York Times, the mass protests in Iran that the world has been witnessing over the past few weeks represent citizens “demanding an end to the regime”, which has responded by violently trying to quash demonstrations.

“Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people have been killed,” the Times reports, citing “rights groups and an Iranian health official.”

About 3,000 people have been killed across Iran, according to the anonymous health official, who “sought to shift the blame to ‘terrorists’ fomenting unrest”, the Times adds.

What the demonstrations show, according to the Times, is “that many Iranians may now believe that the Islamic Revolution in 1979 has failed to address their everyday economic needs and has instead focused on extending its military might through its nuclear enrichment and proxy forces in the region.”  

The newspaper thus characterizes Iran’s nuclear program as military in nature, despite Iran’s insistence that it is for energy only and the absence of evidence for an active weapons program.

If one reads far enough down the page, one can also learn from the Times that the economic despair in Iran is a consequence of “harsh sanctions imposed by much of the world over its nuclear program.”

Near the end, the Times also acknowledges “radicalism among the protesters”, with the situation having “turned violent on both sides”.

That’s quoting Ellie Geranmayeh, an Iran expert at the European Council on Foreign Relations, who added, “The regime and the security services see this as an extension of the U.S.-Israeli war and feel they must go full force to get the terrorists.”

The Times thus tacitly concedes that there are terrorists operating in Iran during the mass protests.

A vague reference is then made to the “June war”—meaning the twelve days last summer of US and Israeli airstrikes in Iran, including on three nuclear facilities. According to Iran’s Foundation for Martyrs and Veterans Affairs, as reported by Amnesty International, the joint strikes killed at least 1,100 Iranians, including at least 132 women and 45 children.

Among the protesters “aspiring leaders”, the Times continues, is Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of the former Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

The Shah, or king, was overthrown during the 1979 Iranian Revolution led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who was succeeded by Supreme Leader Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

US President Donald Trump has made “threats to intervene”, the Times reports, which “appear to have only solidified the government’s conviction that the demonstrations are a danger that needs to be extinguished.”

That’s a glimpse of the nature of Western mainstream media reporting on the situation in Iran. But as always, there’s much more to the story.

While the Times acknowledges the sanctions and leaves readers to believe Trump’s aim in any intervention would be to help the Iranian people, it omits how the sanctions have been intended to collectively punish Iran’s civilian population in the hopes of sparking a mass uprising.

And while the Times acknowledges that the protests have not remained entirely peaceful, it treats the idea of the US and Israel fomenting the internal violence as a mere pretext for the regime’s harsh crackdown.

Yet, indications are that foreign meddling in Iran has indeed sought to foment violence—including on-the-ground operations by Israel’s intelligence agency the Mossad.

Far from merely expressing rhetorical support for peaceful protests, the transparent aim of this scarcely concealed foreign interference has been to provoke a harsher crackdown, which Trump has already cited as a pretext for another possible military assault on Iran aimed at toppling its government.

Background Context

As is typical for US media reporting, there’s no mention by the Times of how the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Britain’s MI6 backed a coup in 1953 to overthrow Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh and reinstall Mohammed Reza Pahlavi as Shah.

The Shah’s increasingly brutal autocracy, including torture and arbitrary detention by the secret police force SAVAK, was a major contributing factor to the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

I have also previously reported on the US government’s role in the 2009 “Green Revolution” in Iran, in which authentic grassroots protests were co-opted to foment greater unrest and harsher crackdowns, including by propagating the dubious claim that the presidential election that year was stolen by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

There were also reports at the time, including from investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, that the US and Israel were backing terrorist groups in Iran, including Jundallah, the Party of Free Life of Kurdistan (PJAK), and the Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MEK).

The MEK was at the time on the US State Department’s list of terrorist organizations and was delisted in 2012.

Referring to the joint US-Israeli war on Iran last summer, the Jerusalem Post has reported how, “In June, the Mossad had hundreds of agents involved in Israel’s 12-day war, which set back Iran’s nuclear program, ballistic missile program, air defense systems, and killed dozens of its top military and intelligence officials.”

Afterward, Mossad Director David Barnea indicated the agency’s presence in Iran would continue by saying Israel “will be there, like we have been there.”

In October, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported on an Israeli psychological operation on social media advocating for the installment of exile Reza Pahlavi as Shah of Iran.

The influence campaign involved fake online personas posing as Iranian citizens.

Pahlavi himself self-contradictorily advocated “nonviolent civil resistance” as a means for change “without outside interference”, while justifying a trip to Israel on the grounds of needing “some international support”.

The Collective Punishment of Iranian Civilians

The protests erupted on December 28, when shopkeepers in Iran’s capital, Tehran, took to the streets to protest the country’s crippled economy, with soaring inflation and sharp devaluation of the Iranian rial against the US dollar. University students soon joined, and demonstrations subsequently were held in cities throughout the country.

A critical detail is that the economic conditions prompting Iranian citizens to take to the streets in frustration are a direct result and intended outcome of the sanctions.

As observed by Hamid Dabashi in Middle East Eye, “the US remains chiefly responsible for using crippling sanctions as a weapon against Iran’s ruling elite and impoverished masses alike.”

Mohammad Reza Farzanegan, an Iranian-born professor of economics of the Middle East at Marburg University in Germany, similarly points out, “The US weaponization of the global financial system, imposing the ‘maximum pressure’ campaign and targeting Iran’s oil exports has effectively hit at the life savings of every Iranian teacher, nurse, and small business owner.”

A study published in October that he coauthored with Nader Habibi, a professor of practice in the economics of the Middle East at Brandeis University in Massachusetts, examined the impact of international sanctions and found that, “Since 2012, comprehensive sanctions on Iran have drastically eroded its middle class, undoing decades of social progress and undermining a key engine of economic stability and political moderation.”

Writing in Middle East Eye, Farzanegan explains,

Between 2012 and 2019, our study . . . found that sanctions led to a staggering average annual reduction of 17 percentage points in the size of Iran’s middle class.

This wasn't just “economic pressure”; it was a structural demolition. Millions of people who once formed the stable, moderate center of Iranian society have been demoted into the “newly poor”.

Other prior research had found that, despite the intention of punishing the civilian population in the hopes of causing a mass uprising to topple the targeted government, sanctions have historically failed to result in regime change.

As he elaborates in his Middle East Eye article,

We found that while high-intensity sanctions actually decrease the risk of organized civil war and coups, partly due to a nationalist ‘rally-around-the-flag’ effect against external enemies, they simultaneously act as a pressure cooker for civil disorder and terrorism.

In sum, “Sanctions don't lead to a new government; they lead to a more polarized and insecure society.”

Iranians aren’t in the streets “asking for their country to be dismantled”, but for “the restoration of their dignity, for economic relief, and for an end to the collective punishment that has hollowed out their lives.”

The current economic crisis is “a symptom of a society under siege, and until the policy of collective punishment is replaced by genuine diplomacy, the cycle of instability will only deepen.”

Fomenting Civil Unrest in Iran

The probable involvement of the Mossad in the Iranian protests is scarcely being concealed. On December 29, one day after demonstrations first erupted, a post in Farsi on the Mossad’s X account plainly stated (Google translation), “Come together to the streets. The time has come. We are with you. Not only remotely and verbally. We are with you in the square.”

While it’s possible this was intended merely as psychological intimidation, given the agency’s history of operating in the country, there is little reason to doubt the presence of Mossad operatives on the ground in Iran during the recent protests.

On January 2, former US Secretary of State and former CIA director Mike Pompeo similarly stated that the Mossad was involved in the protests.

In an X post, Pompeo said, “The Iranian regime is in trouble. Bringing in mercenaries is its last best hope. . . . Happy New Year to every Iranian in the streets. Also to every Mossad agent walking beside them…”

The same day, Trump cited the Iranian government’s crackdown as a pretext for an imminent military attack on the country. On his Truth Social platform, Trump said, “We are locked and loaded and ready to go.”

Iranian media report matter-of-factly that the US and Israel have incited violence in Iran. Press TV, for instance, claimed on January 8,

Some shopkeepers last week staged limited street protests in several Iranian cities over economic instability, but the demonstrations were steered toward violence after public statements by US and Israeli figures—amplified by Israeli-linked Persian-language outlets—encouraged vandalism and disorder.

. . . Protests turned into armed riots since Thursday night, inflicting damage to public and private property and claiming lives of dozens of security forces and civilians across several Iranian cities.

The Iranian government responded by imposing an internet blackout, with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi claiming that “trained terrorist groups” run from abroad had infiltrated the protests.

Some Iranians remain able to access the internet via Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite system.

On January 10, Press TV reported,

What initially began last month as peaceful demonstrations over economic grievances in Tehran’s Grand Bazaar gradually escalated into violent unrest, as foreign intelligence agencies exploited the protests to advance a “regime change” agenda against the Islamic Republic.

On Thursday and Friday in particular, heavily armed rioters and terrorists rampaged through parts of Tehran and other cities, attacking security personnel and setting fire to public and private property, including shops, buses, and mosques.

. . . Iranian security forces have arrested a number of individuals directly linked to the Mossad agency spy who have been spearheading these organized riots.

A day earlier, Iran’s UN Ambassador Amir Saeid Iravani told the Security Council in letter the US and Israel were “interfering in Iran’s internal affairs through threats, incitement, and the deliberate encouragement of instability and violence.”

On January 11, Trump was briefed on options for military strikes in Iran.

When asked by a reporter whether the US was going to get involved, Trump responded,

I’ve made the statement very strongly that if they start killing people like they have in the past, we will get involved. We’ll be hitting them very hard where it hurts. And that doesn’t mean boots on the ground, but it means hitting them very, very hard where it hurts.

As though he had only the most benevolent of intentions, Trump also took to social media to say, “Iran is looking at FREEDOM, perhaps like never before. The USA stands ready to help!!!”

Of course, if the US truly wanted to help the Iranian people it could just stop collectively punishing them.

Iran’s Response to Trump’s Threat

Iranian government officials responded defiantly to Trump’s threat to militarily intervene.

“In the event of an attack on Iran,” said Iran’s parliament speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, “both the occupied territory and all American military centers, bases and ships in the region will be our legitimate targets. We do not consider ourselves limited to reacting after the action and will act based on any objective signs of a threat.”

Back in June, Iran responded to the US-Israeli strikes by launching missiles at Al Udeid Air Force Base in Qatar, the US government’s largest military base in the Middle East and forward headquarters for US Central Command (CENTCOM).

The day Trump was briefed on military options, Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf argued that the government had no problem with peaceful protests but would not tolerate foreign-backed terrorism.

Referring to the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) by its Arabic acronym “Daesh”, Qalibaf said,

Today, the Iranian nation has decided firmly to stand against armed terrorists. . . . We will recognize rightful protests and will seriously investigate them, while standing against terrorists.

. . . Those who openly call themselves foreign mercenaries, betraying their own homeland to appease the US President and transforming into Daesh operatives, and initiating a terrorist war—let them know that we will confront them with the most severe measures.

. . . They are striking at public property, banks, shops, vehicles, and so on, operating in the manner of Daesh, showing no mercy even to women and children.

National Security Council Secretary Ali Larijani similarly said that frustration over inflation and currency instability is “completely understandable”, but a separate group has used the demonstrations to commit “extremely violent and criminal acts”, including killings and burnings—tactics that he, too, compared those of ISIS.

In a televised address, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian likewise said that it was legitimate to express public grievances while accusing the US and Israel of fomenting riots to “sow chaos and disorder.”

January 12, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said that the government had “neutralized the plans by foreign enemies that were meant to be performed by domestic mercenaries”.

After a violent weekend, Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi said the situation was now “under total control” and likewise accused the US and Israel of arming terrorists.

“There are many documents indicating American and Israeli interference in the terrorist movement”, he said. “Mossad agents are accompanying the protests, and their interventions are the reason for the violence and killings that occurred.”

Parliament Speaker Qalibaf further defied Trump’s threat to militarily intervene by saying,

Come and see what will happen to American ships and military bases in the region. Come and burn in the fire of the Iranian nation so severely that it becomes a lasting lesson in history for all oppressive US rulers. Come and find out what will happen to you and to the region.

As reported by Middle East Eye, pro-government demonstrations also have now also appeared in several Iranian cities, including a march in Tehran reportedly numbered in the “tens of thousands”. Regime officials urged the marches “as a show of unity against what they describe as a foreign-driven destabilization campaign.”

The comparison by Iranian officials between violent protesters and ISIS are salient in light of how that terrorist organization arose as a consequence of the US government’s disastrous war on Iraq, which was, of course, waged on a pretext of lies.

While at odds in Iraq, the US government sided with ISIS in Syria, with the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) funneling arms from Saudi Arabia and Qatar to radical extremists in Syria aiming to overthrow the regime of Bashar al-Assad.

Another terrorist group the US sided with in Syria was al-Nusra, a splinter group of al-Qaeda, the organization involved in the attacks of September 11, 2001.

The head of al-Nusra, or the Nusra Front, was Ahmed al-Sharaa, also known as Abu Mohammad al-Jolani. He later rebranded the group as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which in late 2024 succeeded in overthrowing Assad.

Jolani is now the president of Syria.

Once having a $10 million US bounty on his head, Jolani dropped his military fatigues and was rebranded as a civilian political leader. On November 10, 2025, the former terrorist leader was received by Trump at the White House.

Trump said of Jolani, “He comes from a very touch place, and he’s a tough guy. I like him, I get along with him.”

Birds of a feather.

A Pretext for War

On Tuesday, January 13, Trump again took to Truth Social to encourage a mass uprising to overthrow the government, promising US assistance in that effort. He proclaimed,

Iranian Patriots, KEEP PROTESTING - TAKE OVER YOUR INSTITUTIONS!!! 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. MIGA!!!

“MIGA” is a play on Trump’s “MAGA” campaign slogan: Make Iran Great Again. This, of course, implies that Iran was “great” prior to the 1979 revolution that overthrew the brutal Shah regime, which aligns with Israel’s propaganda campaign advocating the installment of Reza Pahlavi as Shah of Iran.

The US State Department the same day ominously warned US citizens to leave Iran.

Another indication of that a US strike is possibly imminent is a report that some American troops have been ordered to evacuate the Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar.

Hamid Dabashi in MEE writes that “current protests are exceptionally violent” and “irredeemably polluted by Mossad agents, with mosques set ablaze to enrage and agitate”.

The evident involvement of the Mossad in the protests has also been highlighted by Jamal Abdi, the President of the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), as US non-profit organization that lobbies for normalized relations with Iran.

Abdi told the Middle East Eye that the demonstrations were “organic” but that Israel appeared to be co-opting them to escalate violence and provoke a harsher regime response.

As Abdi points out,

The fact Israeli officials and others are publicly touting that Mossad is involve, openly attempting to validate the Islamic Republic claims of a foreign plot, raises many questions. Were Israeli officials seeking to put more Iranian lives on the line and provoke a harsher Iranian government response that could then open the path to foreign intervention? Has Israel sought to inject violence into the protests to prevent Iranians from engaging in nonviolent civil disobedience and to try to foment civil war?

All valid questions for which the answers appear to be “Yes.”

A report in the Russian news outlet Pravda claims that Iranian authorities have identified groups responsible for attacks in cities throughout Iran. These include Jaish al-Zolm, a successor group to Jundallah; the PJAK, which has been designated as a terrorist group by the US Treasury Department since 2009; and the MEK.

Press TV claims that the Islamic Revolution Guards Corp (IRGC) has “smashed a number of teams of militants affiliated with Israel in the country’s southeastern province of Sistan and Baluchestan, close to the border with Pakistan, and seized several US-built military-grade weapons from them.”

While these foreign media reports are to be taken with a grain of salt, the involvement of the Mossad in violent protests was also clearly implied by an Israeli reporter who’s been advocating regime change.

On Wednesday, January 13, Tamir Morag, a reporter for Israel’s Channel 14 said on X,

Tonight we published on Channel 14: foreign actors are arming the protesters in Iran with live firearms, which is the reason for the hundreds of regime personnel killed.

Everyone is free to guess who is behind it.

That is practically a boast about Israel’s involvement.

Conclusion

As epitomized by the New York Times, the mainstream media are reporting on the protests as an organic uprising that the Iranian government has violently sought to quash on the pretext that the US and Israel are interfering in the country’s internal affairs.

What’s being minimized if not entirely left out from the mainstream narrative is how the US government has for years been collectively punishing the civilian population with the hope of causing a mass uprising to overthrow the regime.

The Times’ reporting also epitomizes how the probable involvement of Israel’s Mossad on the ground is being downplayed or concealed from Americans.

The violent crackdown against protesters appears to be precisely the intended outcome, with the goal being to create a pretext for another military attack on Iran.

Americans should remember the lessons of past wars, including the war on Iraq, and not be deceived into consenting to yet more criminal violence perpetrated by their own government.