Iran’s Ayatollah and His Guards Falter After Storm of War and Protests

NY Times-Jan 24th2026

By Declan Walsh

Weeks after Israeli warplanes pounded Iran’s capital last June, the country’s top generals stood in their socks at the entrance of a mosque in northern Tehran, mourning the men who had been killed in the strikes — leaders who they would now replace.

The strikes had caused the greatest single blow to Iran’s military in decades, wiping out the top leadership of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, the feared praetorian guard to the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Now, the question was how would this new generation of leaders, catapulted to the top, guide the country through a singularly challenging period, including growing economic stress, the prospect of new international sanctions and regular threats of yet more military strikes from President Trump and Israel.

The answer came in recent weeks when those new leaders responded to nationwide protests with breathtaking brutality, opening fire on unarmed protesters and massacring thousands of people. At least one Iranian human rights group based in the United States said it had confirmed 5,002 deaths, including 207 members of the security forces, during the protests from Dec. 28 to mid-January. In their first official toll on Wednesday, the Iranian authorities said that 3,117 people had died

On the surface, the bloody crackdown affirmed the unity of Iran’s ruling system — centered on the ayatollah and the Revolutionary Guards, estimated to number about 150,000 — and its willingness to take ruthless action to ensure its survival. But Iran experts said the bloody response was also a sign of the system’s growing weakness, exposing the limits of Ayatollah Khamenei’s 37-year rule as he wrestles with surging domestic unrest and intense foreign pressure at the same time.

On Thursday, Mr. Trump said that an American “armada” was heading toward Iran, but that he hoped he would not have to use it. He again warned the Iranian government against killing protesters or restarting its nuclear program.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, wearing a black turban, stands before microphones. Iranian flags and a framed portrait hang on a brown curtain in the background. — Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in 2024.Credit…Arash Khamooshi for The New York Times

That combination of factors put the ruling system under immense strain, said Afshon Ostovar, an Iran expert at the Naval Postgraduate School in California and the author of “Vanguard of the Imam,” a history of the Revolutionary Guards. “Right off the bat, they saw the protests as an existential threat,” he said. “They turned to live fire really quickly because their weakness was acute, and they knew it.”

With the ayatollah’s legitimacy under open challenge, the Revolutionary Guards are emerging as the core of the system. “You have this aging theocrat whose days are numbered,” Mr. Ostovar said. “And you have security forces that are taking an increasingly aggressive response to any threat to the regime.”