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Iranian regime likely to survive unrest, Israeli intelligence believes

Israel’s top brass estimates that while Iran’s leadership is struggling to put down the ongoing protests, the growing dissident movement does not yet have the means to overthrow the Islamic Republic, thus reducing the odds that Iran will strike Israel out of desperation.

By World Israel News Staff

The civil unrest inside Iran has challenged the country’s Islamist leadership, constituting the greatest threat to internal stability in years, but thus far has not demonstrated the kind of coordination needed to overthrow the regime, Israeli security experts say.

According to a report published by Israel Hayom Wednesday morning, which cited multiple Israeli security officials, the consensus view within the country’s security establishment is that while the escalating protests in Iran are a growing concern for the Islamic Republic, there is still no coordinated opposition movement capable of toppling the government.

The protests, which have raged for the past 10 days, were sparked in the final days of 2025 by devaluations of the rial, drawing anger from Iranians frustrated with the country’s collapsing economy, worsening labor market, and continued spending on foreign proxy groups including Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis.

The backlash, Israeli security officials cited in Wednesday’s report say, is rooted in powerful, deep-seated resentment shared by a large portion of the population, and represents a continuation of the nationwide protests launched in 2019 over fuel price hikes.

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Mass demonstrations returned in 2022 following the death of an Iranian woman, Mahsa Amini, who was taken into custody by the regime’s morality police.

However, the sources said, Israel does not believe that the popular discontent itself is enough to bring down the Iranian regime, with either outside intervention or a coordinated insurgency movement needed to capitalize on the unrest.

The officials also said that Israel’s security establishment believes Tehran is most likely not planning to strike Israel out of desperation despite the increasingly militant rhetoric from senior Iranian officials.