The protests unfolding in Iran in the winter of 2025–26 must be understood within the longer cycle of contention and repression that has shaped state– society relations over the past decade. The demonstrations take place against the backdrop of heightened regional tensions with Israel and U.S. President Donald J. Trump’s warning that America would intervene if the regime kills protesters. The Islamic Republic has used this context to frame domestic dissent as a security threat rather than the expression of social or political grievances. This external environment has allowed the state to securitize protest more quickly and to justify extraordinary coercive measures using the language of national defense and resistance.
These demonstrations also follow a familiar pattern established during earlier waves of unrest in 2017, 2019, and 2022. Each of those episodes resulted from different immediate triggers—ranging from economic grievances to moral and social outrage—yet all were ultimately met with overwhelming repression. The regime did not rely solely on ad hoc violence. Instead, it activated a well-developed system of surveillance, coordination, and coercion that allowed it to fragment protest networks, deter sustained popular mobilization, and reassert control over public spaces. The repeated suppression of these movements has produced a protest cycle marked by resilience at the societal level and by institutional learning at the regime level.
To assess whether the current protests may succeed or fail, and to understand how the Islamic Republic is likely to respond, one must examine the central pillar of the regime’s internal security architecture: the Tharallah Headquarters. As the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ (IRGC) primary command structure for security in Tehran and, by extension, for crisis management nationwide, the Tharallah Headquarters functions as the regime’s operational brain during moments of unrest. It coordinates intelligence, policing, Basij militia, IRGC units, and psychological operations, ensuring that repression is not improvised but calibrated. Any analysis that ignores this institution risks misreading both the limits of protest and the durability of authoritarian control.
Ultimately, the fate of the current protest wave will not be determined solely by public anger or international pressure. It will depend on how effectively the regime activates its coercive machinery and how successfully that machinery contains fragmentation within the security elite itself. Understanding the Tharallah Headquarters’ role is therefore essential not only for evaluating the present moment but also for explaining why previous uprisings failed to produce systemic change and why the Islamic Republic continues to survive despite recurring crises.
Despite the Tharallah Headquarters’ function as the most critical cog in the IRGC’s security and suppressive apparatus, there is virtually no insight or intelligence on how it operates, not least during times of unrest.
This is precisely the research gap this United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) report intends to fill.
Using primary Farsi-language material and intelligence obtained from inside Iran— including internal documentation from within the Tharallah Headquarters and its sub-headquarters—this paper will, for the first time, reveal the ecosystem of the most critical and life-preserving organ in the regime’s security and suppressive apparatus.
In doing so, this paper will identify and expose:
Eye on Iran is a news summary from United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI), a section 501(c)(3) organization. Eye on Iran is available to subscribers on a daily basis or weekly basis.
Iran is at a critical juncture. Coordinated strikes by Israel and the United States have severely weakened Iran’s missile, nuclear, and terror proxy networks. In response, the regime is turning inward, escalating crackdowns on its own people. It is also fomenting terror abroad. The world must stay vigilant—any easing of pressure risks enabling Tehran to rebuild its lethal capabilities.