A 120-year struggle: Khamenei’s speech reveals a regime in rapid decline

Iran Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s speech on Jan. 9 offers a rare and revealing glimpse into the structural weakness and psychological collapse of Iran’s ruling system.

Delivered on the 13th day of a nationwide uprising, the speech reflects a regime watching its once-feared repression machine losing effectiveness in real time.

By reducing a massive countrywide revolt to “burning trash bins” and “damaging buildings,” Iran’s dictator attempted to trivialize what every observer can plainly see: a determined and organized uprising challenging the very foundations of clerical rule.

When Khamenei blamed the unrest on actions meant to “please foreigners” – a thinly veiled reference to President Donald Trump – he inadvertently admitted something far more significant: The regime is overwhelmed by a coordinated resistance it can no longer control.

Days earlier, Khamenei ordered a nationwide internet blackout. That decision was not a show of strength, but an admission of weakness. The regime sought to operate in darkness, to suppress information while carrying out killings behind closed doors, hoping to regain control through fear.

In his speech, Khamenei insisted the Islamic Republic would “not back down” in the face of what he called “rioters.” Such rhetoric no longer conveys authority. Rather, it exposes a government that has exhausted its legitimacy and is now relying solely on threats. For decades, the regime survived through what it framed as “sacred violence.” Even that tool is now failing.

Across Iran, protesters have repeatedly disarmed special units and forced security forces to retreat, stripping the regime of its long-claimed monopoly on violence. When a state loses that monopoly, it loses its grip on power.

Threatening mass repression two weeks into the uprising is itself an admission that neither Iran’s vast security apparatus nor its propaganda machine can extinguish a revolt that has spread to more than 170 cities.

That reality was further exposed by a harsh statement issued on Jan. 9 by the Intelligence Organization of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), warning that any “disobedience, desertion or insubordination” within the armed forces would be met with trials and severe punishment. Such warnings are not signs of discipline – they are signs of fear.

As protests continued, the streets became the stage for a direct confrontation between determined citizens and an aging, demoralized security force. For the first time, the regime openly revealed its deepest anxiety: cracks within its own repression apparatus.

The unprecedented threat of punishment for disobedience inside military barracks confirms that the system is no longer unified. Its deterrent power is eroding, and it can no longer act cohesively – even through mass violence – to guarantee its survival.

A 120-year struggle reaches a turning point

Historically, Iran’s 2026 uprising represents the latest – and perhaps decisive – chapter in a 120-year struggle between freedom and dictatorship. From the Constitutional Revolution of the early 20th century to today, Iran’s central conflict has always been between authoritarian rule and popular sovereignty.

The clerical regime embodies the authoritarian tradition: totalitarian control, censorship, corruption, exploitation and systematic violence.

Opposing it is a freedom movement shaped by decades of imprisonment, exile and resistance. These two forces now confront each other directly in a defining moment of Iran’s modern history.

Politically, the uprising seeks the permanent replacement of a religious, personality-driven dictatorship with a democratic, pluralistic and secular republic, grounded in social justice and gender equality.

Decades of mass executions, corruption and economic plunder have convinced the overwhelming majority of Iranians that all forms of dictatorship – religious or monarchical – must be rejected. The current uprising is the result of that consensus.

This is why, in less than two weeks, protesters have neutralized the regime’s deterrence across the country: disarming forces, liberating neighborhoods and confronting elite IRGC units directly. A young woman standing alone before a water cannon, stopping a column of repression, or protesters sitting in the street to block armored vehicles – these are not isolated acts. They are expressions of a national resolve to end tyranny.

The bitter irony of this moment is that the son of Iran’s former shah, Reza Pahlavi, now claims to represent democratic change, despite a history that many Iranians associate with collaboration and compromise with IRGC. As history often shows, every era has its false alternatives. For Iranians inside the country today, that figure represents one of them.

What remains unmistakable is this: Iran’s uprising has moved beyond protest. It has become a direct challenge to authoritarian power – and the regime knows it.