The prospect of a US military strike against Iran over its violent crackdown on protests has laid bare a shift in Middle East geopolitics—one marked by the unexpected upending of long-standing rivalries between Iran and regional powers such as Saudi Arabia and Turkey.

When protests erupted in Iran on December 28, 2025, few anticipated that they would reveal deep-seated geopolitical anxieties in Riyadh and Ankara. As the demonstrations spread across the country and drew warnings from US President Donald Trump of possible military intervention in support of the protesters, Saudi Arabia and Turkey—along with Qatar and Oman—unexpectedly rallied behind the Iranian regime, primarily due to concerns about the potential consequences of a regime change in Iran.

To be fair, prior to the Iranian protests, relations between Tehran and its rivals Riyadh and Ankara were not tense; in fact, they were moving toward closer engagement, with Saudi Arabia following up on the Chinese-brokered agreement with Iran and Turkey even planning a presidential visit. The protests, by highlighting the fragility of Iran’s political order, triggered new threat perceptions in Saudi Arabia and Turkey, leading both countries to lobby the Trump administration to refrain from military action against Iran.

While Turkey and Saudi Arabia hold differing views on Iran, they share a rarely highlighted concern: Israel’s potential influence in a post-Islamic Republic Iran. Both initially assessed that the protests were unlikely to topple the regime, yet the emergence of Reza Pahlavi—and his January 8–11 calls that drew massive crowds to the streets—heightened their anxieties. Monarchist chants calling for the return of the Pahlavi dynasty dominated the protests.

Reza Pahlavi, who has built strong relations with Israel, is far from a unifying figure in Iran’s polarized political landscape. His rise has unsettled non-Persian communities and devout segments of the population. Yet, from the perspectives of Saudi Arabia and Turkey, the surge of pro-Pahlavi chants across Iran suggested that Israel and the United States could expand their influence if the regime were to collapse. Amid the protests in Iran, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan went so far as to accuse Israel of orchestrating the unrest, highlighting Ankara’s deep concerns about instability in Tehran. Notwithstanding, Saudi Arabia and Turkey were almost certain that Iranian protests, if left to their own devices, would not succeed in toppling the Iranian regime. US threats of a potential military strike in support of the protesters, however, radically changed risk assessments in Riyadh and Ankara.

Depending on how the situation in Iran evolves, the alliance of the ‘elders’ may soon be challenged by an emerging bloc of younger Middle Eastern states—comprising the UAE, Israel, and the Republic of Azerbaijan—smaller states that share a convergence of strategic interests in Iran and beyond.

So far, the US president’s decision to dial down threats of military action against Iran has contributed to preserving the status quo in the Middle East, especially after the Islamic Republic violently quelled protests. However, a significant military strike against Iran could open the door to profound geopolitical shifts across the region.

Said Khanafira, (doctoral researcher, Simon Fraser University, Canada) Geopolitical Monitor 

Reza Pahlavi, Geopolitical Monitor

 

"Hopefully, Iran will quickly 'Come to the Table' and negotiate a fair and equitable deal -- NO NUCLEAR WEAPONS -- one that is good for all parties."

"Time is running out, it is truly of the essence!"

"The next attack will be far worse [than that of the summer of 2025]."

U.S. President Donald Trump 

 

"Iran stands ready for dialogue based on mutual respect and interests -- BUT IF PUSHED, IT WILL DEFEND ITSELF AND RESPOND LIKE NEVER BEFORE!"

Iranian Embassy in Washington

A screen grab from a video taken between 9 and 11 January purportedly showing dozens of bodies outside a morgue in Kahrizak on the outskirts of Tehran, Iran's capital. Photograph: AP

 

Appealing to Muslim states in the Middle East, a desperate Iran has reached out in a manner totally unlike its usual cloistered relations with majority Sunni Arab states, as the sole non-Arab Muslim state in the region. The Damocles Sword of an imminent attack by the United States on the Persian Islamic Republic has generated panic among the mullahs of the regime. Attacked by their own persecuted population over economic hardships that ignited a protest against the sinking value of the rial and the rising cost of living, the bloody crackdown by the regime drew the ire of the Trump administration articulating a red line whose crossing would bring the regime's downfall.

 

The world has witnessed a number of widespread populist uprisings in the Islamic Republic of Iran. All of which were met with violence committed by the Basij and components of the Iranian Republican Guard Corps, ideologically-driven to stifle protest by all means that could be deployed through military-style intervention, while the Iranian Police, committed to the welfare of their country but informed through the metric of public order and security may have dealt less harshly with the protesting public. 

 

The deaths of thousands of protesting civilians in outbursts taking place throughout the country, in each of its cities where vulnerable courage has met implacable denial, first with conventional crowd-control measures and threats for people to return to their homes, then increasingly with deadly fire, has captured the notice of the world, with videos, photographs and personal accounts reaching the outside world until the regime closed down the internet and peoples' modes of communication were slammed shut.

 

Threats by President Donald Trump of wartime measures his country would take to defend the protest movement should the massive death count continue, and hanging of protesters proceed as threatened by Iran's judiciary, have had their impact. Fear of an invasion has shattered the level of bombast-confidence that usually issues from the regime's elite government circles. With an attack impending should Trump finally make that decision, Saudi Arabia and the UAE let it be known their air or ground or sea space would be off limits for any U.S. attack on Iran.

 

Photo provided by the U.S. Navy shows a Boeing F/A-18E Super Hornet landing on the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln in the Indian Ocean on Jan. 22, 2026. (Mass Communication Specialist Seaman Daniel Kimmelman/U.S. Navy via AP)

 

The USS Abraham Lincoln has been moved to the region along with a number of guided missile destroyers whose utility can be achieved though simply launching attacks from the sea. The American armada that has moved into position is prepared to achieve any goal commanded by the White House. With communications cut off, it is no longer possible to receive reliable information on killing of peaceful demonstrators and mass execution of detainees. 

 

Iranians have been ordered to remain in their homes. There have been reports of wounded being taken out of hospitals or shot in hospitals by the regime's enforcers. People have been forced to pay a ransom to receive the bodies of their loved ones, and not all have the wherewithal to retrieve the bodies for a funeral to take place leaving the families in the double grip of the desolate grief of deprivation. State media now refer to the protesters as 'terrorists', the preferred term of the regime. 

"I feel that my generation failed to give a better lesson to younger ones."

"The result of decades of teaching by my colleagues and me led to deaths of thousands, and maybe more injured and prisoners."

Mohammad Heidari, Tehran teacher  

Iranian authorities responded with lethal force as the protests in Tehran escalated on 8 January   Wana via Reuters

 

 

"In Iran's political psychology, two factors are traditionally essential for a fundamental transformation: first, the bazaar must enter into sustained strikes and protests; second, the army or national armed forces must side with the people against the ruling power."

"At this stage, the first condition has partially materialized."

"However, it remains unclear whether bazaar strikes will continue or fade."

"The large number of protesters killed by security forces demonstrates the continued allegiance of the armed forces to Khamenei and the IRGC."

Hussain Ehsani, research fellow, Turan Research Center, Washington think tank 

 

"In 2009, it was still based on a disputed election. People were asking, Where is my vote?' They were still trying to operate within the framework of the Islamic Republic."

"Iran's regime was humiliated in the 12-day war. It no longer has the proxies it once relied on, so it can't project strength."

"It's far more financially squeezed, and the economy is in free fall. Donald Trump is in the White House and appears, at least rhetorically, to be taking a much tougher line on Iran's regime."

"That's what makes this protest more significant than those in the past."

"I think it really depends on U.S. involvement. If the U.S. gets involved, you could very well see the regime collapse."

"But if it's just ordinary people fighting, the regime may be able to hold on for another day. Still, these protests will flare up again. There's simply no doubt."

Kaveh Shahrooz, senior fellow, Macdonald-Laurier Institute, Ottawa 

Pedestrians pass a burned-out building on Jan. 10, 2026, in Tehran, Iran, following widespread protests against the regime. Stringer/Getty

 

Twenty days have passed since protests first began in Iran, unremarkable at first and little-noticed outside the country, then when the protests spread from city to city, covering the entire country in hundreds of thousands, finally millions of Iranians out in the streets, damning their government, calling for its downfall, for the death of the Grand Ayatollah Khamenei, the government response changed as well, turning guns and live ammunition on those the regime called 'terrorists', inspired by foreign governments.

 

Over 3,500 civilian protesters were killed by some accounts, while other analysts claim a death toll in the tens of thousands, with greater numbers of protesters injured and hospitalized. Sparked initially by bazaaris (shopkeepers) in the main bazaar of Tehran considered the country's financial hub, demonstrations spread across major cities with demands of the protesters calling for an end to five decades of oppression under theocratic rule.

 

The price of basic food items increased in the space of three years, by 72 percent. Critical water and energy shortages compounded people's misery. Major cities ran out of electricity and gas. Iranians resented their government using billions in state funds to support their proxy militias, terrorist groups like Lebanon's Hezbollah, the Yemeni Houthis and Hamas in Gaza, while families in Iran struggled with food scarcity, a shortage of medications, cooking and heating oil.

 

Iranians attend an anti-government protest in Tehran, Iran, Jan. 9, 2026.   UGC via AP

 

Following days of threats to strike Iran should authorities continue killing the protesters, the issue was taken to the UN Security Council for deliberation. While urging protesters to "take over your institutions", saying that "help is on its way", the impression was left that the powerful United States of America planned to come to the aid of the protesting public. The tension of guessing what form that help might take ranged from long-distance empathy to the commitment of military strikes.

 

From Iraq to Lebanon and Yemen, the IRGC special Quds Force orchestrated funding, training and equipping Shi'ite militant groups regionally, Hamas included. This past summer, decades of shadow warfare culminated in direct conflict in a 12-day war that saw Israel strike weapons depots, IRGC command posts, government buildings and eliminate a number of senior military and government figures. The U.S. flew warplanes equipped with bunker-penetrating bombs targeting Iran's nuclear installations. Iran both regionally and domestically was left reeling and diminished.

 

Earlier conflicts by Israel with Hamas, following the 7 October 2023 Palestinian terrorist incursion into southern Israel to commit mass atrocities, and with Hezbollah which joined Hamas in sending rockets into Israel, then finding itself engaged in battle, and Yemen with its ballistic missiles supplied by Iran entering Israel airspace and attacking marine traffic linked to Israel in the Red Sea, all engaged militarily with a responding Israel military to their hapless detriment. Leaving Tehran no dedicated outside terror proxy to call upon.                 

 

President Trump's intention to intervene in the regime crackdown on the protests as well as its execution of protesters was circumvented at the behest of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Oman and Qatar, informing  him that Iran had put a stop to the executions and the killing of protesters. The threat of U.S. intervention subsided. The regime instituted a total internet lockdown, along with a moratorium on texting, so no information came or went. And under lockdown executions continued, arrests and torture recommenced, and Iranians fled for safety to their homes.

 

The conditions for a prospective regime collapse, according to analysts, would depend largely on positions taken by the military and the national police; to ally with the protesters, or the government. Hopeful claims expressed by Iranian opposition groups in exile aside, no such scenario of police defections laying down their arms and the military supporting the protesters materialized.                                                        

"First is street protests, which we have, but the other two things we don't have."

"Second is just the crippling of the economy through strikes, most importantly, the oil sector."

"And third would be defections from the security services, and we haven't seen that either."

Kaveh Shahrooz   

Bodies lie in body bags on the ground outside Kahrizak Forensic Medical Centre in Tehran, Iran, in these images from video obtained from social media, Jan. 11, 2026.  Social Media/via REUTERS