The protests in Iran and the suffering that Iranian people are currently enduring, is largely the consequence of Western imperialist sanctions. 

The UN universal sanctions under resolution 1929, are not unilateral sanctions, as it was prior to the snapback mechanism being triggered. 

Rather the UN sanctions that have been reimposed on Iran as of October 2025, binds all 193 member states of the UN to completely cut off all trade, financial and economic ties with Iran.

Prior to the snapback mechanism, though the US had imposed unilateral sanctions on Iran as of 2018 — other countries around the world still engaged in international trade with Iran, albeit to various different degrees, due to the US secondary sanctions. 

The snapback mechanism however has triggered the complete financial and trade isolation of Iran, reducing Iran's access to global markets to essentially, nil. 

These sanctions are therefore no more than a brutal  economic siege of a civilian population, meant to trigger this precise reactionary response, and I highlight the term reactionary. 

This chaos that was caused by imperialist external forces, shall then be exploited by the very same imperialists in order to advance their own hegemonic agenda.

At this stage, it is vital to note, that these UN universal sanctions are the precise same sanctions that existed prior to the 2015 JCPOA — highlighting the dire economic conditions that the national bourgeois state of Iran has been operating under for the better part of almost 50 years. 

Thus, discussing state repression within Iranian society, without contextualising it within the broader oppressive imperialist sanctions war that has been waged against Iran — fails to address the root cause of said oppression. 

In fact, it is the Western sanctions against Iran that have singlehandedly shaped Iran's internal class dynamics — that have in turn aided in the repression of the Iranian working class.

How? 

The very threat of Western imperialism generated a highly militarised state apparatus, so as to withstand the external pressure of imperialism. 

Moreover, the threat of Western imperialism created a reactionary class alliance between the Iranian bourgeoisie and the working class, who aligned primarily to survive against Western imperialism. 

This alliance diluted class consciousness within Iranian society,  and as such, the potential for an organised working class movement against the Iranian bourgeoisie. 

What's more, is that the sanctions war against Iran stagnated its economic growth and prosperity — depriving the working class of the productive forces that they need in order to build the structural power requisite for a bona fide revolution. 

The sanctions war also facilitated illegality among the bourgeois class in Iran, as they struggled to find legitimate means of capital accumulation, because of the economic siege on Iran.

Therefore, again, if anything, it is the West that created the ripe conditions for a more repressive state and mass poverty  — that in turn has weakened the revolutionary potential of Iranian society

Consequently, the current protests are the desired reactionary outcome of the imperialist aggression against the Iranian people,  and they come at a time when a wider imperialist war against Iran is highly likely. 

By weakening the state apparatus and fracturing national unity at such a volatile stage within the broader imperialist war that is transpiring — the protests will allow foreign imperialist powers that are far more powerful than the current national bourgeois class in Iran, to infiltrate Iran, extract its resources and subjugate its people. 

Furthermore,  albeit there is class base to the current protests, the fact that the protestors are not organised and lack any sort of ideological coherency — makes this outcome all the more likely. 

Indeed many Iranians no longer support the theocracy, this is a fact, however,  what do these protests call for? 

A liberal democracy? 

A socialist revolution? 

What is the aim here? 

The reality is, that these protests are reactionary, disorganised and lack the ideological coherency that underpins a progressive class movement. 

As a result, the ongoing protests become vulnerable to external intelligence manipulation, which is where the West dominates — hence the riots that Israel has overtly stated to have instigated. 

These riots have done nothing more than to aggravate the deteriorating material conditions for the Iranian working class — placing more economic pressure on the Iranian state. 

Consequently, the ongoing protests offer no true alternative for Iran, whilst providing a key opportunity for Western intelligence to destabilise a country that they have wanted to subjugate for almost 50 years. 

The protests therefore risk the sovereignty of the Iranian people and the region, at a critical juncture in the historical development of capitalism that is facing its greatest crisis yet.

This is why, in their current spontaneous and ideologically incoherent form, the protests therefore objectively serve imperialism. They risk transforming a nationally bourgeois state, however repressive, into a fully-fledged client regime of Western capital, devastating the Iranian working class and the region's anti-imperialist potential.

To those who claim to care about the oppression of the Iranian people, let me be very clear — the long-term liberation of the Iranian people is inextricably linked to the global struggle against imperialism. 

Weakening the imperialist core is the prerequisite for creating the space in which Iranian workers can overcome the reactionary nationalist class alliances, to build independent class power, and dismantle the bourgeois state — thus truly liberating the Iranian people from all forms of oppression.

Actions that strengthen imperialism, however sincerely motivated, ultimately betray the Iranian proletariat and the international working class.