According to UN special rapporteur Mai Sato, at least eight people have been killed in protests in Iran so far, after demonstrations broke out last week over persistent hyperinflation and a cost-of-living spike.
US President Donald Trump, meanwhile, warned the Iranian government on Friday that Washington would come to the aid of protesters by taking military action against the Islamic Republic if demonstrators were killed.
A day after Trump issued that warning, the United States launched a military operation on Venezuelan soil, capturing the country’s leader Nicolás Maduro and taking him to the US.
Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had previously described Venezuela as Tehran’s most important partner on the world stage during a meeting with Maduro.
Euronews spoke exclusively with economist Saeed Laylaz, who previously served as an advisor to former President Mohammad Khatami, to discuss potential future scenarios for Iran following the protests, their consequences, the possibility of renewed conflict between Israel and Iran, and the impact of Maduro’s fall on the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Euronews: Mr Laylaz, some say that the current protests in Iran are not a precursor to a revolution because the middle class is not ready for revolutionary action. However, some believe that economic grievances are so outstanding that the lower classes can push society towards revolution, and that the middle class may eventually join them. What is your assessment?
Saeed Laylaz: The pace of deterioration of the economic and social situation in Iran is increasing. Both mentally and materially, the problem is getting worse in Iran.
And the government’s control and governance of things seems to be getting weaker day by day. I do not yet see the current situation leading to the overthrow of the government.
I believe the Islamic Republic has reached a dead end but still lacks a viable alternative. Because of this combination — systemic deadlock and lack of an alternative — I concluded eight years ago that Iran would face something like Bonapartism.
This appears in slogans such as “Reza Shah, may your soul rest in peace,” but this does not necessarily indicate that people want a return to the monarchy. People today are not primarily seeking regime change; they are desperately seeking efficiency.
Social and cultural pressures have eased somewhat over the past two years, but economic pressure has become unbearable.
These protests are the product of severe inefficiency and the inability of President Masoud Pezeshkian’s government and other governing institutions to manage the situation.
The fact that protests started in the bazaar is significant. Bazaar merchants traditionally benefit from inflation, and they have benefited so far. What bothers them now is price instability, which makes it impossible to decide whether to buy or sell, open or close their shops. We are now seeing average monthly food inflation of 6–7%.
This has no precedent in Iran since World War II. We may even surpass the 2022 inflation record. Food inflation is now twice that of other goods. This angers merchants and the middle class and creates serious potential for unrest among the poor.
Over the past 12 months, inflation growth has increased by 31%. The inflation rate has risen from 31% to over 52%, and could reach 55% by the end of this month. This is extremely high.
If the government can stabilise prices and prevent daily or hourly price fluctuations, it may regain control. Otherwise, unrest will continue — not necessarily aimed at an overthrow — until a political shift occurs within the next one or two months.
Euronews: What do you think this political transformation could be? The rise of a “Bonaparte”-like figure?
Laylaz: Since we don’t have an opposition capable of taking control and because the Islamic Republic’s security structure remains intact, I believe a Bonapartist figure will emerge from within the system.
Euronews: Are you saying there’s likely to be a coup?
Laylaz: The end of a coup usually challenges the ruling order.
Euronews: A “coup d’état” is military action against the apex of power.
Laylaz: The current leadership could be amenable to the rise of a Bonaparte-like figure.
Euronews: Will Iran’s Bonaparte change the system’s overall policy?
Laylaz: Yes. The goal would be to restore coherence in decision-making.
Euronews: If that were so, wouldn’t that person have to be clearly defined as head of state and assume power?
Laylaz: It is possible that this transformation will happen through some agreement. The problem with your point of view, in my opinion, is that you see the issue on an individual basis.
Euronews: Are you saying that Mr Pezeshkian might step aside and have a Bonaparte sit in his place?
Laylaz: No, I see Bonaparte to be on the level of supreme leader.
Euronews: So, Bonaparte should be the leader.
Laylaz: Or have 100% approval from the leadership. That is, the leadership itself decides to entrust the job to Bonaparte. If it makes such a decision, steps down, or passes away, the outcome is the same.
By that interpretation, most countries in the Middle East and Asia are governed by a Bonaparte, as in Saudi Arabia, Russia, Taiwan, Indonesia and many other Asian countries.
Euronews: Now Mr Khamenei is resisting changes in foreign policy. So how could he possibly say, “Mr X, you come and play Bonaparte; I will support you as well”?
Laylaz: I may disagree with you on this point. The Islamic Republic has fallen short, not only now, but ever since the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. However, the West has in practice held back from accepting a compromise.
I have information that Iranian political officials are ready for dialogue with the other side, and even urge them to “accept symbolic enrichment from us so that we have a guarantee against internal disintegration.”
Iran’s policy shift toward its neighbours is now quite tangible. Perhaps the difference between our perspectives is that you attend to slogans, whereas I focus on behaviour.
Euronews: But clerics often mislead intellectuals. Before the 2024 (Iranian year 1403) election, reformist activist Abbas Abdi argued that Pezeshkian’s approval meant the leadership wanted change — but it didn’t happen.
Laylaz: I was and I am in complete agreement with Mr Abdi. They’ve changed the handlebars drastically. The issue is that the United States is not ready to compromise with Iran.
Euronews: But if, in April and May 2025, the Islamic Republic had agreed to shut down enrichment altogether, it would not have faced military attack.
Laylaz: It is a demand that the Islamic Republic will never accept. Bonaparte would not accept it either. You, like most Iranian intellectuals, are exaggerating the impact of foreign policy on Iran’s internal situation. It is not at all the case that the root cause of our domestic problems is our foreign policy.
Last year, our oil revenues were $62 billion. In the best year under the nuclear deal, our oil revenues were $65 billion. Our oil revenues are down because the global price of crude oil has declined by 20%.
Our fundamental problem is not sanctions, but politicisation. The indication is that our economic growth in 2015, the first year of the nuclear deal, was 15%, but in the second year after the deal it reached 4%.
Euronews: If we had spent the last 10 years without sanctions, wouldn’t Iran’s economic situation be much better now?
Laylaz: This would mean a return to a policy centred on selling oil and relying on imports. No, that policy would not have benefited us at all.
The reference points are Algeria and Egypt. Saudi Arabia’s and Iran’s economic growth rates have been similar over the past 15 years. Oil can no longer be the determining factor in Iran’s status.
The role of oil in the Iranian economy has become largely comparable to its role in the Indonesian economy. Because Indonesia’s population growth was too high and oil revenues could not increase beyond a certain point, oil gradually lost its central role in the Indonesian economy.
Euronews: On that note, what problem is your Bonaparte meant to solve with the US?
Laylaz: It’s supposed to reform the country’s policies. I assure you, there is now $40 to $50 billion being stolen a year in the Iranian economy, and you are still focusing on the sanctions issue.
Bonaparte would get the economy back on track. The Iranian economy is entirely out of sorts. We have $50 billion in annual capital theft and capital flight.
Euronews: Is this not a product of Ali Khamenei’s management? Bonaparte would have to reform the regime’s leadership policies.
Laylaz: That’s certainly the case. But again, you are thinking on an individual basis. Let me tell you that the interference in pricing, which began in the late 1960s in the Iranian economy, due to the increase in oil revenues, is perhaps the biggest factor in Iran’s misery.
We’re just giving people the equivalent of 8.5 million barrels of crude every day, almost for free.
Or by selling gas to people’s homes, we supply every dollar at the price of $1,000. It means giving gas for people’s homes at 1% of the selling price in global markets. If we can save 20% of that amount, we can give gas to Iraq, Pakistan, Turkey and all the neighbouring countries.
There’s the pipeline, too. Imbalances and government interference in the economy have destroyed it. Since the beginning of this year, the government has paid $12 billion for food and medicine imports, but about $8 billion has been stolen. That’s what Mr Pezeshkian said yesterday.
He knew that when he became president but didn’t have the guts to change it. Now, the government has reached a point where it doesn’t have enough money to pay anymore, so it will certainly stop that theft. So our main problem is policy-making.
Euronews: Your analysis is ultimately a kind of defence of Mr Khamenei. You are saying that the Islamic Republic’s foreign policy is not one of Iran’s main problems. But “common sense” is inconsistent with what you’re saying.
Laylaz: The goal of an expert is to go beyond common sense.
Euronews: At the moment, the relationship between Iran and the West is in disarray. Is reforming this relationship in Iran’s economic interest?
Laylaz: It must be so.
Euronews: But your point is that the financial corruption of “so-and-so official’s son” is more important than Iran’s relations with the West.
Laylaz: Yes, a thousand times more important. Iran’s economy has completely become corrupt and fallen into disarray.
Euronews: If domestic policy had been appropriately managed and the press were allowed to scrutinise the government’s actions, the son of Mr X would not have been able to act so corruptly and remain in his position. The press was silenced in 1999 at the behest of the leader of the Islamic Republic, with foreign policy following a similar path. The country is now plagued by the corruption of the Aghazadeh (privileged children of the elite).
Laylaz: In my opinion, you are conflating different issues in this discussion, because you have jumped from foreign policy to domestic policy.
Euronews: But you’ve said twice that the problem isn’t “the individual”. Still, a quick look at Iran’s domestic and foreign policy shows that the country’s main problem is the leader of the system’s policies.
Laylaz: Yes, it is clear that the current situation has to do with the policies of the leadership. I don’t doubt that point. But if you say that the main issue is freedom and democracy, I will tell you that if Saudi Arabia and Kuwait have freedom and democracy?, our issue is not democracy.
Nowhere in the world does economic growth have anything to do with democracy. Iran’s economic growth under Mr. Raisi’s government was slightly above 4%, but has been zero since last year. This has nothing to do with the relationship with the US. You have to look at the issues like an expert. Economics is a field of numbers and digits.
Euronews: Iran’s main problem is political, not economic. Your current analysis is that westernisation in foreign policy and the lack of democracy in domestic politics are not so important; instead, someone must be found to round up these thieves. But how is such a person, in the absence of democracy, going to do it?
Laylaz: The question of thieves aside – the main problem is government interference in the economy, and I have explained its destructive role.
Euronews: By government, do you mean the executive branch?
Laylaz: The executive, the parliament, the judiciary with its constant usurpations and threats. Or security and surveillance devices. Whoever is rattled in the Iranian economy, the regulatory apparatus is interfering with it. And I wish they had stopped the corruption with these measures. Meanwhile, the situation is continually worsening due to the surveillance apparatus’s nuisance.
Euronews: Doesn’t this mean that a group of corrupt people, whom no one can criticise, have become the ones running the country, and that’s how things have come to this point?
Laylaz: Criticism is something anyone can do. Mr Pezeshkian has come to work criticising the group, yet they have captured him himself.
Euronews: Pezeshkian sits at the head of the executive power with the leader’s permission. My point was that now, for example, if the Shargh newspaper reports in detail about the corruption of the IRGC, it is immediately seized.
Laylaz: Yes, but the real problem with our economy isn’t the corruption of public institutions.
Euronews: The real problem is that if Iran’s political system were democratic, protests by a large portion of the population against certain policies would be managed, rather than met with violent repression.
Laylaz: They must take into account what exactly?
Euronews: It means that the policies the people are protesting can change, and if they don’t, the people can remove the chief architect of the status quo from office in the next election. But in Iran, the main pillars of the status quo cannot be dismissed through voting.
Laylaz: You’re constantly going back to the democracy debate. But I do not believe that there is democracy anywhere. Democracy makes no sense at all. As much as you cannot overthrow the American political system, you cannot overthrow the Iranian political system either.
Euronews: That you find democratic Sweden and China politically ultimately similar is odd, but let’s get back to the main topic of the interview. There is widespread unrest in the country. Do you think it will continue or will it be short-term?
Laylaz: Discontent and unrest will certainly continue in many forms, but with the outlook I have now, I can’t say that this unrest will become structurally fragile.
Euronews: Do you think these protests could reach 70 days, for example?
Laylaz: No, but it might go on for a month, because people are so hurt and upset by the inefficiency. I believe we had solutions.
For example, the same action taken yesterday by Mr Pezeshkian, namely the elimination of the 28,000 Toman subsidised dollar, could have been taken 16 months earlier and saved at least $15 billion.
The problem with the Iranian government is its inability to anticipate events. This is evidence of the system’s inefficiency.
Euronews: What do you think of Trump’s warning to the Islamic Republic that if you kill protesters we will take military action against you?
Laylaz: In my view, the interests of the West and Israel lie in escalating the unrest in Iran. Generally, a weak and violent Iran in the Middle East region is America’s favourite kind of Iran. But the government’s array of policies over the past year and a half, along with external factors, has contributed to the deterioration of Iran’s economy.
Euronews: Given Trump’s warning, and that you said the protests could go on for up to a month, do you think war is likely to break out?
Laylaz: I certainly consider the danger of war to be high, with protests or without protests. As long as the issue of enrichment and those 400 kilos of uranium remains unsolved, there is always the risk that Iran will once again be invaded.
Euronews: The idea of a pre-emptive Iranian attack is also apparently on the table. Perhaps because the war can prevent the protests from continuing, otherwise the regime will inevitably suppress the protesting population, while previously claiming that the 12-day conflict with Israel has brought national unity in the country.
Laylaz: One or two people may have this opinion, but the Islamic Republic’s main body will not make such a decision; firstly, it is a very dangerous game and puts the lives of Iran’s leaders directly at risk. Secondly, the reaction of the people may be different this time compared to before.
Start a war until the protests stop, the basis of which is that the protesting people will no longer return to their homes. At the same time, I believe the situation is not yet out of control, and the government can mitigate it by implementing policies.
Euronews: Recently, it was reported that after the Israeli attack on Qatar, Ali Larijani advocated a preemptive attack on Israel, but Pezeshkian opposed it, leading to a dispute between the two in the Supreme National Security Council.
Laylaz: I have heard no such thing. Pezeshkian has the upper hand in decision-making in matters like this. That’s how it has been so far. By the way, I do not believe that Mr Ali Larijani has any radical thoughts in this regard. We consider Mr Larijani to be a more pragmatic person than Mr Pezeshkian.
Euronews: Does Mr Pezeshkian currently have full authority when it comes to entering a war or avoiding one?
Laylaz: Yes, Mr Pezeshkian has full authority.
Euronews: Based on your description of Pezeshkian’s government, can we say his administration has failed and should step aside?
Laylaz: No, I wouldn’t make that judgment about Mr Pezeshkian yet. The reality is that over the past seventeen months, the depth and intensity of the crises he has faced have been markedly different from those faced by previous governments.
Mr Khatami, whose government was the most successful since the revolution, began to see results only by the end of his second year in office. So I still think we need to give Mr Pezeshkian a chance.
That said, to date he has not demonstrated a cohesive will to implement meaningful change.
Euronews: Do you think Trump’s warning yesterday to the Islamic Republic will encourage protesters to push on?
Laylaz: No, it might even be to the detriment of the protesters.
Euronews: Why?
Laylaz: Because the kind of US involvement in Iranian affairs has always been to the detriment of the people and to the benefit of tyranny. Trump’s warning just happens to drive people back to their homes.
Euronews: Because the government will more aggressively crack down on protesters after Trump’s warning?
Laylaz: Both the government comes across more harshly, and they themselves are hesitant to continue these protests.
Euronews: Do you find it likely that this time after the war starts, the people of smaller towns, which are not under bombardment, will rise up against the Islamic Republic?
Laylaz: Yes, it is probable. The reason why counties have been more active now, and likewise in the protests of recent years, than the capital is the intensity of economic pressure on people in smaller, poorer cities. And it shows that governments in Iran don’t understand what they’re doing.
Euronews: During the 12-day conflict with Israel, (Crown Prince and son of former Shah) Reza Pahlavi was ridiculed for calling on people to protest. But how could people protest while under bombardment? This time, however, you said that people from cities not under bombardment might come out to protest. Do you really think that’s possible?
Laylaz: Yes. The Islamic Republic did not respond appropriately to the people’s declarations of loyalty during the 12-day war. After the war, it returned to “factory settings”— no changes were made in governance or even in the bureaucracy.
This means that if you go to the government to get a license or to do something with your own money, there’s no way you’ll receive any special treatment or additional facilities. For example, the Central Bank does not change its regulations under any circumstances.
Euronews: Our system is paralysed and has not made any big decisions aimed at changing the status quo.
Laylaz: Yes, the system is paralysed and has reached a stalemate. It is therefore unable to make a rational decision in order to solve the problem decisively. It doesn’t solve any problems anymore.
Euronews: Wherever it touches, many of the beneficiaries of the status quo become complainants.
Laylaz: Yes, exactly. The cause of the crippling of regimes is that the set of people inside the government, their suitability in such a way as to erode the efficiency of the government. Like late Safavi, Qajar and Pahlavi. It feels like old age. In old age, the body says you’re going to die, but you don’t stop shaving because of that.
Euronews: By that account, do you consider the life of the Islamic Republic to be coming to an end?
Laylaz: Regarding this form of government, yes. This method of governance has reached a dead end, but only because it has no alternative. A new phenomenon will emerge from it and alter the nature of the political system.
Euronews: That would be, as you say, with a Bonaparte taking over.
Laylaz: Yes.
Euronews: Do you think that another war would lead to the fall of the Islamic Republic of Iran?
Laylaz: No. I don’t see the Islamic Republic falling so soon. War brings about internal change but does not lead to the downfall of the system.
Euronews: If Ali Khamenei is killed in the next war, will the system remain in place?
Laylaz: Yes. His standing is in no way more important than Mr Khomeini’s standing in 1988.
Euronews: And would the possible removal of Ali Khamenei in the war contribute to the rise of Bonaparte in your view?
Laylaz: This Bonaparte will come anyway. With or without war, with or without the removal of leadership. I hope Ali Khamenei is never removed in this way, though.
Euronews: Who do you think could be Bonaparte?
Laylaz: There are a lot of candidates. Engels used to say that when the wheel of history kicks in, it finds its man. Don’t worry.
Euronews: Might parliament speaker Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf become Bonaparte?
Laylaz: Yes, it is possible.
Euronews: What do you think about the fall of Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela and the possible impact on Iran?
Laylaz: My impression is that Trump and Maduro were already dating. But the fall of Maduro’s government will not have a dramatic impact on the Islamic Republic. It will neither improve nor harm our situation. Iran’s oil resources may become more critical to China and India.
Euronews: Wouldn’t the fall of Maduro have a psychological impact on Iran’s rulers?
Laylaz: It may raise hopes for some groups inside Iran, but those groups don’t seem to matter to me. I don’t know a lot about the number of people who, with the fall of Maduro, will become more hopeful of the overthrow of the Islamic Republic.
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