The January Massacre and Its Shadow Over Iran’s Political Future

Any analysis of Iran’s current situation must grapple with what happened in January, when security forces killed more than 7,000 people during protests that swept the country. That event — one of the deadliest episodes of state violence against civilians in the Islamic Republic’s history — has cast a long shadow over everything that has followed, including the current war and the question of what comes after Khamenei.
The protests themselves were driven by a complex mix of economic desperation, political grievances, and the accumulated anger of a population that had watched its living standards decline while its political options narrowed. They followed a series of earlier uprisings — including the 2019 protests and the 2022 women’s rights movement — that had also been suppressed with force.
What distinguished January was both the scale of the protests and the scale of the response. The killing of thousands of civilians represented a decision by the regime to use overwhelming force rather than risk any political concession. It succeeded in suppressing the protests, but at enormous cost to the regime’s domestic legitimacy.
The aftermath of January shaped the political environment in which Khamenei’s death has now occurred. Reformist and activist figures who called for change were imprisoned. The security apparatus, already powerful, was further strengthened. Public anger was driven underground rather than extinguished.
Now, with Khamenei gone and the country at war, that underground anger is part of the political landscape that Iran’s new leaders must navigate. The security forces who are flooding the streets of Tehran are there not just because of the war, but because of January. The regime knows what its people think of it, and it is acting accordingly.