Irregular: What’s the probability the Iranian regime falls?

And how to think it through

Portrait of Fath Ali Shah (1797-1834), c.1805, the Louvre.

Hello from Melbourne,

The question on everyone’s mind — from Tehran to Washington — is whether the Iranian government will fall, whether by revolution, coup, or foreign intervention (though the latter seems increasingly unlikely, judging from Donald Trump’s recent comments).

This is a very difficult question to answer. Trump could change his mind again, and little reliable information is emerging from Iran. The government has shut down the internet for more than a week. Estimates of protest size, fatalities, and detentions are contested or unverifiable. Meanwhile, the rhetoric of the Iranian leadership, foreign governments, and opposition figures has produced far more heat than light.

How, then, should one think about such a question?

The first step is to resist the temptation to answer it directly. Asking “will the regime fall?” invites overconfidence, narrative thinking, and moral projection. A better approach, borrowed from the discipline of “superforecasting”, is to break the problem down, start with historical base rates, and update probabilities incrementally as genuinely diagnostic information emerges. This may not produce dramatic headlines, but it does produce better judgments.

Back to basis

The most common forecasting error in moments of upheaval is to assume that visible unrest implies imminent collapse. History, for better or worse, suggests otherwise. Even during periods of mass protest, most governments survive. During the Arab Spring, for example, far more regimes endured than collapsed. Large crowds, sustained anger, and intense international attention are all compatible with regime survival. Revolutions are exceedingly rare events. As a crude heuristic, they might be thought of as occurring once a century in any given country — implying a baseline probability of around 1% in any given year.

Not all governments are alike, however. Democracies experience fewer revolutions. Prosperous states are rarely overthrown. Some countries have a tradition of extra-constitutional change; others do not. A more relevant starting point, then, is Iran’s own history.

Over the twentieth century, Iran experienced multiple regime changes: the Constitutional Revolution of 1905–11, the 1921 coup that brought Reza Shah to power, the Allied intervention of 1941, the CIA- and MI6-backed coup of 1953, and the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Taken together, that record suggests a rough base rate of around six regime changes per century — or about a 5–6% annual probability in periods of political stress. Let’s take 5% as a working baseline. (History buffs can read our history of Iran here.)

The next step is to ask whether present conditions justify adjusting that probability up or down. Iran today is clearly not an ordinary case. The relevant question is not whether unrest exists, but which current conditions have historically raised the likelihood of regimes falling — and which have suppressed it.

Higher powers

Start with the economy. Severe economic distress is one of the most reliable drivers of political instability, and Iran’s situation is acute. Inflation is extreme, water mismanagement has become a daily grievance, and decades of sanctions layered on top of domestic mismanagement have produced a long-anticipated crisis. By some estimates, roughly a third of Iranians now live in poverty. These conditions make sustained unrest more likely and limit the regime’s ability to buy off discontent. Taken in isolation, economic stress of this magnitude plausibly raises the baseline probability by two to three percentage points. (That puts us around 7–8%.)

The protest movement itself also justifies some upward adjustment. The current wave, which began in late December, has been broader and more meaningful than most since 1979. Particularly notable is the participation of constituencies that have historically supported the regime, including Tehran’s bazaar merchants, whose last participation in protests was in 1979. The significance of the bazaari involvement lies less in numbers than in what it signals: cross-class mobilisation and economic coordination, both of which have preceded serious challenges to Iranian governments in the past. A reasonable estimate is that this breadth adds another one to two percentage points. (Now roughly 8–10%.)

Lowering the bar

However, the protests have also encountered familiar constraints. A near-total communications clampdown has hindered coordination. Tens of thousands of arrests and fast-tracked prosecutions have sharply raised the personal cost of participation. After weeks of demonstrations, there are signs of fatigue, with protest activity easing temporarily in mid-January. While renewed unrest remains likely, the probability of an unstoppable mass movement is lower. These factors plausibly shave off one to two percentage points. (Back to around 7–8%.)

The most powerful force pulling the probability down remains the regime’s coercive capacity. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the Basij, and other security forces appear intact, cohesive, and willing to use extreme violence, with no credible signs of senior defections. Across both revolutions and coups, regimes rarely fall while their coercive institutions remain unified and confident of impunity. Combined with the fact that power is distributed across multiple centres and the IRGC is not just a security force but a deeply invested political-economic actor, the overall strength of the regime might plausibly subtract another three to four points. (This brings the estimate down to roughly 3–5%.)

Another significant dampener is the absence of credible alternative leadership. Potential opposition figures have been systematically silenced, leaving a fragmented and incoherent opposition. While the exiled son of the former shah, Reza Pahlavi, has announced he is stepping in to “lead this period of transition”, he has little domestic support and is often mocked as the “Clown Prince”.

History suggests this gap in alternative leadership matters not only for what follows any regime collapse, but for whether elites and security forces defect at all. When the alternative appears underwhelming, chaotic or likely to produce state failure, defection becomes far less attractive. This alternative leadership vacuum, combined with Iranians having watched Iraq, Libya, Syria and Afghanistan descend into chaos following regime change, likely reduces collapse probability by two to three percentage points. (This pushes the probability into the low single digits, say, 1-3%.)

Neutral ground

Foreign intervention complicates matters further. While the United States has issued threats and weighed military options, its behaviour to date overwhelmingly suggests caution rather than imminence. External attacks could weaken the regime, but they could just as plausibly consolidate hardline control, empower the IRGC, or trigger uncontrolled breakdown without producing a viable alternative government. From a probabilistic standpoint, foreign intervention increases volatility without clearly shifting the balance toward collapse. For now, we would suggest treating the threat of foreign intervention as roughly probability-neutral.

Taken together, these adjustments produce a disciplined but unspectacular update. Economic distress and unusually broad protests do raise the risk of regime destabilisation above that of a typical year. But those pressures are more than offset by cohesive security forces, entrenched institutions, the absence of alternative leadership, and deep fear of chaos. Absent any significant changes to the situation, most defensible estimate places the probability of outright regime collapse — whether by revolution, coup, or external shock — in the low single digits over the next, say, three months, rising modestly over a six- to twelve-month horizon if current pressures persist.

Any assessment like this naturally rests on a set of underlying assumptions, and it is worth stating them explicitly. Intelligence agencies do this as a matter of discipline, because forecasts usually fail not through bad logic but through unexamined premises. The core assumptions here are that the regime retains basic control over its coercive institutions; that it remains able, for now, to fund and direct repression; that no credible, unified alternative leadership exists; and that external actors remain cautious about actions that could trigger state collapse or regional chaos. If any of these assumptions are wrong — or cease to be true — the probability estimates above would need to be revised quickly and substantially.

Watchpoints

That brings us to what would change this assessment, and therefore what is worth watching. Four developments stand out.

1. Defections. The most powerful upward shift would come from visible elite or security defections — including senior IRGC commanders, regular army leaders, or key political figures publicly breaking ranks or refusing orders. Even limited defections at this level would sharply raise the probability of regime collapse.

2. Leadership. The emergence of a credible leadership figure or coalition — particularly one capable of commanding domestic legitimacy while engaging externally — would materially increase collapse probabilities by making elite and security defections safer and more attractive.

3. Protest dynamics. Sustained, coordinated escalation (especially nationwide strikes in critical sectors) would push probabilities higher, while signs that protests are fragmenting, that repression is deterring participation, or that the regime has secured new financial or security backstops would push them lower.

4. US military action. Significant US military strikes or direct intervention would dramatically increase volatility but not necessarily collapse probability. Depending on scope and timing, such action could either weaken the regime and accelerate elite fragmentation, or consolidate hardline control and empower the IRGC. Any sustained or escalatory US action would therefore force a rapid reassessment of the forecast in either direction.

In short, instability is likely to continue to vex the regime (and drive the media). But regime collapse, while possible, remains far from inevitable.

Best wishes,

Damien