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The Coming War on Iran: What Has Really Been Happening?

By Robert Inlakesh | The Palestine Chronicle | January 13, 2026

The unrest inside Iran was effectively brought to a halt by the authorities, culminating in mass pro-government demonstrations in the millions across the country. Yet, the specter of a US-Israeli regime change operation continues to lie in the wake.

If you have been following the course of the protests/riots inside Iran on social media or in the corporate press, the impression given since the beginning of the year has been that Tehran is on the verge of collapse. Countless false claims were issued regarding the fall of entire cities, the collapse of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), a massacre of peaceful protesters and even that Ayatollah Khamenei was seeking to escape to Moscow.

Evidently, the reality on the ground couldn’t have been more opposite of what the pro-regime change news outlets and social media influence operations have been portraying. Therefore, to understand what is happening, it is important to understand what truly transpired.

The Road to another Regime Change War

Ever since the conclusion of the 12-Day War between Iran and Israel last June, foreign policy hawks have made it abundantly clear that another round of fighting was only a matter of time. In fact, on July 7, 2025, Axios News reported that Israeli officials were already seeking a green-light, from the US President for them to attack Iran again.

Influential pro-Israeli Washington-based think tanks – such as the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), and the Atlantic Council – all agreed that another round would be necessary, yet argued in different ways that the next round would have to result in the closure of the conflict for the foreseeable future.

The reasoning behind this was clear: if the next round was to mirror the 12-Day War, then another round would again become an inevitability. This scenario would mean that every 6-12 months, the conflict would go from Cold to Hot, a predicament that would actually heavily favour Iran.

If Tehran manages to keep repeating a similar series of rounds to what we saw in June of 2025, the Israelis will be at an enormous disadvantage. Not only does Israel have a smaller territory in which to operate, making taking out vital infrastructure easier, but it cannot produce weapons and rebuild at the rate Iran can. For example, the air defence munitions it depleted last year have still not been fully replenished, and many of the sites struck in Tel Aviv remain in ruins.

Iran, on the other hand, has been able to mass-produce ballistic missiles and drones. Western publicly released estimates greatly vary, but often indicate that the Iranians have replenished their arsenals, whereas the indications coming from Iran itself appear to suggest that they have superseded what they previously possessed, both in quantity and quality.

The US and Israel, nevertheless, have clearly been threatening to attack Iran once again for months, using varying excuses about why. Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu has recently been complaining about Iran’s missile program, which quickly became a talking point of the Trump administration, too.

Yet, the moment to attack Iran clearly hadn’t presented itself. There were simply too many variables, too many unknowns, and too many doubts for them to commit any action. We also saw this when it came to Israeli threats against Hezbollah in Lebanon. Even got to the point late last year that Hezbollah’s Secretary General, Naim Qassem, publicly stated that Israel is just bluffing and that although something may happen in the new year, he essentially told the Israelis to shut up and just attack if they were set on doing so.

Why didn’t Israel attack Lebanon? Perhaps the biggest reason why they didn’t is because of Iran and the fear of how far such a war could go. The Israelis attempted assassinations and ramped up their air attacks as a means of attempting to draw a retaliatory strike from Hezbollah, but this failed. Instead, the option left on the table was full-scale war or no war at all.

Then came the pivot to Iran, at least in terms of public propaganda and ramping up rhetoric.

Riots In Iran as A Prelude to War

On December 28, the Israelis spotted a new opportunity. Protests erupted throughout cities across Iran, as mainly shopkeepers took to the streets in order to express their outrage at government mismanagement amidst the ongoing sanctions-induced economic crisis.

To be clear, these protests were totally organic and genuine; they had the backing of major Unions inside the country, and the Iranian government appeared to be quickly engaging with them in order to reach concessions. There was no violence at these protests initially. Even when suspected agent provocateurs had attempted to chant for regime change, shopkeeper protesters had forced them out of their crowds.

By December 29, former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett then posted a video on social media, in which he claimed that Israel was standing with the Iranians “rising up” against their government. Bear in mind that when this address was issued, the situation in Iran was in fact relatively calm, and the widespread riots had not yet taken place.

However, on social media, old videos and AI-generated clips were suddenly spread like wildfire, in a clearly coordinated campaign led by the Israelis and their Iranian opposition allies.

Almost out of nowhere, rioters began to spring up in small groups, primarily in the West of Iran. Some of these rioters carried weapons, but most just committed vandalism and burned down cars or shops. At this point, the protests over the economic crisis began to reduce, to be replaced by anti-government protests. Despite the violence and escalating rhetoric, the authorities in Tehran made sure to distinguish between rioters and legitimate protesters, not bringing down full force against them.

Then came the first day of the New Year, when the violence suddenly exploded. Iranian opposition channels began claiming cities had fallen, which never happened; they claimed millions were rising against the government, which also was not the case. On January 1, two Iranian police officers were murdered, and rioters even executed a young man who belonged to the Basij paramilitary force in the country.

The day after saw all the major Unions condemn the violent rioters, as Israel’s official Persian-language account posted AI-generated images depicting Iran’s police forces hosing down peaceful protesters. Again, the riots escalated and more members of the security forces were murdered, as rioters committed arson attacks.

All of this ended up coming to a head on January 8, as the riots escalated dramatically and this led to Iran shutting down the internet across the country as it took the gloves off and sent its IRGC forces in to stabilise the situation.

The largest recorded anti-government protests, as one called for by the Shah’s son from the comfort of California, numbered no more than in the tens of thousands. It is estimated that at their peak, there were around 40,000 that showed up.

The footage that began emerging from the streets of Tehran and elsewhere was nothing short of shocking, mass destruction and arson against public transit, the burning of mosques, attacks on schools, medical clinics, shops, homes and streets left in ruins as dumpsters were overturned and set alight, along with all the vehicles in sight.

In total, Iran claims that over 100 members of its security forces were murdered, 350 Mosques were set ablaze and 150 ambulances were damaged or destroyed. Civilians were also brutally murdered by the rioters, reportedly including a three-year-old child and a nurse who was burned to death; multiple police officers were also burned alive.

Without needing to go any further, there is copious evidence of armed militants firing on security forces and mass violence committed against civilian infrastructure. What started as a totally normal and organic series of protests was hijacked and turned into an Israeli-backed riot campaign. This was not comparable to the likes of the 2022 or 2009 unrest, which were evidently taken advantage of by Iran’s enemies, but had support from a sizable portion of the population nonetheless.

In the end, it appeared that by January 12, when millions of Iranians came to the streets across the country in solidarity with their government and against the rioters, the Israeli-backed operation had failed.

Yet, the US government had begun to ramp up its direct threats of intervention as the riots died down. Leaving the question open as to when the next round of American strikes would occur, following Donald Trump’s decision to bomb Iran last year.

The real question is whether these riots were a desperate and failed regime change attempt in and of themselves, or this was simply a prelude to what’s coming next. If the Israelis were truly betting on these riots equalling regime change, then perhaps the calculation is for the US to attack in order to revive the riots on the ground.

Alternatively, the instability was only for the purpose of setting up a larger attack, which would mean a much larger war could have been planned. In order for the US and Israel to achieve their desired outcome, that being either regime change or a massive blow that will end the war between Israel and Iran for the foreseeable future, they will likely go after Iran’s infrastructure.

In such a scenario, expect the kitchen sink to be thrown at Iran. Armed terrorist militia insurgencies, airstrikes, agents on the ground, and more riot activity. In particular, attacks on the electrical grid, water, oil, agriculture, and everything that makes the economy function. In other words, an attempt to achieve regime change this way, or to simply make war so costly that Iran won’t seek it for some time afterwards. Perhaps the goal could be to weaken Iran to a degree where it would negotiate on US terms, yet this is highly unlikely.

Iran dealt with these threats by issuing its own, doubling down and adopting an ultra-aggressive posture. What comes next could go many ways, so we are left to wait and see.

– Robert Inlakesh is a journalist, writer, and documentary filmmaker. He focuses on the Middle East, specializing in Palestine. He contributed this article to The Palestine Chronicle.

January 13, 2026 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , | Leave a comment