Growing Iran protests rattle leaders as Trump threatens to intervene

Widespread protests have rocked Iran for nearly a week and led to increasing violent clashes with security forces, prompting President Donald Trump to threaten intervention if a crackdown continues

Widespread protests have rocked Iran for nearly a week and led to increasing violent clashes with security forces, prompting President Donald Trump to threaten intervention if a crackdown continues.

The protests, which started with economic grievances by shopkeepers in Tehran and quickly spread to remote cities in provinces like Fars and Lorestan, where protesters chanted slogans against the ruling clerics, have raised pointed questions for the country’s leaders about how much support they really enjoy.

Shopkeepers and traders protest in the street against the economic conditions and Iran's embattled currency in Tehran on Monday.Fars News Agency / AFP via Getty ImagesAli Larijani, who serves as the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, alleged Friday without providing evidence that Israel and the U.S. were stoking the escalating demonstrations. And Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf said in a post on X that Trump’s threat of intervention makes U.S. bases in the region “legitimate targets.”

In a post on Truth Social, Trump had said that if Iran “violently kills peaceful protesters, which is their custom, the United States of America will come to their rescue.” He did not specify what this would mean.

Iranian officials attempted to project a united front with ordinary citizens in June, when the Israeli military battered the country in a 12-day war, partly joined by the U.S. military. The war killed more than 1,000 people including top military leaders and nuclear scientists, according to state media, and wreaked havoc on its nuclear facilities.