Middle East: turning point

By Richard North - January 10, 2026

As the unrest continues in Iran, I’m almost tempted to post a link to yesterday’s piece, write “more of the same” and leave it at that.

However, there are crucial differences, While closing down the internet presaged fears that this would herald a frenzied crackdown by the supreme leader, this has not materialised. Instead, via Elon Musk’s Starlink, we’ve been reading messages such as this: “My personal contact in Tehran barely managed to reach me for a few seconds. He said precisely: ‘West Tehran is twice as crowded as last night. The soldiers don’t dare shoot. We are not afraid. Get our voices out’”.

Later, there was a video recorded on Andazgou Boulevard in Tehran, showing protesters chasing a group of security forces. Their exact identity was unclear, but they could be seen fleeing to avoid being captured by protesters.

That might have been linked to this post which reported: “Fatherless and motherless basijis (militia) were throwing stones and pellets at people from atop the bridges. We attacked them from three directions. All the basijis fled, then the people set fire to those three bridges so they could no longer hurl stones or shoot from above” (pictured).

Also from Tehran was a report that the city had been completely in the hands of the people over the Friday night. Main streets like Sattar Khan and Valiasr, it was said, had been completely blocked with burning rubbish bins and burnt-out motorbikes.

Regime officers had virtually no access until morning. The police had done nothing, although the IRGC forces were attacking. The Maidan Kaj mosque was set on fire. Despite tear gas and gunfire, people did not flee or disperse. Women in particular were very brave.

To that and many posts like it, we had a prominent commentator remark: “I can’t overstate how monumental tonight is, as someone who has followed every major uprising since 2009”.

She goes on to say: “The Islamic regime has always fallen back on two things when pressured into a corner: 1) Communication blackout 2) Mass murder This has always worked in the past, silencing Iranians into going home battered, scared and traumatised”.

This time, she continues, Iranians responded to both by coming out in even greater numbers. This has, she than says, posting in capitals: “NEVER HAPPENED BEFORE”.

She writes “as someone who saw the images of Neda Agha-Soltan’s dying breaths in 2009, who saw the 2017 uprising crushed, who saw the 2019 November blackout and massacre, who saw the 2022 uprising fizzle into nothing after relentless oppression”.

But, she says, “Not only has this movement not died out – for the first time there is a commanding leader and a guiding voice who makes calls and decisions for his people. He is the Shah of Iran, and the vast majority of Iran has proven to want him back on the throne. Nobody can deny this any longer”.

The crux of this, she adds is a unified Iran defying regime blackouts AND regime massacres, organising and fighting back, inflicting real and devastating casualties.

“There has been nothing like this ever”, she says, concluding with: “The regime did not expect people to come back out. I repeat: This wasn’t supposed to happen. This is a living nightmare for the mullahs and all their cheerleaders. I don’t know what happens next. All I know is this has moved from an uprising to a revolution”.

Undoubtedly, Starlink makes a crucial difference as it is impossible for the regime to enforce a total blackout and some traffic is still getting through. Nevertheless, communications are difficult.

According to this report, jamming of Starlink terminals began many hours before the internet blackout in Iran, with 30 percent of uplink and downlink traffic being disrupted in the early hours, rising to 80 percent by 10pm local time”.

This kind of interference, it was said, “has never been seen”. The speculation is that the technology involved was likely supplied to Iran by Russia or China, both of which continue to assist the Ayatollahs.

But the messages are getting through and they confirm that the protests are not only increasing in size and intensity but also continuing in other cities. From the southwestern city of Shiraz, for instance, a video shows people taking to the streets again since 8pm on Friday, calling on Prince Reza Pahlavi and shouting “This is the year of the house, overthrow Seyyed Ali”.

Another video from the same city showed fires burning inside the Bank Keshavarzi (Bank of Agriculture). This has coincided with a run on the banks with many shutting their doors and closing down ATMs.

For those prepared to trawl social media, there is plenty more to see, although we’re getting to a difficult stage (as we were with Ukraine) where multiple postings over a protracted period means that there is some overlap on timelines and it is getting hard to be certain when some videos were taken.

One might think that, as the legacy media is now pitching in, it might be easier to follow events but, since they are fishing in the same pond, in many cases they are not adding to our knowledge and are often coming in days after the social media reports have been posted.

It adds to what little entertainment can be gleaned from events to watch the lefty media squirm, with the likes of the Guardian struggling to work out which side it’s on. It knows it should be rooting for the “oppressed”, but with Iran it has to reconcile with the support of the protests from Donald Trump.

Its dichotomy is writ large in one of its latest reports with the headline “Iran’s supreme leader sets stage for harsher crackdown as protest movement swells”.

The giveaway is the sub-head which tells us that: “Ayatollah Ali Khamenei calls protesters ‘vandals’ and ‘saboteurs’ and blames US for instigating the unrest”, the prominence suggesting that, given a chance, the paper would fall in behind the regime.

The paper also has a pessimistic analysis from diplomatic editor Patrick Wintour whose headline declares “Growing protests in Iran do not necessarily herald a return to monarchy”, the sub-head stating: “Despite significant support for the shah, Iranian society may be looking for any ‘escape from a dead end’”.

Actually, I’ve stopped reading this sort of output. There is much more astute analysis on social media, such as this, which offers insight into several possible outcomes from the unrest.

However, as we learn that the family of Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf, the Speaker of Iran’s parliament, has filed requests for a French visa to flee Iran, Israel’s Channel 12 reports that the Israeli intelligence services have re-evaluated a previous report and now assess that the protesters actually might be able to topple the regime.

In the event of that happening, the night’s protests just past might be seen as the turning point.