Tehran — Iran is facing heightened anxiety amid mounting internal protests and economic instability, following a dramatic U.S. military operation in Venezuela that resulted in the arrest of President Nicolás Maduro, according to international media reports.
The operation, carried out last week in Caracas, saw U.S. forces detain Maduro and his wife from their bedroom and transfer them to the United States. The incident has sent shockwaves through Tehran, where leaders fear a similar model of direct U.S. intervention as the country grapples with nationwide unrest and a deepening currency crisis. CNN first reported the development, citing concerns within Iran’s political establishment.
According to Reuters, protests erupted across Iran last week after the national currency, the rial, plunged to a record low. Demonstrations reportedly spread to at least 88 cities, with human rights group HRANA claiming that at least 34 people have been killed and more than 2,000 arrested so far.
Against this backdrop, U.S. President Donald Trump issued a fresh warning to Iran. Speaking aboard Air Force One, Trump said that if Iranian authorities continued killing protesters, they would face “extremely severe consequences” from the United States. He went further, warning that Iran would “see hell” if the violence continued.
Iran’s leadership reacted sharply to Trump’s remarks. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei accused protesters of acting on behalf of foreign powers, particularly the United States. He claimed that demonstrators were attacking state property to please the U.S. president and warned that Iran would not tolerate what he described as the actions of “foreign agents or mercenaries.”
Khamenei also advised Trump to focus on managing his own country rather than interfering in Iran’s internal affairs.
Adding to Tehran’s concerns, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu publicly expressed support for Iranian protesters, further intensifying Iranian fears of coordinated external pressure. Iranian officials have since labeled some demonstrators as rioters, hired terrorists, and foreign-linked provocateurs. Authorities have also reported the arrest of at least one individual in Tehran on suspicion of working for Israel’s intelligence agency, Mossad.
The unrest comes months after attacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities last summer, an episode that already left the country politically and socially fragile.
Wali Nasr, a professor at Johns Hopkins University, told CNN that Iranian leaders now believe Washington’s objective is to apply “maximum pressure” to destabilize the country. “Iran is facing a dangerous convergence of internal dissent and external military threat,” he said.
Alex Vatanka, director of the Iran Program at the Middle East Institute in Washington, told Reuters that the crisis goes beyond the collapse of the rial. “This is a collapse of public trust,” he said, warning that confidence in the state system is eroding rapidly.
Analysts note that long-standing rulers in countries such as Syria, Libya, and Iraq fell only after a combination of mass protests and foreign military intervention. Vatanka added that while Iran’s clerical leadership has survived past crises through repression and tactical concessions, that strategy may now be reaching its limits.
“Change appears increasingly inevitable,” he said, “though the fall of the system is possible, it is not yet certain.”
