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A confidential report ready for Iran’s presidency is elevating a consequential query for Washington and its allies: Do extraordinary ranges of public anger and help for systemic change justify reassessing whether or not the Islamic Republic could also be extra weak to regime change than beforehand believed?
The categorised doc, titled “What Iran Desires,” reportedly discovered that solely 9% of respondents supported sustaining the established order, with 53% calling for fundamental or structural reforms and greater than 19% favoring altering the political system outright.
Taken collectively, practically three-quarters of these surveyed reportedly supported both deep structural reform or substitute of the prevailing system — findings that might strengthen arguments that Iran’s political disaster has moved past dissatisfaction with particular person leaders or insurance policies.
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Protesters march in downtown Tehran, Iran, Monday, Dec. 29, 2025. (Fars Information Company through AP)
IranWire reported on July 13 that it had obtained the doc, which was compiled by Ali Rabiei, President Masoud Pezeshkian’s social adviser and a former authorities spokesman. It was based mostly on polling conducted by the Ara Opinion Analysis Middle in Could 2026 and circulated amongst establishments inside Iran’s governing construction in June, in accordance with the outlet.
Miad Maleki, a senior fellow on the Basis for Protection of Democracies, informed Fox Information Digital that the report ought to immediate a contemporary evaluation of the potential for political upheaval inside Iran.
“If something, this analysis understates the depth of Iranians’ rage,” Maleki mentioned. “And that’s what makes it exceptional: even a survey ready for the regime’s personal president, by its personal pollsters, information anger ranges above 63%, nicely past the very best charge Gallup has ever recorded anyplace on the earth, alongside 81% struggling to place meals on the desk and a majority expressing hopelessness.”
Maleki cautioned that polling performed below an authoritarian authorities can’t be handled as exact as a result of respondents might worry the results of expressing opposition.
“In a police state the place expressing the unsuitable opinion can value you your job, your freedom, or your life, respondents self-censor, which implies these findings are greatest learn as a ground, not a ceiling,” he mentioned.
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On this image obtained from Iran’s ISNA information company, Mojtaba Khamenei (C), son of Iran’s supreme chief Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, walks alongside a avenue in Tehran on Could 31, 2019. (Hamid FOROUTAN / ISNA / AFP through Getty Pictures)
The whole survey methodology was not included within the materials obtained by IranWire. The report reportedly didn’t disclose how respondents have been chosen, who was questioned or whether or not the pattern mirrored Iran’s geographic and demographic make-up.
Its findings subsequently can’t be independently verified or handled as definitive measurements of Iranian opinion. The report additionally can’t set up that dissatisfaction will translate into an organized motion able to eradicating the federal government.
Nonetheless, its findings painting a number of pressures converging without delay.
Roughly 64% of respondents reported persistent anger, up roughly 12% factors from a earlier authorities survey performed in December 2025. Half reported hopelessness, roughly 48% reported disappointment or melancholy and about 45% reported persistent worry or anxiousness, in accordance with IranWire.
Financial misery additionally seems central to the general public anger.
Greater than 81% skilled extreme or partial problem acquiring sufficient meals, whereas 75% struggled to cowl medical prices, IranWire reported. Fifty-four p.c mentioned their earnings didn’t cowl present family bills, and solely 8% reported incomes sufficient to save lots of.
Respondents blamed home governance extra incessantly than international pressure. 46.9% cited authorities inefficiency as the reason for Iran’s financial issues, 26.3% blamed corruption and 20.7% cited international sanctions.
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Hundreds gathered at Revolution Sq. in Tehran on Could 30, 2026, to protest assaults by the US and Israel on Iran, carrying Iranian flags and posters of the late Supreme Chief Ali Khamenei. (Fatemeh Bahrami/Anadolu)
That discovering could possibly be particularly important to the regime-change debate as a result of it suggests many Iranians don’t primarily blame outdoors powers for his or her deteriorating dwelling circumstances.
The doc additionally factors to a disaster of institutional confidence. Roughly 60% reportedly distrusted main authorities establishments, whereas 61.2% negatively assessed officers’ means to unravel Iran’s issues. Mistrust of the federal government, parliament, judiciary and state tv remained above 50%, IranWire reported.
The report’s suggestions, nonetheless, reportedly centered on managing dissatisfaction fairly than addressing calls for for systemic change.
Rabiei urged state establishments to higher clarify the impact of sanctions, average the rhetoric utilized by officers and non secular platforms, current a extra inclusive picture by state tv and keep away from insurance policies that place the federal government in direct confrontation with society.
Automobiles burn in a avenue throughout a protest over the collapse of the foreign money’s worth in Tehran, Iran, Jan. 8, 2026. (Stringer/WANA (West Asia Information Company) through REUTERS)
IranWire’s follow-up evaluation argued that the suggestions handled Iran’s disaster primarily as a communications and public-perception downside. The report supplied few concrete proposals involving institutional accountability, political liberalization or elementary financial reform, in accordance with the outlet.
Maleki mentioned the findings have been according to the expanding scale of unrest, citing demonstrations that spread from greater than 80 cities in 2017 to greater than 200 cities throughout all 31 provinces this 12 months, alongside what he described as a quadrupling of strikes.
“Iranians have moved from being skeptical of what one other revolution would possibly convey to concluding there isn’t any different to 1, as a result of reform has confirmed not possible,” Maleki mentioned.
But the report doesn’t resolve one of many largest obstacles to regime change: The Islamic Republic has spent many years constructing establishments designed to watch, deter and violently suppress organized opposition.
“This regime was born of revolution, by revolutionaries,” Maleki mentioned. “Stopping and crushing the following one is the one factor they genuinely know learn how to do.”
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Buses that have been burned throughout Iran’s protests, in Tehran, Iran, Jan. 21, 2026. (Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia Information Company) through Reuters)
He however argued that additional unrest was inevitable.
“So the discontent will translate into renewed protest,” Maleki mentioned. “The query just isn’t if, however when, and whether or not anybody is ready to face with the Iranian individuals when it does.”
