The factor that makes the protests in Iran different from the previous ones

The protests, which were motivated by the economic crisis in Iran (with the devaluation of the local currency, the rial, by 84% against the dollar in 2025 and food inflation reaching 72%, according to The Wall Street Journal), began in Tehran’s Grand Bazaar.

The historic commercial complex in the Iranian capital has more than 10 kilometers of corridors and symbolizes the strength of Iranian trade. The entrepreneurs established there financially supported the radical Islamic movement that overthrew Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi in ​​1979 and dominated institutions of the new regime, such as the ministries of Commerce and Labor and the Council of Guardians.

Although traders have previously carried out acts against the Islamic regime, such as strikes in several cities in 2008, the protests at the turn of 2025 to 2026 are the first time that a large movement in the Bazaar has strongly targeted the government of the ayatollahs.

Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, stated in a speech at the beginning of January that traders remain loyal to the regime and suggested that external agents were trying to take advantage of specific dissatisfactions in the Bazaar.

“The merchant and mercantile class is among the most loyal classes in the country to the Islamic system and the Islamic Revolution. We know the market well. The Islamic Republic and the Islamic system cannot be confronted in the name of the market and the Bazaar,” Khamenei said.

“It is absolutely unacceptable that some people, under different titles and names, approach the faithful, healthy and revolutionary bazaars with the intention of destroying them, of making the country unsafe, of taking advantage of their protests, of creating chaos. The work of the enemy must be recognized. The enemy does not stand still, he takes advantage of every opportunity,” said the Ayatollah.

However, in an article for the Al Jazeera website, Kayhan Valadbaygi, a researcher at the International Institute of Social History, said that traders are actually turning against the regime, because in the last 20 years “the economic position of the Bazaar has been progressively eroded by state favoritism in relation to the economic machine of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the large religious-revolutionary foundations (bonyads), the management of economic sanctions and chronic inflation”.

“As a result, what was once an unshakable foundation of the regime has become yet another victim of systemic dysfunction,” Valadbaygi wrote.

In this sense, the researcher warned that the Bazaar, which previously functioned as “a stabilizing force” for the Iranian government, is increasingly losing this role. In other words: even if the regime does not fall now, the growing revolt of traders could lead to the fall of the ayatollahs in the next crises.

“We are experiencing difficulties. We are unable to import goods because of US sanctions and because only the Revolutionary Guard or people linked to it control the economy. They only think about their own interests,” a trader in Tehran’s Grand Bazaar told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“The unrest originated in the Bazaar and continues there, even with Khamenei insisting on the traders’ loyalty. His statements do not demonstrate confidence, but rather anxiety, and the Bazaar’s open affront demonstrates that the challenge now facing the Islamic Republic is much more difficult to contain”, Valadbaygi projected.