02 U.S. Politics

“We are now seeing the rats fleeing the ship, because we can see millions, tens of millions of dollars being wired out of the country, snuck out of the country by the Iranian leadership,” Bessent said. “So they are abandoning ship, and we are seeing it come into banks and financial institutions all over the world.”

Not exactly a vote of confidence for the regime’s future.

While the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) reports that the mass demonstrations like those of January 8-11 may have disappeared, Iran is like a simmering pot ready to boil over. The American Enterprise Institute’s (AEI) Critical Threat Project (CTP), partnering with ISW, reports that the horrific slaughter carried out by regime forces and foreign militias on January 8-9 has been effective in clearing the streets, but the revolutionary fervor has not been dimmed.

CTP-ISW recorded zero protests on January 14, but the regime is sustaining repressive measures that impose a significant cost on the regime. This suggests that the regime does not perceive that the threat from protests has subsided. The regime is maintaining security force mobilizations, which risks exhausting and burning out these forces. Security forces are patrolling streets in towns and cities across Iran to prevent Iranians from holding demonstrations.[8] Sources in Chalus, Mazandaran Province, for example, told a BBC Persian reporter on January 11 that “security forces with machine guns have been stationed in all streets.”[9] The widespread deployment of security patrols is likely contributing to the decrease in recorded protest activity because these patrols are likely deterring some Iranians from participating in protests.