The Islamic Republic’s impasse has once more exploded in the streets. The triggering event was the killing of Mahsa Amini by Iran’s morality police last month. But the tension—the rot in the Islamic system depressing the country—lies much deeper. For the clerical regime, it’s an insoluble predicament.
Among the casualties of this uprising may be the White House’s desperate quest to restore Barack Obama’s nuclear deal. Even before the streets erupted, Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, wasn’t biting at the new agreement proffered in Vienna this summer. When beset by regime-shaking domestic discontent, Iran’s theocracy tends to scorn diplomatic mediation. Repression at home produces truculence abroad.
