Iran’s leaders are fighting a losing battle

Iran’s rulers are holding firm. The country’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei has expressed sorrow at the killing of Mahsa Amini – who died last month after being arrested by the state’s morality police – while squarely, and unsurprisingly, blaming foreign agitators for the protests that have followed. Ominously,

Khamenei has said the protestors are not ‘real Iranians’ – a statement which echoes his crocodile tears in 2009 before he unleashed a bloody crackdown.

Hundreds died during those and subsequent demonstrations, in 2017 and 2019, as state security forces struck back against ordinary Iranians who had taken to the...