Iran on the Brink

The Weekly

Iran is erupting in protests—and the regime is cracking down with extraordinary violence.

Guest Host Hagar Chemali sits down with Jay Solomon (investigative reporter at The Free Press) to unpack why protests are surging nationwide, what the regime’s economic rot reveals about its fragility, and what (if anything) the U.S. and Israel might do next.

They dig into a bank-collapse story that helped ignite the unrest, the regime’s deteriorating proxy network after October 7, and the strategic debate inside Washington over strikes, cyber operations, and financial pressure. Then they turn to the American political fringes—left and right—and why some activists echo Islamic Republic propaganda about the protests being “astroturfed.”

Finally, in Politicology+, they unpack how Qatar, a tiny Gulf nation with just 350,000 citizens, has built one of the most wide-reaching influence networks in the world.