Under siege, are Iran’s rulers likely to do more than survive?

In the aftermath of Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani’s assassination, Iranians rallied around the flag, filling the streets in a mass outpouring of grief and anti-American fervor that the country’s leadership held up as a sign of continued support.

So, too, were the expressions of national pride in the retaliatory missiles fired at U.S. bases in Iraq.

But then came the crash of the Ukrainian airliner, with the death of all 176 aboard, and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ delayed admission it had shot the plane down in error. The moment of flag-waving support passed as quickly as it arrived.

The stunning admission sent outraged Iranians back into the streets. Layered over it all is a deep, abiding dissatisfaction with the government’s stewardship of Iran’s U.S.-sanction-afflicted economy, which just weeks earlier – following an overnight fuel price hike – had spawned its own cycle of mass

Protests among poor and rich“They don’t learn their lessons”Voice of the people