The Islamic Republic of Iran is in its last days. Before the end of 2025, the regime in Tehran will collapse, undone by a perfect storm of military, economic, and internal pressures that have been building for years. The regime’s downfall is now a matter of when, not if, as it faces five existential threats that it cannot escape. The following constitutes the essence of the endgame: 5 reasons Iran’s regime will fall in 2025.
1. THE COMING MILITARY ONSLAUGHT
Israeli and American military strikes are imminent. After years of strategic patience, Israel and the United States are moving decisively to eliminate Iran’s nuclear ambitions, degrade its military capabilities, and decapitate its leadership.
Israeli airstrikes, backed by U.S. intelligence and logistical support, will target Iran’s underground nuclear facilities, air force bases, and command centers. The goal is not just to set back Iran’s nuclear program but to shatter the Islamic Republic’s ability to project military power throughout the Middle East.
Israeli strikes will not stop at Iran’s military infrastructure. The regime’s senior leadership—Revolutionary Guard commanders, nuclear scientists, and key political figures—will also be directed targeted by precision attacks.
Much like the successful assassinations of Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah and key Iranian generals in 2024, Israel, with likely U.S. assistance, will move to systematically dismantle Iran’s chain of command. The regime, already brittle, will struggle to maintain control as key regime leaders are eliminated and internal chaos spreads. An outcome of this kind is likely what Israel’s military and canny Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, are calculating on to bring down the regime.
2. ECONOMIC COLLAPSE: IRAN’S LARGELY SELF-INFLICTED WOUND
The Islamic Republic’s economy is crumbling. Years of mismanagement, corruption, and reckless spending on foreign militias that constitute Iran’s so-called ‘Axis of Resistance’ have left Iran unable to provide adequately for its people, generating massive public discontent among Iranians.
Western sanctions have compounded the problem. With the Trump administration’s renewed maximum pressure campaign launched in February 2025, the final economic blows are being delivered.
Iran’s economic woes are staggering:
- GDP Growth: Iran’s GDP shrank by -4.7% in 2023, a trend exacerbated by renewed sanctions and declining oil revenues (World Bank).
- Oil Revenues: Iran’s crude oil exports plummeted to 1.1 million barrels per day in 2024, down from 2.5 million in 2017, cutting deeply into government revenues (OPEC, U.S. Energy Information Administration). Since November 2024, when Donald Trump was re-elected as U.S. president, oil revenues have dropped further and Iran’s currency.
- Energy System Shutdowns and Brown-Outs: Iranians have had to cope with widespread power outages throughout the winter of 2024-25 due to years of under investment by the Iranian government in new equipment and its decision to continue burning the dirtiest form of oil for fuel.
- Inflation and Cost of Living: Inflation surged past 50% in 2024, making basic goods unaffordable for many Iranians (Iran Statistical Center, World Bank).
- Unemployment: Youth unemployment remains a staggering 20%+, while overall joblessness remains above 9% (CIA World Factbook, Iranian Labor Ministry). While Iran’s total unemployment rate has improved to the high single-digits from the mid-double digits early in the last decade, unemployment is compounded by low labor force participation, with only 52% of the labor force presently employed.
- Poverty: Nearly 40% of Iranians now live below the poverty line, with rural areas suffering even more severely (World Bank). The rural provinces of Sistan and Balochistan, which are mostly populated by minority ethic groups, report poverty rates in the upper 60% range. Nearly two-thirds of Balochi men under the age of 30 are reportedly unemployed.
The regime’s ability to pay its military and security forces is eroding, raising the likelihood of internal dissent within the regime’s own ranks. When salaries go unpaid and inflation erodes purchasing power, loyalty crumbles.
3. A RESTIVE POPULATION: 84% OF IRANIANS ARE OPPOSED TO THE REGIME
The Iranian people have had enough. Years of protests, from the 2009 ‘Green Revolution’ to the 2019 fuel price riots to the 2022 Mahsa Amini uprising, have demonstrated that the vast majority of Iranians despise their ultra-religious rulers. The regime has held on through a combination of propaganda, bribery and sheer brutality, but even that strategy is failing.
A staggering 84% of Iranians reportedly oppose the Islamic Republic (estimates from dissident groups and Western intelligence sources). The protests have never truly stopped—they have evolved. Strikes, sabotage, and underground resistance movements are gaining momentum.
The clerical regime’s ability to suppress dissent is weakening as it is forced to divert resources to external conflicts and elite protection. When Israeli military strikes hit – likely in the late spring or early summer of 2025, the streets of Isfahan and Tehran are likely to erupt into flames. This time, the regime won’t be able to put out the fire. It simply won’t have the resources.
4. THE SHADOW WAR: FOREIGN INTRIGUES AND INTERNAL SUBVERSION
Iran’s enemies are not just attacking from the outside—they are working from within. The exiled opposition, foreign intelligence services, and defectors within the regime itself are all actively destabilizing Tehran’s grip on power. The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) and other opposition groups are gaining influence, coordinating with internal dissidents to prepare for the regime’s downfall.
Western and regional intelligence agencies—including the Mossad, CIA, and European operatives—have successfully carried out high-profile assassinations, cyberattacks, and sabotage operations inside Iran.
Moreover, enemies which the Iranian regime believed had been eliminated, most notably the core operatives of ISIS (i.e. Islamic State of Iraq and Syria), have proven their staying power and longevity. The deadly bomb attack in Kerman on January 3, 2024 at a ceremony held to commemorate the fourth anniversary of the assassination of General Quasem Soleimani by a U.S. airstrike in Iraq, proved that ISIS is still a force to be reckoned with. The attack killed 84 high-ranking regime veterans and injured 285 others.
Other senior regime leads have suddenly perished over the past year in ways both overtly violent and completely mysterious.
Take two examples; first, two Iranian Supreme Court justices, Ali Razini and Mohammad Moghiseh, were shot to death on January 18, 2025 by an aggrieved Iranian man in Tehran, who took his own life following the hit. Both men were senior Shariah law judges involved in adjudicating cases against student protesters.
Second, the heir apparent to Iran’s Supreme Leader, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, died in a mysterious helicopter crash in the mountains north of Tehran on May 21, 2024. Raisi was a hardline protégé and ally of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and widely seen by internal analysts and foreign intelligence services as Khamenei’s successor.
That Raisi should ‘just happen’ to die in an aerial crash in the middle of an existential war with Israel seems a bit too convenient. Either internal regime enemies (e.g. royalist elements) or the Mossad likely eliminated Raisi to further destabilize the regime.
The repeated security failures in recent years—Iranian nuclear scientists eliminated in broad day light, drone strikes on Iranian military bases, the ISIS bombing, etc. —show how deeply infiltrated and compromised the regime has become.
The Islamic Republic is hemorrhaging control, and it cannot stop the bleeding.
Meanwhile, Iran’s birth rate has declined sharply, dropping from 2.1 births per woman in 2010 to just 1.7 in 2024 (World Bank, Iran Statistical Center). This demographic collapse means fewer young people to sustain the workforce and military, further weakening the regime’s prospects.
5. THE FALL OF THE AXIS OF RESISTANCE
For decades, Iran relied on its regional proxies—Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and Iraqi militias—to project power outside its borders and intimidate its enemies. That strategy has now collapsed. The 15-month war between Israel and the Axis of Resistance, which ended in January 2025, was a disaster for Iran.
- Hamas was nearly annihilated in Gaza, losing an estimated 60% of its fighters and 90% of its missiles and other long-ranger weapons.
- Hezbollah suffered massive losses in Lebanon, with an estimated 80% of its senior leadership killed, hundreds of mid-level commanders incapacitated by the exploding beeper attacks, and thousands of foot soldiers eliminated. The Shiite militia has reportedly lost 70% to 80% of its once-vast arsenal of missiles.
- The Houthis, after devastating U.S., Israeli and British airstrikes, are now politically isolated and low on ammunition. The Egyptians and Saudis are preparing to strike against their common enemy on the Red Sea. It is only a question of time.
- Syria’s Assad regime—Tehran’s closest Arab ally—has fallen.
Without Assad, Iran has lost its land bridge to Lebanon and its primary conduit for supplying Hezbollah with weapons. The collapse of the Syrian regime is a death knell for Tehran’s regional ambitions and a warning sign for its own survival.
Senior regime figures reportedly have vacation homes and safe houses nestled throughout western Syria. Billions of rials are reportedly stashed away in Syrian banks and warehouses – a potential financial lifeline for Iran. With the fall of Assad, these assets are, or soon will be in the hands of Iran’s most hardline Sunni foes.
THE FINAL COUNTDOWN
The Islamic Republic of Iran has entered its endgame. It is out of options, nearly out of allies (Russia is one exception), and out of time.
The combined weight of military strikes, economic pressure, popular discontent, foreign intrigue, and the crumbling of its regional power structure will bring it down before the end of 2025. Greymantle calculates this outcome as having a 90% probability.
The only question left is what comes next.
Until next time, I remain —
Greymantle
