Tehran Pulls the Plug: Internet Blackout as Iran’s Currency-Fueled Protests Enter Day 12

Internet shutdowns to quell dissent echo the Shah’s 1978 curfews and the Islamic Republic’s own November 2019 fuel-price blackout, but this time the regime confronts post-war economic freefall, a currency down 60 % since the June 2025 Israel-U.S. strikes, and a U.S. president freshly demonstrated willing to snatch a foreign leader abroad. Over the last century, Iranian upheavals—from the 1906 Constitutional Revolution to 1979—have fused economic grievance with perceptions of foreign meddling; each climax redrew regional alignments. Today’s conflagration sits at the crossroads of three long arcs: sanctions-driven economic asphyxiation, the growing strategic use of digital chokeholds by embattled states, and a revived great-power readiness for extraterritorial coercion. Whether the blackout quiets streets or instead catalyzes a 1979-style tipping point will shape not just Iran but norms on sovereignty and intervention for decades, and may determine if the Islamic Republic reaches its 50th birthday in 2029.