Iran’s keyĀ strategic locationĀ at one of the world’s most important bottlenecks for energy trade ā€”Ā the Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf ā€”Ā along with its enormous oil and gas reserves, its political ambitionsĀ and its nuclear program, make itĀ an importantĀ player in the Middle East.
For more than two weeks, the Shiite-majority country of 93 million people has seen massĀ nationwide protests that were initially sparked by economic grievancesĀ but have since developed into an uprising against the regime in Tehran.
Officially, the authoritarian regime of the Islamic Republic blames the protests on its external enemies, namely the United StatesĀ and Israel.
However, right now it appears easier for the leadership in Tehran to negotiate with the USĀ than to engage in dialogue with its own population. US President Donald Trump said on January 11 that Iran was prepared to negotiate with his administration.
Since the Islamic Revolution of 1979Ā and the subsequent occupation of the US embassy in Tehran, Iran and the US have had no formal diplomatic relations. Ideological hostility, sanctions, security tensions, and the dispute over Iran’s nuclear programĀ have shaped the relationship over the past half-century.
“Iran’s leaders want to negotiate. I think they’re tired of being beaten by the United States,” Trump told reporters Sunday aboard his presidential plane, Air Force One.
Iran’s nuclear program remains the central point of conflict in its relationship with the West.
Trump applies pressure on Iran
Trump has repeatedly threatened Iran in recent days with US military intervention if the regime’s security forces continue to use violence in suppressing the demonstrations. The US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency estimates that at least 2,000Ā protesters have been killed so far.
With the internetĀ cut off since January 9, it is difficult to assess the scale of the brutality being used by the regime to put down the protests.
Iranian state television, which defames the protesters as terrorists in its reports, citing representatives of the Islamic Republic, has been increasingly showing footage since Sunday of morgues filled with the bodies of demonstrators killed by security forces.
At the same time, families are being warned not to let their children near the protests.
The Iranian Foreign Ministry has said the Islamic Republic of Iran does not seek warĀ but is well prepared for it.
“The debate about Donald Trump’s possible decisions or Israel’s military actions against Iran is less about officially announced intentions and more about the real impact such steps would have on the power structure in the country,” Fatemeh Aman, a Washington-based Middle East analyst, told DW.
“Experience shows that external pressure, especially if it does not lead to the rapid fall of the government, does not necessarily have a weakening effect and sometimes even has the opposite effect. For Iran, this risk is particularly high.”Ā
An external threat could serve as a pretext for tightening security, cracking down harder on protesters, and marginalizing internal conflicts within the regime’s power structure.
“President Trump has repeatedly shown that he puts tangible American interests above all other considerations,” Aman said, adding that Trump does not seem interested in costly projects without a clear conclusion and generally prefers not to get involved in protracted wars.
She said Trump’s goal could be to change the behavior of the Islamic Republic, not necessarily the regime itself. This goal could be pursued through pressure, sanctions, and threats, but not through a full-scale war. Even if it did not directly lead to regime change, a large-scale war between the US and Iran would have immediate repercussions for neighboring countries.
“These include an unstable energy supply, growing uncertainty, considerable economic pressure, and the risk of further escalation of proxy conflicts. Accordingly, broad support for a large-scale war in the region is not currently to be expected,” Aman added.
Gulf states watch cautiously
Although Iran’s Arab neighbors in the Persian Gulf are not considered allies of the Islamic Republic, they have a strong interest in regional stability and avoiding military escalation.
An attack on Iran carries the risk that Tehran will respond with attacks on American military bases in the region, of which there are dozens in neighboring countries.
“Prior to the current events, the states of the Gulf Cooperation Council had decided to recognize the Islamic Republic as a political reality that had to be dealt with,” Farzan Sabet, a Middle East expert at the Geneva Graduate Institute’s Global Governance Centre, told DW.
“Later, after the events of 2019, they began to build up their own military strength and deepen their strategic relationships with allies. At the same time, they wanted to promote diplomacy and reduce tensions with Iran.”
The regional rivalry between the Shiite rulers in Iran and the Sunni royal family in Saudi Arabia for supremacy in the Middle East, including Syria, IraqĀ and especially Yemen, escalated in 2019 after refineries belonging to the state-owned oil company Saudi Aramco in Abqaiq and Khurais were attacked with drones and missiles.
The attacks temporarily halved Saudi oil production. The Houthi rebels in Yemen, who are supported by Iran, were blamed, even though Tehran denied any direct involvement.
In recent years, Iran and Saudi Arabia have initiated a cautious rapprochement, with China acting as mediator. Both countries are considered important trading partners for China, which depends on stability in the Middle East to secure its energy supply.
Sanctions on Iran add to political pressure
For China, which has steadily expanded its influence in the Middle East and continues to import cheap oil from Iran despite US sanctions, the protests and new US sanctions are not good news.
As allies of the Islamic Republic, China and Russia have sharply criticized the “snapback” mechanism triggered in September 2025Ā by the US and the E3 countries ā€” Germany, FranceĀ and the UK ā€” to reimpose UN sanctions on Iran.
These sanctions were lifted in 2015 as part of the JCPOA nuclear agreement between Iran and the five veto powers in the UN Security Council plus Germany. The US unilaterally withdrew from the agreement in 2018 duringĀ Trump’s first presidential term with the aim of securing a better deal. The US president continues to pursue this goal to this day.
On January 12, Trump announced on social media that a 25% tariff would apply immediately to countries doing business with Iran.
According to the Trading Economics database, Iran’s main trading partners are China, Turkey, the United Arab EmiratesĀ and Iraq.
China criticized the decision. The Chinese leadership is convinced that there are no winners in a tariff war, replied Mao Ning, spokesperson for the Foreign Ministry in Beijing, when asked about the new US tariffs on Iran.
However, energy strategist and expert Umud Shokri from George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, told DW that Russia under President Vladimir Putin is the country that has the most to fear from a free and democratic Iran.
“Russia has a major influence on the current government of the Islamic Republic. Should a government come to power that jeopardizes Russia’s interests in the region or in foreign policy, such a government would be undesirable for Moscow,” Shorki told DW.
This article was originally written in German.