Iran’s leadership is increasingly worried a US strike could break its grip on power by driving an already enraged public back onto the streets, following a bloody crackdown on anti-government protests, according to six current and former officials.

In high-level meetings, officials told Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that public anger over last month’s crackdown — the bloodiest since the 1979 revolution — has reached a point where fear is no longer a deterrent, four current officials briefed on the discussions said.

The officials said Khamenei was told that many Iranians were prepared to confront security forces again and that external pressure such as a limited US strike could embolden them and inflict irreparable damage to the political establishment.

One of the officials told Reuters that Iran’s enemies were seeking more protests so as to bring the Islamic Republic to an end, and “unfortunately” there would be more violence if an uprising took place.

“An attack combined with demonstrations by angry people could lead to a collapse (of the ruling system).

That is the main concern among the top officials, and that is what our enemies want,” said the official, who like the other officials contacted for this story declined to be named due to the sensitivity of the matter.

The reported remarks are significant because they suggest private misgivings inside the leadership at odds with Tehran’s defiant public stance towards the protesters and the US.

The sources declined to say how Khamenei responded. Iran’s Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment on this account of the meetings.

Multiple sources told Reuters last week that US President Donald Trump is weighing options against Iran that include targeted strikes on security forces and leaders to inspire protesters, even as Israeli and Arab officials said air power alone would not topple the clerical rulers.

People extremely angry

Any such uprising in the wake of a US strike would stand in contrast to the Iranians’ response to Israeli and US bombing attacks on Iran’s nuclear programme back in June, which was not followed by anti-government demonstrations.

But a former senior moderate official said the situation had changed since the crackdown in early January.

“People are extremely angry,” he said, adding a US attack could lead Iranians to rise up again. “The wall of fear has collapsed. There is no fear left.”

Tensions between Tehran and Washington are running high. The arrival of a US aircraft carrier and supporting warships in the Middle East has expanded Trump’s ability to take military action if he so wishes, after repeatedly threatening intervention over Iran’s bloody crackdown.

Game over, says former PM

Several opposition figures, who were part of the establishment before falling out with it, have warned the leadership that “boiling public anger” could result in a collapse of the system.

“The river of warm blood that was spilled on the cold month of January will not stop boiling until it changes the course of history,” former prime minister Mirhossein Mousavi, who has been under house arrest without trial since 2011, said in a statement published by the pro-reform Kalameh website.

“In what language should people say they do not want this system and do not believe your lies? Enough is enough. The game is over’,” Mousavi added in the statement.

During the early January protests, witnesses and rights groups said, security forces crushed demonstrations with lethal force, leaving thousands killed and many wounded.

Tehran blamed the violence on “armed terrorists” linked to Israel and the US.

Trump stopped short of carrying out threats to intervene but he has since demanded Iran make nuclear concessions.

Both Tehran and Washington have signalled readiness to revive diplomacy over a long-running nuclear dispute.

Danger of bloodshed

Analysts and insiders say that while the streets are quiet for now, deep-seated grievances have not gone away.

Public frustration has been simmering over economic decline, political repression, a widening gulf between rich and poor, and entrenched corruption that leaves many Iranians feeling trapped in a system offering neither relief nor a path forward.

“This may not be the end, but it is no longer just the beginning,” said Hossein Rassam, a London-based analyst.

If protests resume during mounting foreign pressure and security forces respond with force, the six current and former officials said they fear demonstrators would be bolder than in previous unrest, emboldened by experience and driven by a sense that they have little left to lose.

One of the officials told Reuters that while people were angrier than before, the establishment would use harsher methods against protesters if it were under US attack. He said the result would be a bloodbath.

Ordinary Iranians contacted by Reuters said they expected Iran’s rulers to crack down hard on any further protests.

A Tehran resident whose 15-year-old son was killed in the protests on January 9 said the demonstrators had merely sought a normal life, and had been answered “with bullets.”

“If America attacks, I will go back to the streets to take revenge for my son and the children this regime killed.”

• Shutdown tied to stalled talks after Minneapolis killings.
• Trump urges swift passage, insisting there be “NO CHANGES”.
• If House passes bill, DHS talks must finish in two weeks.

WASHINGTON: The US Congress has teed up a Tuesday vote on a spending bill to end the government shutdown, following a House committee vote late Monday.

The shutdown followed a breakdown in spending negotiations amid Democratic anger in response to federal immigration agents killing two US citizens in Minneapolis, which derailed talks over new money for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

Late Friday, the Senate had passed a package clearing five outstanding funding bills to cover most federal agencies through September, along with a two-week stopgap measure to keep DHS operating while lawmakers negotiate immigration enforcement policy.

Shutdowns temporarily freeze funding for non-essential federal operations, forcing agencies to halt services, place workers on unpaid leave or require them to work without pay.

On Monday evening, the House Rules Committee voted to move the Senate package forward for a full House vote, which is expected Tuesday.

Trump has been pressuring Republicans to swiftly adopt a spending bill to end the shutdown, even as some have voiced their disdain for the deal that opens the door to modest reforms on immigration agents.

In a Truth Social post earlier Monday, Trump said “there can be NO CHANGES at this time” to the legislation and called for its immediate passage.

“We will work together in good faith to address the issues that have been raised, but we cannot have another long, pointless, and destructive Shutdown that will hurt our Country so badly,” the Republican president said in a reference to a record 43-day stoppage last summer.

Concessions in conduct

Democrats in the House want changes to the way DHS conducts its immigration sweeps — with heavily armed, masked and unidentified agents who sometimes detain people without warrants — before voting on the spending package.

Some concessions have already been made amid Democratic pressure and national outcry after masked immigration agents shot and killed Renee Good, a mother of three, and Alex Pretti, a nurse who worked with veterans, in Minneapolis last month.

On Monday, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said federal agents in the city would wear body cameras “effective immediately,” in a move that would be later “expanded nationwide.”

Both parties acknowledge these talks will be politically fraught, as Democrats are demanding new guardrails on immigration enforcement and conservatives are pushing their own policy priorities.

Mike Johnson, speaker of the Republican-controlled House, has expressed optimism that an agreement is imminent.

“We’ll get all this done by Tuesday; I’m convinced,” Johnson said on Fox News Sunday.

The speaker has a razor-thin majority in the House, however, and cannot afford to lose more than one vote on the Republican side.

His margin was reduced even further on Monday with the arrival of a Democrat who won a special election in Texas.

Republican defections could force Johnson to rely on Democratic votes to advance the funding bill and end the shutdown.

If the House approves the Senate deal, lawmakers would then have just two weeks to negotiate a full-year DHS funding bill.

A group of rights groups have taken the Trump administration to court over a sudden halt in processing immigrant visas for citizens from 75 countries, saying the move has upended settled immigration rules. 

The lawsuit filed in federal court in Manhattan asked a judge to issue a court order blocking the policy, which took effect on January 21.

The complaint asserted that the State Department’s policy is “based on an unsupported and demonstrably false claim that nationals of the covered countries migrate to the United States to improperly rely on cash welfare and are likely to become ‘public charges.’”

“A visa is a privilege not a right,” State Department spokesperson Tommy Pigott said in a statement, adding that the visa policy prevents billions of dollars in waste, fraud, and abuse.

“The Department is pausing issuance to evaluate and enhance screening and vetting procedures – but we will never stop fighting for American citizens first,” Pigott said.

The lawsuit was brought by the National Immigration Law Center and other groups on behalf of a wide range of plaintiffs, including US citizens who say they have been separated from family members because of the policy.

Another plaintiff is an endocrinologist from Colombia who was approved for an employment-based visa but cannot receive it because Colombia is one of the countries subject to the policy.

The pause has impacted applicants from Latin American countries, including Brazil, Colombia and Uruguay, Balkan countries such as Bosnia and Albania, South Asian countries Pakistan and Bangladesh, and those from many nations in Africa, the Middle East and the Caribbean.

The State Department policy does not impact US visitor visas, which have been in the spotlight given that the United States is hosting the 2026 World Cup and 2028 Olympics.

A State Department cable outlining the move and seen by Reuters said the Department was undergoing a “full review” of all policies, regulations and guidance to ensure “the highest level of screening and vetting” for all US visa applicants.

The cable, sent to US missions, said applicants from the 75 impacted countries “are at a high risk for becoming a public charge and recourse to local, state and federal government resources in the United States.”