The men who rule the Islamic Republic of Iran came to power in 1979 after millions of ordinary people filled the streets to demand the end of a despotic regime. Looking out their windows in the first days of 2026, they knew exactly what they were seeing on thoroughfares and boulevards. They also knew how to clear them.On Jan. 8, Iranian authorities shut down the internet and gave security forces their orders. What followed was one of the most intensive massacres by gunfire since World War II. In Tehran alone, thousands were killed. Although the precise toll is difficult to verify, Iranian health officials tell TIME that the numbers could far exceed most estimates, with 30,000 people killed in the capital in 48 hours. President Donald Trump had promised the U.S. would come to the rescue; it did not. The regime claimed victory. As January wound down, the President pointed toward the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier group and pressed the ayatollahs for a deal. Iranians counted the dead.In the pages that follow, five Iranian writers assay the state of the country they long to return to. Known for most of its 2,600 years as Persia, it has been the Islamic Republic of Iran for less than half a centurya radical, catastrophic experiment in governance whose final hours will be determined by ordinary people now driven indoors by truck-mounted machine guns.Meanwhile, Irans economy is in free fall. And the despots quail. As one exiled journalist put it in 2022, the last time Irani
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