As the Islamic Republic’s enforcers lose control over streets at several Iranian cities, and as protesters increasingly clash with them, Tehran officials are reportedly seeking refuge outside of the country.

On Thursday, the 12th day of protest, the Tehran regime cut internet access to all Iranians. The move could have been timed to coincide with a call made at Washington by Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi. He pleaded with Iranians to pour into streets, shout from rooftops and windows, and otherwise raise their voices at 8 pm, Tehran time, on Thursday and Friday. 

Mr. Pahlavi’s plea, and Iranian response to it, could prove a test of his status in a growing protest movement that so far lacks leadership. The son of the Shah who left Iran on the eve of Ayatollah Khomeini’s return in 1979 is scheduled to attend a breakfast prayer at President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago next Tuesday, journalist Laura Loomer writes on X. 

Dozens of people were reportedly killed on Thursday. Mr. Trump, who previously warned the regime against shooting at protesters, told podcaster Hugh Hewitt on Thursday that he wasn’t sure who was responsible for those deaths. Yet he added that the Iranian regime has “been told very strongly,  even more strongly than I’m speaking to you right now, that if they do that, they’re going to have to pay hell.” 

“This regime has no answers,” a Jerusalem-based Farsi broadcaster, Menashe Amir, says. “It can’t address economic problems, its own incompetence, and its corruption. Right now they hesitate to go full force against the protesters, but after 12 days, this uprising is only escalating. They might have no choice but mass killings. And that could trigger American and Israeli action.” 

Since the 2024 death of Iran’s president at the time, Ebrahim Raisi, “I got the highest number of hits on my YouTube daily broadcast yesterday,” Mr. Amir says. “Iranians want to know about the regime’s future, and what would Israel target if it attacks.”

The Tehran-born Mr. Amir gained credibility during the Iran-Iraq war, when the Islamic Republic’s generals preferred his reliable reports on Israel Radio to the regime’s own propaganda. He is telling Iranians now that if Israel chose to attack, it would go after the regime’s enforcement centers across the country. 

“If you wanted to hasten the fall of the regime with the least price to pay, you would target command centers in Iran’s 31 districts, and cut all communication between them,” Mr. Amir says. In his broadcasts, he calls on regime enforcers to join the protest. “If Khamenei escaped, do you think he’d take you with him?” he tells them.  

“Since 24 hours ago, high-ranking dignitaries from the reformist clan — including the president of the Islamic Assembly — have been attempting to obtain French visas for their families via a Parisian lawyer,” Le Figaro reported Thursday. 

“I only hope the Iranian protesters know that millions of hearts are with them and how much we admire their courage,” the British author JK Rowling wrote on X on Thursday.

The anti-regime movement started with merchants at the Tehran Bazaar, who were formerly a bedrock of support for the Islamic revolution. It then spread beyond Tehran and now it encompasses many cities and small towns in the periphery. In some of those places protesters reportedly burned regime bases.  

“President Trump, you have noted that real peace comes from strength and clarity, not endless wars or empty words,” the New York-based journalist and activist, Masih Alinejad, wrote in an open letter to the president Thursday. “That is precisely why your voice and actions carry weight now.”

Mr. Trump is yet to translate his threats into such action as asking Elon Musk to provide Starlink devices to Iranians so they can bypass the regime’s internet blocking. Some administration officials are appealing to Tehran to negotiate, a move that could practically save it from being overthrown. 

“We certainly stand by anybody who’s engaged in peaceful protests, anybody who’s trying to exert their rights for free association and to have their voices heard,” Vice President Vance told reporters Thursday. He added, though, that the “smartest” thing the regime could do now is “have a real negotiation with the United States about what we need to see when it comes to their nuclear program.”

As yet the regime’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, is ruling out negotiations. “We don’t want war but we are ready for war,” Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said at Beirut Thursday. Yet he added, “we are also ready for negotiations but only negotiations that are based on mutual respect.”