Faced with outrage over the Islamic Republic’s cratering currency, inflation, and corruption, Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei calculated that the continuation of his regime required mass repression and violence. Reports continue to filter out of Iran suggesting that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps massacred more than 40,000 men, women, and children on the streets of Iran’s town and cities. Security forces have assaulted women in prisons.
Khamenei calculated that he could engage in such mass killing and get away with it. His assumption was not farfetched. Europe reacted with outrage after Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s fatwa called for British-Indian author Salman Rushdie’s murder. European states withdrew their ambassadors and said they would not return them until the Islamic Republic lifted the call for murder. After a protracted dispute, Iranian leaders hinted they would not pursue the contract on Rushdie. Not only continental European states, but also the United Kingdom itself rushed their ambassadors back to Tehran. The following day, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps announced the anti-Rushdie fatwa was still in force. No European state called its ambassadors home.
Khamenei calculated that he could engage in such mass killing and get away with it.
Then, in 1992, the European Union launched its “critical dialogue” with Iran. The idea was simple: Europe would trade with Iran but would also use its dialogue to tackle tough issues relating to human rights and terror. Quickly, however, the “critical” aspect of the dialogue fell by the wayside, when Iranian officials made clear uncomfortable questions would interfere in the trade relationship. Between 1995 and 1996, for example, the height of critical dialogue, the regime’s use of the death penalty doubled.
Even after the Mykonos Café assassination verdict in 1997, European promises of sanctions fell by the wayside as even Germany, the site of the murders, not only began to trade with Tehran, but also sold the Islamic Republic tools of repression.
Nor was Europe the only problem. President Bill Clinton ordered an FBI report into the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing to be recalled after it found Iran culpable; Clinton feared the finding would undermine his efforts at diplomacy. Rather than hold Iran accountable for its serial hostage-taking, first President Barack Obama and then President Joe Biden offered billions of dollars in ransom and sanctions relief.
At every turn, the West has rewarded Iran and let the clerical regime retrench itself at the expense of the Iranian people. Khamenei’s gamble was a safe bet.
Iran is not the only country in which an aging dictator and his family bleed the economy dry. Over the last decade, four other currencies have hemorrhaged value: the Lebanese pound, Venezuelan bolivar, Argentine peso, and Turkish lira. In 2025, the Turkish currency was one of the world’s worst performing currencies. Just as Khamenei and his family embezzle billions, so, too, does Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. He may deny a leaked recording about hiding tens of millions of dollars, but the U.S. government assesses it to be real. Erdoğan has made billions of dollars from bribes and kickbacks.
Whereas Turks once expected to be an international economic player, perhaps among the world’s top ten economies, that dream is gone. Erdoğan today scrambles diplomatically to prevent any Financial Action Task Force listing that might force him to open the books and expose the true Potemkin nature of Turkey’s economy.
Turks are also furious about ecological degradation under the Erdoğan regime. He has paved over green spaces and cut protected forests to build palaces.
Just as in Iran, Turks have come out into the streets to protest. In 2013, it was the Gezi Square uprising, sparked by Erdoğan’s efforts to develop green space in the heart of Istanbul. A decade later, clear-cutting of the Akbelen forest by a government-linked energy firm led to renewed protests. Just as Iranian students have protested censorship and government impingement on academic freedom, so, too, did the students at Turkey’s Boğaziçi University when Erdoğan sought to impose a new rector. The first anniversary of protests following the March 23, 2025, arrest of Istanbul mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu fast approaches.
Turkey’s economy and its protest movement now follow the same trajectory as Iran’s; they just lag a few years behind. Erdoğan is no more likely to voluntarily forfeit power than is Khamenei. Erdoğan’s son Bilal is equivalent to Mojtaba Khamenei.
Turkey’s economy and its protest movement now follow the same trajectory as Iran’s; they just lag a few years behind.
As President Donald Trump appears ready to follow Obama’s and Biden’s lead to allow Khamenei to get away with murder, Erdoğan likely watches carefully. The Turkish dictator can never win free and fair elections. As he tries to retain power and embezzles billions while Turks struggle to keep their heads above water, the likelihood that Turks will come out en masse increases.
Erdoğan has few real friends. Kurds despise him for his racism. Urban “white” Turks see him as a country bumpkin. Businessmen despise him for his mismanagement. Most of Erdoğan’s top advisors are simply in it for the money. Erdoğan knows that if he does not die a natural death in office, he will likely hang from gallows after a popular revolution, not unlike that which Iranians attempted in January 2026.
Erdoğan today likely concludes—and prepares for the possibility—that he might need to follow Khamenei’s lead and slaughter tens of thousands of Turks who say, “no more.” While Khamenei used the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and proxy militias to slaughter civilians, Erdoğan has SADAT and various Muslim Brotherhood and Islamist affiliates ranging from Hamas to Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham to Harakat ul-Mujahedin and perhaps even to Hezbollah, for which Turkey is becoming a new patron. During the 2016 “Reichstag Fire” coup, SADAT showed a willingness to fire on civilians and blame it on other protestors, ripping a page from the Islamic Republic’s playbook.
What happens in Iran will not remain in Iran. Erdoğan is watching carefully. If Khamenei gets away with mass murder, Erdoğan likely will not be far behind.
