Iran has been down this road several times before in the past 17 years.
Each time the same questions re-emerge: What will it take to overthrow the regime? How will we know if a crucial tipping point has been reached?
For the regime to be genuinely in severe danger of collapse it would take large and significant numbers of the security forces to change sides and join the protesters. That hasn’t happened yet.
The Islamic Republic has one of the deepest, most pervasive and most effective security apparati in the world. It has informers, eavesdroppers, online content monitors and a whole army of Basij enforcers whose job it is to safeguard the regime and its repressive values.
It has succeeded in crushing every protest movement so far – by killing and arresting large numbers of people, in many cases torturing them in jail and then releasing them, battered and traumatised, so they can warn others of what happens if you are caught.
It is a policy of deterrence through fear.