Has Iran’s “Colour Revolution” Arrived?

Welcome to The Geopolity’s What We’re Watching (3W), our daily look at the interconnected worlds of Geopolitics, Economics and Energy. Curated from the world’s leading sources of information, our analysis and commentary is designed to help you make sense of the events driving the major developments in the world.

In this roundup, we take a closer look at the current situation in Iran.

3W earlier speculated that the US – Israel Alliance was likely to have a hand in the current wave of protests hitting the country. The latest developments, and the response to them by US president Trump, support this thesis and strengthen our conviction that what Iran is dealing with is a “colour revolution”.

It remains unclear, however, whether Iran has brought the situation under government control again, or whether things are escalating. The Trump announcement that the US will now impose an additional 25% tariff on any country doing business in Iran can be read as both an additional support for the protestors, to help them across the finish line, or as an act of anger following recognition of defeat, namely.

Furthermore, we look at:

• The next phase of the Gaza ceasefire, which Hamas continues to support, while Israel continues to kill Palestinians in the strip, in particular children, on an almost daily basis
• Israel’s efforts to make its agenda for Lebanon the “vision” for the US – Israel Alliance
• How the US naval blockade of Venezuela’s oil trade is bringing the world back to the Middle Ages
• The Trump plan to increase US defense spending by 50 percent in 2027, to $1.5 trillion
• Why the Trump Tariff War has fundamentally altered the global economy, in a negative manner; why this did not show yet in the 2025 headline numbers; and why this will show in 2026

Geopolitics

The protests in Iran, which started around the time Israeli prime minister Netanyahu visited US president Trump in Washington DC to discuss the next steps in the US – Israel Alliance plan against Iran. There have been large protests against the government in the major cities of the country, which the son of the Shah has been cheering on with the message that he getting ready to return to Iran from the US to take back power, writes Reuters. Meanwhile, Trump threatened to attack Iran if it suppressed the protests, writes The Wall Street Journal. Last week, 3W summarized and analyzed all this information, and concluded that most likely what is going on is an Alliance-sponsored “colour revolution” against Iran.

Now, western media is pushing the view that hundreds of protestors have been killed by Iranian security forces. Axios and most others reference data from the “Human Rights Activist News Agency (HRANA)”, which claims 544 deaths as of Sunday. This might well be the case, 3W notes, or it might not – the US-based HRANA organization does not release any information about its funding, namely, which means it can not be ruled out that it is part of a (longer term) covert operation against Iran. What is most important, however, is that US president Trump uses these reports to intensify his support for the protestors. “Iran is looking at FREEDOM, perhaps like never before,” Trump posted on social media over the weekend, writes The Wall Street Journal. “The U.S.A. stands ready to help!!!”. Trump also says that Iran has reached out to him to negotiate, writes NBC News. All this, in the 3W view, is further evidence that the US – Israel Alliance has an active hand in the protests.

Then on Monday president Trump said that any country which does business with Iran will face a tariff rate of 25% on trade with the US, writes Reuters. “Effective immediately, any Country doing business with the Islamic Republic of Iran will pay a Tariff of 25% on any and all business being done with the United States of America,” Trump said in a post on social media. Top export destinations for Iranian goods include China, the United Arab Emirates and India. In the 3W view this can either be in other to signal support for the protestors in Iran, in order to increase pressure on the Iranian government. Or it can be a response to a recognition that the protests have failed to topple the Iranian government, and as such is more of a punitive measure, an emotional response by Trump to failure.

More insight can be distilled once the US announces its next moves. In this regard, The Associated Press writes that US vice president Vance, secretary of state Rubio and key White House National Security Council officials have begun meeting to develop a “suite of options,” from a diplomatic approach to military strikes, to present to Trump in the coming days. AP notes that the more hawkish elements of US elite government circles, which 3W notes tend to be the ardent Zionists such as Lindsay Graham, are pushing Trump to engage Iran militarily “in its moment of weakness”, as they describe it.

As to Palestine, US president Trump is expected to announce the “Board of Peace” that will govern the territory, writes The Associated Press. Hamas has said it will dissolve its existing government once the new committee takes over the territory, as mandated under the U.S.-brokered peace plan. In the background, AP adds, Israel again killed 3 Palestinians in Gaza for approaching/crossing the unmarked “yellow line” border it has unilaterally established in Gaza.  The National adds to this context that children make up 40% of dead in the Israeli violations of Gaza ceasefire.

As to Lebanon, last week, Israel repeatedly bombed areas of Lebanon far from the border region, writes The National. Lebanese officials said the timing of the attacks ahead of the mechanism meeting was deliberate and an attempt by Israel to increase pressure ahead of a meeting of the ceasefire monitoring committee. A political source described Israel’s stance as “blackmail”, saying it was pressuring Lebanon and the monitoring mechanism itself by making the success of the process conditional on compliance with Israel’s vision, while expanding its strikes beyond southern Lebanon and failing to meet its own obligations under the ceasefire. This fits into the pattern that 3W has previously described with regard to the Trump – Netanyahu meeting late December, where Trump pressured Netanyahu to align with the US vision. We said at the time that Netanyahu’s “strategy” for such situations is to give verbal assurance, vaguely worded, after which through concrete acts Israel works to change the reality on the ground, through which it can then open a new conversation as to what the “vision” should be. And then it works to win US officials over for this vision, such that at the end of the day, the US – Israel Alliance operates on the basis of a vision developed in Tel Aviv, rather than in Washington DC. This, in the 3W view, is exactly what is happening in Lebanon at present.

As to Venezuela, on the topic of “how things can quickly spiral out of control”, ahead of its military attack on Venezuela, the US instituted a naval blockade to halt Venezuela’s crude oil trade. It pirated a number of ships involved in this trade. One ship, the Bella-1, evaded capture, however. The Bella-1 is Russian flagged and earlier the Russians announced they had sent a military escort for the oil tanker, including a submarine. Nevertheless, the US followed the Bella-1 all over the Atlantic and then last week boarded it in waters in between Iceland and Scotland, writes Reuters. Separately, the US also intercepted another Venezuela-linked tanker in Latin American international waters last Wednesday, the Panama-flagged supertanker M Sophia, which had departed from Venezuelan waters in early January as part of a fleet of ships carrying Venezuelan oil to China. This means,3W notes, that the US has just seized assets from Russia (a ship) and China (crude oil), via an illegal act (piracy), through its military. This effectively means we are back in the (late) Middle Ages when governments considered it “legal” to steal ships from their adversaries anywhere in the world.

Lastly, US President ⁠Donald Trump on Wednesday said next year’s defence budget should be $1.5 trillion, a 50 per cent increase from today, writes The National. “I have determined that, for the good of our country, especially in these very troubled and dangerous ⁠times, ​our military budget ‍for the year ⁠2027 ‌should not ⁠be $1 trillion, but ⁠rather $1.5 trillion,” Trump said in a social media post. He said the additional expenditure would be paid for by revenue from tariffs. The US already spends more on its military than the next nine countries combined, a total of about 40 per cent of global defence outlays. The next biggest defence spender is China, at about $300 billion annually.

Macroeconomics

According to the former Chief Economist of the IMF, the Trump Tariff War has fundamentally altered the global economy. And while its effects have not yet shown themselves in the headline numbers, they are causing significant damage. Writing for The Financial Times, Gita Gopinath says actual tariffs are around half of what the US announced thanks to numerous exemptions. The impact has been masked by expansionary fiscal policies in the US, Chiona and Germany, and the inflating of the AI bubble. Another factor is that many companies build up stocks before the tariffs came into effect. These forces masked the drag from American tariffs. The damage from tariffs will grow more visible in 2026 as the resilience afforded by frontloaded imports fades and companies pass through a higher share of costs to consumers.