They were ignited by an economic crisis and the collapse of the Iranian rial that led to a cost-of-living crisis. As the protests grew from demands for economic change to demands for political change, President Masoud Pezeshkian's push for dialogue and a moderate response lost to other elements in the regime's demands for repression. The resultant crackdown was excessive and brutal, and thousands of people were killed.

But there was more behind the protests than domestic demand for change. That demand is real. To ignore it is to miss the grievances and anger of the protestors. But to ignore the role of the U.S. in causing the conditions and stoking the protests is to miss the larger geopolitical issue.

The economic grievances that pushed the people into the streets are severe and real. But they were partly manufactured in America. Iran was verifiably honoring the JCPOA nuclear agreement that promised an end to sanctions. But the U.S. did not honor the agreement, and, instead of an end to sanctions, the first Trump administration illegally exited the deal and increased the sanctions. Those increased sanctions contributed significantly to the cost-of-living crisis because, though Iran has joined BRICS and the SCO and increased trade with Russia, China and the East, Vali Nasr, Professor of International Affairs and Middle East Studies at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, told me they have not yet created an "economic outlet large enough to compensate for the impact of the sanctions." He explains that "BRICS and SCO – and specifically China – have provided a floor for the Iranian economy, but not a true compensation for sanctions impact."

Unfair American sanctions caused the economic conditions that drove the people into the streets to demand economic reform that the government was incapable of making without an end to the sanctions. But U.S. terms for ending the sanctions were too dear. The U.S. demanded an end to Iran's legal civilian nuclear program, and end to Iran's legal ballistic missile program and even loudly suggested an end to the regime. The cost of calming the protests was the security of the state and the government.

Sanctions were not a blind policy that was meant to pressure Iran in some unspecified way or meant merely to bring about a change in Iran's nuclear policy. U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent recently explained that "the Iranian currency [was] on the verge of collapse. President Trump ordered Treasury and our OFAC division, Office of Foreign Asset Control, to put maximum pressure on Iran. And it's worked, because in December, their economy collapsed. We saw a major bank go under; the central bank has started to print money. There is dollar shortage. They are not able to get imports, and this is why the people took to the street…. This is economic statecraft… Things are moving in a very positive direction." Bessant is clear that the sanctions were intended to collapse the economy and catalyze the protestors to take to the street. That, he says, is how we know the sanctions worked.

The U.S then followed causation of the protests with encouragement of the protests. Trump first offered safety to the protestors by promising not to allow the Iranian government to violently repress the protest: "America will come to their rescue. We are locked and loaded and ready to go." He then promised, not only protection, but that "The USA stands ready to help!!!"

Offers of help then grew to calls for a coup. "TAKE OVER YOUR INSTITUTIONS!!!" Trump posted before explicitly stating that "It's time to look for new leadership in Iran."

Iran's President Pezeshkian said on January 31 that the U.S. and its partners "rode on our problems, provoked, and were seeking – and still seek – to fragment society. They brought them into the streets and wanted, as they said, to tear this country apart, to sow conflict and hatred among the people and create division. Everyone knows that the issue was not just a social protest."