TEHRAN — Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's public message Friday could hardly have been more defiant. Addressing supporters after the largest night of anti-regime demonstrations in years, Khamenei dismissed protesters as a small group of "rioters" and "saboteurs," accused them of acting to "please" US President Donald Trump and vowed that the Islamic Republic "will not back down." 

Yet the timing and tone of Khamenei's remarks, coupled with an unprecedented communications blackout and intensifying international scrutiny, raise a fundamental question about how the regime is preparing to move past yet another challenge that has shaken its very core.  

Rooted in the collapse of the national currency, the unrest has quickly morphed into nationwide anti-regime demonstrations and has increasingly gained pace, momentum and scale over the past two weeks.  

On the 12th night alone, protests erupted simultaneously across major cities including Tehran, Mashhad, Isfahan, Shiraz, Ahvaz, Kermanshah and Tabriz, as well as dozens of smaller towns — a scale not seen since the 2009 Green Movement; and by some measures, this movement is even broader, given its reach and simultaneity.