"How fragile is Iran’s regime?"

From the Asia Times, January 12:

US sanctions are creating extreme economic conditions; birthrate dropping precipitously

Smartphone videos of anti-regime protests in Tehran circulated in global news media this weekend, after the Iranian government admitted it shot down a Ukrainian civilian airliner. The latest demonstrations followed a national wave of protests last November in which up to 1,500 demonstrators were killed. Hard information about the origins and extent of the anti-regime protests is difficult to find. But there is a good deal of evidence of extreme dissatisfaction with the regime due to economic stress.

Iran’s average monthly after-tax wage was US$318.53, according to the website Numbeo, which tallies thousands of user inputs to arrive at wage and price data.
Using Numbeo’s prices I constructed a monthly survival budget in US dollar equivalents:

One average salary pays for a small apartment outside the center, utilities, enough calories to keep body and soul together, and bus fare, which is subsidized. Throw in cell phone service, clothing, fruits and vegetables, and one or two meat meals a month, and an Iranian couple will require two average salaries. According to official data, food price inflation was 28% year-on-year as of December.

Medicine is another matter. Some imported items, for example, insulin pens, can’t be found at pharmacies in some provinces, according to a Persian-language report by IRNA. The Chancellor of the University of Isfahan told the national news agency that imported medicine such as chemotherapy drugs was in short supply, but that most other medication was available.

Import controls to spare foreign exchange have put autos outside the range of most Iranians. A VW Golf costs the local-currency equivalent of $48,000, according to Numbeo, or about 14 years’ average pay.

Reduced consumption has taken a toll on Iranian family life. According to the Tehran Times, citing Mohammed Javad Mahmoudi, head of the committee on population studies of the Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution. According to Mahmoudi, the number of babies born in Iran fell by nearly 25% between 2015 and 2019....MUCH MORE

The Ayatollah Khamenei is a believer in the 12th Imam, al-Mahdi, whose return along with Jesus (ʿĪsā ibn Maryam) will only occur when the world is wracked by war and discord so, far from abhorring the situation in Iran he may welcome it.
Some Christians, in particular some Evangelicals, have a similar belief re: Jesus—not so much the Mahdi—and look upon calamity and chaos as a precursor if not a prerequisite to the end-times.