This is an extensive survey of various powers' response to what's going on in Iran. I've excerpted large chunks, but the whole article was worth a read.
ChinaChina
On January 5, Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian offered the standard formulation: China opposes external interference in Iran’s internal affairs and hopes “the Iranian government and people can overcome current difficulties to maintain national stability.” But Lin also deployed a phrase that carried unmistakable meaning for anyone familiar with Beijing’s diplomatic lexicon: “China upholds the foreign policy of partnership and not alliance.”
That single phrase—”not alliance”—represents a careful distancing from Tehran at its moment of maximum vulnerability. China is signaling to Washington, and to any potential successor regime in Tehran, that its 25-year Comprehensive Strategic Partnership with Iran (signed in 2021 and valued at $400 billion across energy, telecommunications, and infrastructure) does not constitute a mutual defense commitment. Beijing will not defend the Islamic Republic the way it might defend North Korea.
RussiaRussia
The official line, delivered by Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova on January 13, framed events in Iran as a Western-orchestrated “color revolution”—the standard Moscow interpretation of any popular uprising against a friendly autocracy. Zakharova blamed “illegal sanctions pressure” for Iran’s economic crisis and warned that U.S. strikes on Iran would be “absolutely unacceptable” and could destabilize the entire Middle East.
But beneath this rhetorical solidarity, Russian analysts and officials have been notably more circumspect. On December 31—just days into the protests—the chairman of the Federation Council’s foreign affairs committee acknowledged that the unrest represented “a symptom of certain internal political processes” and cautioned against attributing too much influence to Washington. This marked a significant departure from Moscow’s reflexive tendency to see American hands behind every anti-authoritarian movement.
The Kremlin’s response has therefore been practical rather than principled. According to reporting by Carnegie Politika, Russia is supplying Iran with Mi-28 helicopters and Spartak armored vehicles—equipment well-suited for counterinsurgency operations against an armed rebellion, less useful against the current stage of protests but potentially valuable if the situation escalates. Moscow is also, according to multiple reports, preparing to offer asylum to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and approximately twenty close associates should the security forces fail to hold. This is a contingency Russia has executed before: Assad is currently residing in Russia, after all.
IsraelIsrael
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been characteristically forward-leaning in his rhetoric, declaring that Israel “identifies with the struggle of the Iranian people for freedom, liberty and justice” and suggesting that Iranians may be “taking their fate into their own hands.” Mossad, Israel’s intelligence agency, has gone further, claiming its agents are present at the protests—a statement that may or may not be operationally accurate but certainly serves the regime’s narrative that the unrest is foreign-orchestrated.
There is also anxiety in Jerusalem about the possibility of renewed U.S.-Iran negotiations. Netanyahu opposed the Obama administration’s JCPOA and worked assiduously to undermine it. The concern is that Trump, for all his hawkish rhetoric, might ultimately prioritize a deal that leaves the regime intact in exchange for nuclear concessions—repeating what Israel sees as the fundamental error of the 2015 agreement. The fact that Iran has reportedly reached out to the Trump administration proposing nuclear talks, even as security forces kill protesters, feeds this worry.
The Israeli strategic preference is clear: a post-Islamic Republic Iran that abandons its nuclear ambitions, its support for terrorism, and its “Death to Israel” ideology. The memories of close Israeli-Iranian cooperation under the Shah are not ancient history. But Israeli planners have been disappointed before—by the failure of the Green Movement in 2009, by the suppression of the Women, Life, Freedom protests in 2022-2023, by the resilience of a regime that has survived four decades of predictions of its imminent demise.
The Gulf StatesThe Gulf States
The Gulf Cooperation Council’s heavyweights have spent the past three years rebuilding relations with Tehran that had been shattered by years of proxy conflicts, assassination plots, and rhetorical hostility. The China-brokered normalization of Saudi-Iranian relations in March 2023 brought tangible benefits: the Houthis stopped firing missiles and drones at Saudi population centers. Investment and diplomatic exchanges resumed. The specter of direct military confrontation receded.
Now the Gulf states face an uncomfortable dilemma. They have little love for the Islamic Republic, which has spent decades attempting to subvert their governments, sponsor terrorism on their soil, and challenge their legitimacy as custodians of Sunni Islam. They quietly welcomed Israel’s devastating strikes on Iranian proxies and military infrastructure in 2025, even as they publicly criticized Israeli actions for domestic consumption. A post-revolutionary Iran that abandoned its regional destabilization campaign would be an unalloyed good for Riyadh and Abu Dhabi.
But the Gulf monarchies are also acutely aware of the dangers of instability. They share a maritime border with Iran across the Persian Gulf. They host millions of Iranian expatriates. Their economies depend on the free flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz—approximately 21 percent of all seaborne-traded crude oil transits this chokepoint daily. A collapsing Iran could send refugee flows southward, embolden their own restive populations, or trigger precisely the regional conflagration that the past three years of diplomacy sought to prevent.
The preferred Gulf outcome is probably a managed transition in Iran that preserves state coherence while ending the revolutionary regime’s ideological hostility—the equivalent of a controlled demolition rather than a chaotic collapse. Whether this is achievable is another matter entirely.
TurkeyTurkey
Government spokesman Ömer Çelik’s statement carefully acknowledged Iran’s problems while warning against external interference and singling out Israel—notably, not the United States—as a potential provocateur. This framing allows Ankara to maintain working relations with Tehran while positioning itself as a defender of regional sovereignty against what Turkish officials characterize as Zionist expansionism.
The truth is more complicated. Turkey has long chafed under Iran’s regional shadow. Despite Turkey’s NATO membership, larger economy, and more dynamic society, Iran has consistently exercised greater influence in the Middle East’s conflict zones—Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen. The collapse of the Assad regime in late 2024 changed this calculus dramatically. The new Sunni-led government in Damascus has oriented itself toward Ankara rather than Tehran, giving Turkey the strategic depth in Syria it has long sought. If the Islamic Republic falls, Turkey would emerge as the dominant non-Arab power in the Middle East, with only Israel as a peer competitor.
But a collapsing Iran also presents risks that Turkish planners cannot ignore. Turkey shares a long border with Iran, and Kurdish populations on both sides of that border have aspirations that threaten Turkish territorial integrity. A power vacuum in Tehran could energize Kurdish separatism, create refugee flows that would dwarf the Syrian displacement crisis, and destabilize Iraq—where Turkey has significant economic interests and ongoing military operations. The scenarios that benefit Turkey assume a relatively orderly transition; the scenarios that threaten Turkey assume chaos.
The USThe US
The Trump administration has responded to the Iranian crisis with characteristic unpredictability—threatening military strikes, imposing new tariffs, signaling openness to negotiations, and keeping all options conspicuously on the table.
The threats have been explicit and personal. Trump declared the United States “locked and loaded” if security forces continued killing protesters. He announced 25 percent tariffs on any country doing business with Iran. He confirmed that his national security team was briefing him on military options ranging from cyberattacks to targeted strikes on leadership figures and security infrastructure. Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt emphasized that “air strikes would be one of the many, many options that are on the table.”
But the administration has also signaled restraint. Multiple officials have told reporters that the options under serious consideration are largely “not kinetic”—enhanced sanctions, cyber operations, Starlink connectivity to circumvent the internet blackout, psychological operations to amplify protest messaging. There is concern within the administration that military strikes could backfire, rallying nationalist sentiment behind the regime or triggering Iranian retaliation against regional energy infrastructure that could spike global oil prices toward $150 per barrel or higher.
The capture of Venezuelan President Maduro on January 3 casts a long shadow over these deliberations. That operation demonstrated Trump’s willingness to take dramatic unilateral action against hostile regimes—but Venezuela’s military was far weaker than Iran’s, and Caracas lacked the ability to retaliate effectively. Iran possesses thousands of ballistic missiles, a capable asymmetric naval force in the Persian Gulf, and the demonstrated willingness to strike at regional targets. The IRGC Navy has reportedly deployed fast attack craft and pre-positioned naval mines along the Strait of Hormuz. A direct U.S.-Iran military confrontation would be a fundamentally different proposition than the Venezuelan operation.
The most likely near-term trajectory is continued rhetorical pressure, additional sanctions, covert support for protesters through cyber and communications channels, and positioning of military assets to demonstrate resolve—all while keeping diplomatic channels open for a negotiated settlement should Tehran seek one. Whether this amounts to a coherent strategy or simply managed chaos depends on developments that no one fully controls.
ConclusionConclusion
The regime has survived previous protest waves—2009, 2017-2018, 2019, 2022-2023—through some combination of repression, fragmentation of opposition, and the reluctance of external powers to intervene decisively. It may survive this one. The security forces remain largely cohesive, though there are disturbing (for the regime) reports of potential defections and refusals to fire on protesters. Supreme Leader Khamenei, at 86, shows no inclination to compromise on fundamental questions of clerical authority.
But the structural conditions are different this time. The economy has collapsed more completely than in previous episodes. The regime’s regional support network has been shattered. The alliance between the bazaaris and the clergy that sustained the revolution has fractured. External pressure from the United States and Israel is more intense and more credible than at any point in the past four decades. And a potential alternative leader—Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi—has emerged as a focal point for opposition sentiment in a way that previous protests lacked.
The great powers are calculating based on incomplete information and competing interests. China wants stability and cheap oil but will not defend the regime. Russia offers rhetorical support and potentially asylum for fleeing leaders but lacks the capacity for meaningful intervention. The Gulf states want the threat eliminated but fear the chaos of collapse. Turkey sees opportunity but also danger. Israel hopes for transformation but prepares for disappointment. The United States threatens action but has no clear strategy for managing the aftermath.