A confidential report prepared for Iran’s presidency is fueling new questions about whether the Islamic Republic is more politically vulnerable than many Western governments have long believed.
The classified report, titled “What Iran Wants,” reportedly found that just 9% of respondents supported preserving the status quo. Another 53% backed major structural reforms, while more than 19% favored replacing the country’s political system entirely.
Combined, nearly three-quarters of those surveyed reportedly supported sweeping reforms or outright political change, a finding that could bolster arguments that Iran’s crisis extends far beyond dissatisfaction with individual leaders.
IranWire reported on July 13 that it obtained the document, which was compiled by Ali Rabiei, social adviser to President Masoud Pezeshkian and a former government spokesman. The report was based on polling conducted by the Ara Opinion Research Center in May 2026 and circulated among institutions within Iran’s governing system in June, according to the outlet.
Miad Maleki, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said the findings should force policymakers to take another look at the potential for political upheaval inside Iran.
“If anything, this research understates the depth of Iranians’ rage,” Maleki told Fox News Digital. “And that is what makes it remarkable: even a survey prepared for the regime’s own president, by its own pollsters, records anger levels above 63%, well beyond the highest rate Gallup has ever recorded anywhere in the world, alongside 81% struggling to put food on the table and a majority expressing hopelessness.”
Maleki warned that polling under an authoritarian government comes with major limitations because many respondents may fear speaking openly.
“In a police state where expressing the wrong opinion can cost you your job, your freedom, or your life, respondents self-censor, which means these findings are best read as a floor, not a ceiling,” he said.
The survey methodology was not included in the material obtained by IranWire. The report reportedly did not disclose how participants were selected, who was surveyed, or whether the sample accurately reflected Iran’s geographic and demographic makeup.
Because of those gaps, the findings cannot be independently verified or treated as a definitive measure of public opinion. The report also does not establish that widespread dissatisfaction would translate into an organized movement capable of toppling the government.
Mojtaba Khamenei and his children on Quds Day
Still, the findings paint a picture of mounting pressure across the country.
About 64% of respondents reported persistent anger, up roughly 12 percentage points from a previous government survey conducted in December 2025. Half reported feeling hopeless, about 48% reported sadness or depression, and roughly 45% said they experienced ongoing fear or anxiety, according to IranWire.
Economic hardship also appeared to be a major source of frustration.
More than 81% reported severe or partial difficulty obtaining enough food, while 75% struggled to pay for medical care, IranWire reported. More than half said their income was not enough to cover household expenses, and only 8% said they earned enough money to save.
Respondents were also more likely to blame domestic leadership than outside pressure for the country’s economic troubles. Nearly 47% cited government inefficiency, 26.3% blamed corruption, and 20.7% pointed to foreign sanctions.
That finding could prove significant in the debate over Iran because it suggests many citizens place greater responsibility on their own government than on Western sanctions.
The report also described widespread distrust in Iran‘s institutions. Roughly 60% of respondents reportedly said they lacked confidence in major government bodies, while 61.2% gave officials poor marks for their ability to solve the country’s problems. Distrust of the government, parliament, judiciary and state-run television all remained above 50%, according to IranWire.
Despite those findings, the report’s recommendations reportedly focused more on easing public frustration than on pursuing systemic political change.
Rabiei urged state institutions to better explain the effects of sanctions, moderate official rhetoric, present a more inclusive image through state television, and avoid policies that put the government in direct conflict with the public.
IranWire‘s follow-up analysis argued the recommendations largely treated the crisis as a messaging problem rather than proposing meaningful political or economic reforms.
Maleki said the findings align with the growing scale of anti-government unrest, pointing to demonstrations that expanded from more than 80 cities in 2017 to more than 200 cities across all 31 provinces this year, along with what he described as a fourfold increase in strikes.
“Iranians have moved from being skeptical of what another revolution might bring to concluding there is no alternative to one, because reform has proven impossible,” Maleki said.
Even so, the report does not answer one of the biggest questions surrounding regime change. Iran’s ruling establishment has spent decades building institutions designed to monitor, deter and violently suppress organized opposition.
“This regime was born of revolution, by revolutionaries,” Maleki said. “Preventing and crushing the next one is the one thing they genuinely know how to do.”
