Trump says Iran wants to negotiate as death toll in protests reaches 599

London: Iran’s leadership is under incredible pressure as the largest protests in years against the Islamic theocracy shake the country.

Government hard-liners have threatened to attack the US military and archrival Israel over support for the demonstrators.

US President Donald Trump said Iran wants to negotiate with Washington after his threat to strike the Islamic Republic over its crackdown on protesters.

Activists said on Monday that the death toll in nationwide demonstrations rose to at least 599.

There is no sign that a Venezuela-style US military intervention is coming.

Iran’s leadership and military were badly weakened in the 12-day war with Israel in June and by US airstrikes against the country’s nuclear facilities during the conflict. Several military leaders were killed, air defences were nearly wiped out, and the missile stockpile shrank.

The 86-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has ruled since 1989 and holds ultimate power, was out of sight for days during and after the war. He has no successor, a source of further uncertainty for the theocracy and Iran’s people.

Experts say Iran’s establishment has always had pragmatists who might be willing to concede certain things to Washington. “But they’re really marginalised,” said Siavush Randjbar-Daemi, senior lecturer at the University of St Andrews in Scotland. “The problem again remains that finding a Delcy Rodríguez -like figure within the Iranian establishment is very hard,” referring to the Venezuelan vice president-turned-interim leader following the US removal of Nicolás Maduro.

Meanwhile, Iran’s reformist President Masoud Pezeshkian has little power to make the sweeping kind of economic or other changes that protesters want.

The US now has the chance to apply pressure on Iran’s leadership at the weakest point in the Islamic Republic’s 47-year history, said Kamran Matin, an associate professor of International Relations at the University of Sussex. The war last year also highlighted Iran’s diminished regional clout, especially after Israel took aim at Tehran’s armed proxies during the war in Gaza: Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, Houthi rebels in Yemen and other armed groups in Syria and Iraq.

Globally, Iran remains isolated. One ally, Russia, is distracted by its war in Ukraine. China, a buyer of Iranian oil, on Monday expressed hope the Iranian government and people are “able to overcome the current difficulties and maintain national stability.”

International concerns remain high over Iran’s battered nuclear program, which Tehran has long insisted is for peaceful purposes even as Western powers worry about the highly enriched uranium that’s necessary for creating a nuclear weapon.

After Iran’s negotiations with the US deadlocked, the United Nations in September reimposed sanctions that freeze Iranian assets abroad, halt arms deals, and penalise any development of Iran’s ballistic missile program, among other measures.