For a week, the leadership of the Islamic Republic of Iran has allowed the protests that started after the death of a young woman at the hands of the vice squad to happen.

With a mixture of sympathy for the protesters' anger and a threat not to take it too far, she hoped that the protesters would go home after a few days.

But now the power apparatus is discarding its restraint and threatening the demonstrators.

The Islamic Republic is thus heading for a bloodbath.

Because the predominantly young demonstrators are by no means willing to retreat.

The new quality of protests

Protests that undermine the legitimacy of the Islamic Republic have been part of the country's normality for a quarter of a century.

Now, however, the current nationwide protests challenge the ruling axis of ayatollahs and Revolutionary Guards more than any previous ones.

It is no longer the economic needs of one group or the political demands of another that are at stake.

Rather, this wave of protests is growing into a broad social movement that threatens to endanger the very existence of the Islamic Republic because it finds support across all social classes.

It is worn by young people up to the age of 25.

They want to live in freedom and in a secular country.

The (unequal) showdown has begun.