A top Israeli intelligence analyst said on Monday that Iran’s clerical rulers were likely to survive protests that have swept the country for weeks, and predicted they could stay in power for years to come.

“The repressive Iranian regime will, it seems, manage to survive these protests. It has constructed very, very strong tools for dealing with such protests,” Brigadier-General Amit Saar told the military intelligence think-tank Gazit Institute.

“But I think that even if these protests wane, the reasons (for them) will remain, and thus the Iranian regime has a problem for years to come.”