The past five years have been tumultuous for the Iranian society. A period starting with the Woman, Life, Freedom movement in 2022, which was the largest protest of its kind in Iranian post-Revolutionary history, showing an unprecedented level of cohesion among the various opposition groups participating in the movement. Continuing to the 12-day war with Israel in June 2025, during which, although a portion of opposition forces, mainly monarchists, supported the war against Iran, the majority of groups did not support it. The December 2025 protests, with thousands of civilian casualties, are the most bloody of any protest movement in Iranian history (not only post-Revolutionary history, but all-time history). This has been one of the most devastating events in Iranian history, followed by the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran, which began on February 28, 2026. Unlike the 12-day war, it earned more support from Iranian opposition forces, not only among monarchists but other groups as well, often attributed to a feeling of ”Estisāl”, meaning ”despair”: a complete lack of hope of any alternative, which is central to the issue at hand.

These events have brought together the various socio-political groups within Iranian society at times, united under their common goals and values, most notably during Woman, Life, Freedom. And at other times, they have torn apart the Iranian society’s fabric in worrying ways, as the last war most notably did so: the fracture between pro-War and anti-War Iranians is unlike any previous disagreements. While during Woman, Life, Freedom, monarchists, republicans, feminists, conservatives, left and right, and ethnic political movements (most notably Kurds and Baluch) all joined together and marched shoulder-to-shoulder in an impressive show of solidarity and unity, the war has left Iranian society fragmented: the monarchists, who were the chief supporters of the military campaign, gained the most popularity and were able to garner the most support among Iranian society before the war, however now that the war has not led to their advertised outcomes, a rift has opened once again, between the monarchists and other opposition forces. The war has only left Iranians in worse conditions: infrastructure sites have been hit, hospitals, police stations, government buildings, and civilian infrastructure, alongside, of course, many military sites and munitions. The already brittle economy has been weakened further due to the stalled economic activity during the war and the loss of jobs due to damaged factories and halted exports. The internet has been shut down for more than 70 days, which has irreparably damaged many online businesses in Iran, and the government has tightened its grip over political dissidents as executions of political prisoners continue under the shadow of the war.

In this impasse, the Iranian society is left dazed: the opposition forces tried unity during Woman, Life, Freedom, and while that movement had some visible outcomes in terms of personal liberties in Iran (most notably the relaxing of enforcement of hijab laws in Iran) and and in reducing certain forms of political censorship (the rise of independent debating platforms and media such as the Āzād debating platform), it ultimately was not able to change the political system and its policies as deeply as the society wanted, and of course it was not able to ease the economic pressure and suffering which is perhaps the most important factor behind all protests. In their Estisāl (utter despair), they tried a wildly different way: to support a military campaign against their own country, led mostly by Reza Pahlavi, the exiled pre-revolutionary prince, and even this option has now failed to bring about the change many had hoped for, if anything, making matters worse.

The Social Rift

Many Iranians report that they have blocked so many people in the past 2 months that they feel their lives are empty, and their social circle is gone. This has become a common experience, to varying extents, after the 2026 war. The war and peoples’ stances towards it, to support or to condemn and resist, was the ultimate moral standoff for many, “how can I be friends with someone who supports a war that has killed so many civilians? So many children died on the first day in Mināb school and these people were silent!” on the one hand, and “how can I be friends with someone who defends the regime after what they did in the protests? Of course, war has repercussions, but the greater evil is the regime, and we must do all we can to weaken it!” On the other hand, two seemingly irreconcilable viewpoints that see the other as antagonistic, or sometimes outright “morally corrupt”, “ignorant”, or “evil”.

This rift has torn many friendships apart, but even further, it has at times torn families apart: an older generation of mothers and fathers who have lived the Iran-Iraq war and the revolution, and are more anti-war and anti-imperialist in their standing, clash with the new generation who have vastly different values and feel hopeless in face of social restrictions and unable to bring about meaningful change within the system, and thus see war as the only possible solution: a powerful punch that they themselves do not think they can deliver, but want someone to deliver it in their place. Many such people are unable to protect their relationships from being scarred by this rift in moral, political, and worldview differences.

The Eluding Hope of an Alternative

Thinking about the big difference, almost polarity between Woman, Life, Freedom, and how it brought so many groups together, and the recent protests and the subsequent war, and how it tore groups and people apart, we can see one of the main differences in “hope”.

Woman, Life, Freedom was a hopeful movement; it gave many Iranians who, up until that point, were hopeless and in despair, hope for change through unity, through a civil movement organised around solidarity, art, values, and an image of a better future. The number of artworks created by so many artists for this movement was impressive: perhaps for the first time in Iran’s post-revolutionary history, an alternative space for political art flourished.^[1]

On the other hand, the December 2025 protests, which started quite scattered and small in scale, had two very large and strong days on 8 and 9th of January, began with a call to protest by Reza Pahlavi, and led to the largest massacre of protesters in Iran, was not hopeful, it was the opposite: it was a movement of despair, one in which the participants were united not in their hope of a better future, but in their despair of feeling out of control, unable to have an impact or change anything by their own hands. After all, millions had taken to the streets, and yet, instead of having a positive impact, they had seen the worst massacre, and their initial hope before the protests turned into gloom and despair. This setting caused many people to change their minds, including many who had previously opposed. During the Twelve-Day War, they now supported the war because they had no hope of a civil movement anymore.

The main question, which has to some extent become almost comical by this point, among the Iranian society, is one of “the alternative”: The pro-war Iranians ask: “what is your alternative, if not war?” while rejecting any civil movement proposed based on the fact that the last protests were so bloody, that any civil movement is doomed to have the same fate. The anti-war Iranians, on the other hand, do still see civil movement as the only “alternative”, and reject war, violence, and the return of monarchy as an “alternative”, since they do not really see these efforts as fundamentally different from the existing system; rather, they share the same lack of values for which Iranian civil society is fighting for.

But now, the question asked by pro-war Iranians has been turned on its head: the war “alternative” has not worked, so now the question comes back haunting the ones who asked it: now what is the “alternative”? The answer seems to elude everyone.

The Unseen Third Part

Through most of the articles and speeches about Iranian society, it is often the case that only the opposition is talked about as the Iranian society, and the ones who support the state and share its beliefs and worldview are most often completely ignored and left out of the question.

There is indeed a significant portion of Iranian society, albeit not a majority, that shares the Iranian state’s worldview and supports it, despite the economic hardship and a lowering quality of life. This cohort of society has its own pains, most notably that of feeling unheard, unseen and invisible as a part of Iranian society, by the majority of Iranians and outsiders alike: in urban cities of Iran, where the majority of people are part of the opposition in one form or the other, the ones who support the state are often invisible, unable to integrate in their surrounding environment like they used to before Woman, Life, Freedom, they feel cast away.

They are not wholly unheard by the state^[2], but they are unheard by the society around them. When asked “why do you go to the streets every night and wave the Iranian flag and chant in support of the state up to this day”, one such person responded “I want to show them I exist, I want to show them I am also part of Iran and I will continue to be”, referring to other Iranians as “them”.

Possibility of Reconciliation

Two concepts in Iranian society commonly describe similar states of rejecting discourse with another due to a quarrel, and to give the other the silent treatment, and, as the next step, reconciliation: coming back together and restarting dialogue. They are called ”Ghahr” (Persian) and ”Ashti” (Persian), and such cycles of Ghahr and Ashti, to break apart and to come back together, are common and seen as a usual pattern in social activities.

The Iranian society is currently in a state of Ghahr, unable to hold dialogue; a deafening silence exists between the various groups now, a rejection of the other holds firm for now, and we have our backs to each other. However, with every Ghahr comes Ashti: our lives as a society are so intertwined that we will inevitably have to knock on each other’s doors, and most importantly and clearly of all, if there is anything to learn from these last five years, it is that meaningful change can only be achieved when we stand more united. This is, of course, easy to say, and quite idealistic and romantic at the current stage; however, in reality, there is at least one point that is a common lived experience of every Iranian: the struggle. The opposition forces, of course, struggle in the face of political restrictions and being unheard by the state, and meanwhile, the supporters of the state struggle in their newfound minority state, unseen and unheard by the majority of society, and everyone struggles in their economic hardship, finding it difficult to have the normal middle-class life that was much more easily granted ten years ago.

The experience of the war has exhausted yet another option for large-scale and quick change for the opposition. This may be high time that Iranian society finds time to mourn the failed movements, but not in despair, and instead reach for the only solution that may work now, given the exhaustion of all else: a civil movement that is rooted in a realistic understanding of the Iranian state and society, one which will not aspire to dreams of quick change through brute force, but rather understands the nuances of largescale change in the modern age. There are already movements among the pro-democratic forces to rethink and re-establish themselves through a new lens, one that can answer the despair and hopelessness that led many to support the war. The main challenge of this cohort is their lack of a large-scale, well-funded media, such as the ones at the disposal of monarchists or the supporters of the state. It remains to be seen if there will be any real effort to support the democratic opposition forces, to provide an alternative to the monarchists’ exclusive dominance over diasporic Persian media.

Bahram.A