Unity and energy are the official traces coming from Iran‘s theocratic government in the face of President Trump’s demand for “unconditional surrender” and the risk that he may order the U.S. army to hitch Israel’s assaults on the Islamic Republic’s nuclear amenities.
Israel’s each day, practically weeklong bombardment of Iran’s nuclear and missile websites, and its assassinations of high commanders and senior scientists, have compounded the dilemma for Iran’s leaders — particularly as they face the potential of inside unrest from a inhabitants underneath assault.
At the least 639 Iranians have been killed and greater than 1,300 wounded over the previous six days, based on the Washington-based Human Rights Activists in Iran group, which depends on a community of contacts within the nation. Tens of 1000’s of Tehran’s roughly 10 million residents have now fled the capital, and different cities have additionally emptied out to some extent, with many individuals looking for safer areas within the countryside.
However Iran’s ruling Muslim clerics and their adherents don’t speak about an exodus. As a substitute, they mission solidarity, and even mock President Trump and his ultimatums.
“I just laugh at how negligent he is,” Hamidreza Gholamzadeh, director of the Iranian assume tank Diplo Home, informed CBS Information in a distant interview from Tehran on Thursday. “He does not know anything about Iranians, either in history, or the characteristics of the Iranian nation.”
“Even Iranian dissident figures are now pro-Iran,” he claimed, “because they know it is about [maintaining] the integrity of Iran, the whole being of Iran.”
Fatemeh Bahrami/Anadolu/Getty
However after per week of bruising assaults by Israel, and with the risk of extra to return and even doable direct U.S. intervention looming on the horizon, the optimism and bluster could also be getting tougher to keep up.
“Let’s say, the power of Iran in the region has been weakened. It’s not something that you can deny,” acknowledged Gholamzadeh. “But the government itself has not been weakened at all. The Iranians are very united right now. The social cohesion is very strong right now.”
At most, Gholamzadeh claimed 20% of all Iranians can be pleased to see their authorities fall.
“There might be 10% to 15% who are against the state, but not all of them would be participating in any activities” in opposition to the regime, he mentioned, suggesting solely 5% of Iranians would truly come out onto the streets “to actively participate.”
However latest surveys performed earlier than the present warfare, by unbiased organizations primarily based exterior Iran, discovered fairly the other.
In 2023, following mass anti-government protests sparked the earlier yr by the loss of life of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in spiritual police custody, a survey by the Netherlands-based Group for Analyzing and Measuring Attitudes in Iran discovered that 81% of the nation’s residents have been in opposition to the cleric-led Iranian regime.
The 2022 anti-government protests have been quashed, brutally, and nothing like them has been seen in Iran since. Censorship is rife, and Iran’s authorities has considerably curbed web entry over the past week, citing cyberthreats.
Gholamzadeh repeated warnings issued by Iran’s leaders, in opposition to the U.S. changing into actively concerned within the battle.
“Americans have a lot of military bases in different countries here in the region,” he famous, calling them “very easy targets.”
President Trump has warned repeatedly that any Iranian assault on American belongings within the Center East can be met with a swift response.
