On September 22, 1980, 192 Iraqi combat aircraft entered Iran's airspace, starting a war that would become 1 of the bloodiest conflicts of the 20th century. No 1 expected to wait 8 years at the truce – in which most likely half a million people died, and another hundreds of thousands were forever banished from their homes.
Neither did Saddam Hussein, whose plans were for a lightning war. The Iranian army was inactive decimated after revolutionary purges, and the country has not yet developed an efficient bureaucratic device capable of turning into a war economy. Nor did the Iranians anticipate it, who believed that their military would effectively repel the assault and regain the territories occupied by Iraq in the first phase of the conflict.
Bombed Mehrabad Airport in Tehran, September 1980 Fot. fna.ir, CC BY-SA 4.0Paradoxically, in the very beginning, the war brought any benefits to power in Tehran. For nothing unites as well as the common enemy, and just the unification was essential to Ayatollah Chomejni.
The mass enthusiasm associated with the overthrow of the monarchy as a consequence of the joint, over-fractive effort of groups of highly different character has already begun to fade. The country suffered an economical crisis: oil sales gross fell dramatically, abroad investors withdrew and inflation raged. Saddam's attack brought what was to become 1 of the key elements of Iranian historical politics – the story of the alleged sacred defense, or universal national revolt, which united all: intellectuals, merchants, students, spiritual and non-religious people.
Although it is increasingly deconstructed today, there is no uncertainty that in the first phase of the conflict, the mobilisation of Iranians was amazing, and the patriotic consequence won with many “but” posed to the fresh republic.
It is not hard to associate with the beginning of the Iraqi-Iran War erstwhile we are watching pictures of the protests that took place in Iran's largest cities last week. In Tehran, close to a 10 million-million-dollar monstrosity, from which thousands of residents have escaped since the first Israeli attack on 13 June, and the second so many have been stuck in multi-mile-long traffic jams on urban tolls, even a fewer 100 1000 people were inactive able to gather ready to protest the offensive first of Israel and later of the United States. In the street crowd, we could see the full cross section of Iranian society: women in cools and women without a headgear, demonstrators young and old, or even a man with a siding on his head, on which he placed anti-Israeli slogans.
It is besides crucial not to forget Masuda Pesheshjan, the Iranian President, whose presence was symbolic. At a time erstwhile any government safety agency would urge key figures in the state to stay in a safe location, he went out on the streets with respective bodyguards, which, of course, sparked enthusiasm on social media.
It was surely a hazard to participate in the protests. Despite Tel Aviv's assurances that only strategical military and infrastructure facilities are the mark of the attacks, more than 400 civilians lost their lives over a twelve days. Bullets hit residential buildings, a hospital, and even a stud of horses. The planet revolved around photos of a pink, bloody mattress of 23-year-old poet and teacher of English Parnia Abbasi. She died in bed, a fewer days after writing the poem:
I'm burning,
I'm going out,
I become a silent star,
what becomes smoke
In your sky...
However, we should not look at the number of casualties on the Iranian side only from a civilian position – neither do Iranians. In talks about losses besides frequently escapes commentators the fact that military service is compulsory in the republic and is subject to it by any man who is 18 years old. The refusal involves extended individual and professional repercussions, a state army or the muslim Revolutionary defender Corps, so almost everyone – regardless of their political views.
For Iranians 268 killed and 256 wounded (HRANA, the data of June 24, 2025), which we utilized to statistically group in the military category, so not subject to our attention, are individual stories: failure of son, partner, brother. These are the stories of people who may besides have objected to the current form of the republic, but they chose to service due to the fact that they would be threatened with the anticipation of studying, leaving the country or social security.
However, the Iranians did not only protest due to bombs falling on cities, but besides due to rhetoric that Israel and the United States took during the war. Initially, Benjamin Netanjahu focused only on the request to halt Iran's atomic program, but shortly began to talk more boldly about overthrowing power in Tehran, without even excluding the targeting of Ayatollah Ali Chamenei. At that time, the U.S. began to soar a figure well known to Iranians in the country and abroad – Reza Pahlawa, boy of the last chess player Mohammad Reza, all day an American citizen and 1 of the most recognizable faces of diaspora.
Pahlavi has been standing in launch blocks always since protests after the death of Mahsa Amini, declaring ready to take power and, through the slow construction of civilian society through the monarchy, bringing the Iranians to full democracy. This controversial figure undoubtedly has many sympathizers (mainly in the West diaspora), but it is hard to honestly measure how many. It represents a strong environment medially and approved by the American establishment, and is so peculiarly powerfully exposed. And although many prominent representatives of a group of Iranians surviving outside their homeland powerfully condemned publically the attacks on Iran, the follower could easy be impressed that present the full country is waiting for the return of the exiled chess years ago.
Farhan, a student of political science, tells me: “If Reza Pahlavi is supported by abroad powers, especially by individual like Donald Trump or Benjamin Netanyahu, his position will seriously weaken in the eyes of Iranian society. specified support would give the impression that he is only a puppet of the West, and this perception will undermine his legitimacy not only in the country but besides internationally. This is an absolutely crucial point – power must come from the people and not be imposed from the outside.”
Mina from Tehran (changed name) says: “The Iranians protest present not due to the fact that they love this system, but due to the fact that no 1 will force us to impose another.”
So present it is worth talking about protests in Iran not as "government protests", but besides as "provisional" but civic protests. Although it is undoubtedly a profoundly polarized country, and fresh years have brought us greater cognition of the groups openly opposed to the republic in its current form, this does not mean that the Iranians are lacking patriotic instinct.
One of the central concepts for Iranian culture is independency changed by all cases: the preservation of statehood in the long, thousands of years of life, the failure to share the destiny of another countries of the region, which became Western colonies and protectorates 1 by one, and yet independency forced by political isolation (and success in this substance cannot be taken distant from Tehran).
The loud “no” spoken present to Israel and the United States, especially erstwhile it falls from the mouth of opponents, is simply a further emanation of the desire for independence.
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Karolina Cieślik-Jakubiak - Iranist, orientalist. She wrote about the mediate East for “Rzeczpospolita”, “Brill”, “Two-weekly”, “Magazine Contact” and “Politics”. Scientifically curious in the past of the idea, with a peculiar mention to the Iranian variants of Marxism and its encounters with Islam. Editor leading a series of literature close east “Rahla” in ArtRage Publishing House.
