Pro-Regime Rallies in Tehran Are a Sign That the Ayatollahs Are Teetering

UANI Director of IRGC Research Kasra Aarabi in the Telegraph: Images and video footage of large crowds – holding Islamic Republic flags, Hezbollah banners and images of the new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei—are being continuously aired on Iranian state-TV propaganda channels. These videos have then been regurgitated by parts of the mainstream media in the West and used to criticise Donald Trump on the basis that the US-led war has supposedly “rallied Iranians around the flag”. This couldn’t be further from the truth. This is not to suggest the videos we are witnessing are AI (though some have no doubt been manipulated). The people we are seeing on the streets are certainly real, but they represent a very narrow and extreme segment of Iranian society, what is known as the “hard base” (hasteyeh sakht) of the regime. . . . The hard base does not represent the broader Iranian population, which overwhelmingly not only opposes the regime but also seeks to topple it. . . . The regime was genuinely concerned that ordinary Iranians would use the military operation as an opportunity to take to the streets to topple the Islamic Republic. To mitigate this, the IRGC not only declared domestic martial law from the moment the war began, but worked closely with the regime to deploy its hard base onto the streets to deny space for dissenting Iranians to take part in anti-regime protests. . . . If anything, therefore, pro-regime rallies are not an indication of the Islamic Republic’s strength or support. They are a clear sign of a weak and vulnerable regime—one that can and must be toppled.