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How Israel inadvertently reawakened Iranian nationalism

2025-06-29 19:57:48Pikëpamje SHKRUAR NGA GIDEON RACHMAN – FINANCIAL TIMES
How Israel inadvertently reawakened Iranian nationalism

A strong patriotic wave has swept Iran since the war, but deep disillusionment with the theocratic regime remains.

Reza Kianian, a veteran, award-winning Iranian actor, has long been a vocal domestic critic of the Islamic republic, using his popular Instagram page to question the tenets of the regime's ideology.

Yet when Israel launched its deadly attack on Iran this month, Kianian quickly joined the ranks of regime critics who gathered around the flag, part of a wave of patriotic fervor that has swept the country of 90 million since the start of the 12-day war. “Iran has existed, still exists, and will continue to exist,” Kianian said on Instagram after the war began.

This new sense of unity in the otherwise polarized country surprised observers and politicians both at home and abroad. While Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu tried to capitalize on the disillusionment by calling on people to rise up against the Islamic Republic, even the regime’s fiercest opponents temporarily set aside their criticisms and retreated from what they saw as a war not only against their rulers but also against Iran itself.

“A person outside Iran cannot tell a nation to rise up,” Kianian, 74, told the Financial Times. “Iran is my country. I will decide what to do and I will not wait for you to tell me what to do in my country.”

How Israel inadvertently reawakened Iranian nationalism

This resurgence of Iranian nationalism, which politicians hope will continue even as anger toward the Islamic republic returns, comes after decades of deep polarization. Iran's theocratic rulers have long sought to suppress an increasingly secular nation's desire for economic, political and social change, responding to unrest with brutal repressive measures.

Amnesty International said more than 300 people were killed during protests in 2022 sparked by the death in custody of a 22-year-old woman, Mahsa Amini, for not wearing her hijab properly, for example, leaving deep scars on the nation's psyche.

Although the Islamic Republic has since relaxed hijab rules, many Iranians are deeply unhappy with the state of the economy, struggling to cope with inflation and US sanctions, and angry about suspected corruption among those with ties to the regime.

However, when Israel launched its offensive on June 13, the Iranians quickly decided that this was not the moment of change they had hoped for.

Many were shocked by the bombings, which Israel said were aimed at regime targets but which Iranian officials said killed 627 people and destroyed 120 residential buildings in Tehran before ending in a fragile ceasefire on Tuesday. Israeli officials said Iranian missiles killed 28 people in Israel and hit residential areas.

"We felt trapped between forces that only sought their own ambitions, instead of our well-being," said Maryam, a 39-year-old housewife and regime critic who is still angry about the deaths in the 2022 protests.

“Netanyahu reminded us that we could lose even what little we have. In that sense, he unwittingly served the Islamic Republic, making us less hopeful that we will be able to get rid of this regime.”

To avoid provoking a strong popular backlash during the war, the regime also downplayed its polarizing ideology, according to which the US and Israel are eternal enemies and Shiite Islam is the solution to all problems.

The banners placed in Tehran aimed to promote nationalism rather than regime themes, and Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, on Thursday praised what he called the country's "extraordinary unity."

“A nation of 90 million people came together and resisted with one voice, standing shoulder to shoulder without raising their differences,” he said in a video message, which focused on Iran as a nation rather than the ruling theocracy, clearly intended to keep Iranians united. “It became clear that in critical times, one voice is heard by the nation.”

Officials have tried to prolong this patriotic fervor by portraying the conflict as a “victory,” despite devastating blows to the regime, its military, and Iran’s nuclear program. “Let’s not forget that there were no anti-war protests in the streets, and the government ensured that there was an adequate supply of food and fuel everywhere,” said a regime insider.

How Israel inadvertently reawakened Iranian nationalism

The war appears to have, at least for the time being, boosted some domestic support for Iran's ballistic missile program, the government's crackdown on suspected Israeli collaborators and even enthusiasm for acquiring a nuclear bomb, something the Islamic republic says it is not pursuing.

However, maintaining this unity will not be easy, with regime critics whose long list of grievances against their rulers has not disappeared calling for an accountability over the Islamic republic's role in setting Iran on the path to war.

Kianian, the actor, said that hardliners within the regime, including those on state television, should be held accountable for the extent to which their policies contributed to the conflict.

Hardliners in Iran, which has aggressively expanded its nuclear program and enriched uranium to near weapons-grade levels, have repeatedly said that Israel should be wiped off the map and that support for militants like Hezbollah in Lebanon should continue as a core of the republic's foreign policy.

How Israel inadvertently reawakened Iranian nationalism

“They keep saying on television that we are all together, from left to right,” he said. “It took a long time to understand that we are united, and only when there was no other choice during the war did they say that.”

For many Iranians, the Islamic republic should not take this national solidarity for granted and double down on its most divisive policies, with all the issues that have angered Iranians over the years continuing to fester.

"What has saved Iran is not an ideology of illusions, but its ancient history... and the experience of surviving invasions by Alexander, the Mongols and the Arabs," said Fayyaz Zahed, a reformist political analyst.

“Perhaps only the history teachers in the country could have predicted this… Once again, we realized that if there is ever going to be any change, it can only come from within.”

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