Is the Iranian People’s cause dead?

 

The Iranian People’s Cause Is Not Dead. It is unfinished.

 

Just 13 weeks ago, on 8 and 9 January, tens of millions of Iranians poured into the streets across the country. For a brief but decisive moment, the regime in Tehran was pushed to the edge of collapse. This was not a fringe protest. It was a generational uprising—young, determined, and unmistakably opposed to the Islamic Republic and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) that sustains it.

The regime’s response revealed both its strength and its fear. Within days, it shut down the internet and cut off communications, sealing the country from the outside world. What followed was a violent crackdown of a scale that may not be fully understood for years. The number of those killed, injured, or disappeared remains unknown. What is known is this: the regime survived not because it retained legitimacy, but because it retained force.

That distinction matters.

Today, the geopolitical landscape has shifted again. Since late February, the United States and Israel have escalated a military campaign targeting IRGC infrastructure and leadership. Key figures have been eliminated. Others, including Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf—an IRGC general, Speaker of Parliament and a central figure in recent negotiations in Islamabad—have been left standing. President Donald Trump has made it clear why: they are only “alive to negotiate.”

But negotiate what, exactly?

For Washington, the immediate concern is stability, specifically, the stability of global energy markets. The threat of disruption in the Strait of Hormuz has already rattled markets and driven up oil prices. The objective, therefore, is not merely strategic pressure on Iran, but containment of broader economic fallout

The United States and Israel have launched a sustained military campaign, setting aside the earlier 12-day conflict—to focus on operations that began on 28 February. These have targeted IRGC military, paramilitary, naval, and related installations, as well as key figures within the regime’s political and military hierarchy. Yet some senior figures, including Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, have been deliberately left alive, along with a small number of lesser-known generals. Notably, many governmental positions are now held by IRGC figures who have transitioned from military roles into civilian office—evident in the delegation that travelled from Tehran to Islamabad. 

This approach is partly driven by economic pressure. Rising oil prices and market volatility, fueled by fears of disruption in the Strait of Hormuz, have heightened concerns about the global economy. The U.S. objective, therefore, has been to stabilise oil flows from the Persian Gulf while maintaining strategic pressure.

For Tehran, the strategy is survival. The regime has drawn on regional militias and reinforced its internal security apparatus, projecting control in the absence of the mass protests that nearly overwhelmed it weeks ago. It appears, at least on the surface, to have regained its footing.

The IRGC and the regime, though fearful of collapse, have sought to project control. They have drawn on allied militias from Iraq, including Al-Hashd al-Shaabi, as well as Hezbollah, while reinforcing their presence on the streets. In the absence of the mass protests seen weeks earlier, the regime appears temporarily reassured of its position. Despite the ongoing U.S.–Israeli campaign and the removal of key leadership figures, including the Supreme Leader, Ghalibaf and a core group of IRGC figures remain, ostensibly to engage in negotiations.

Both sides have agreed to a two-week ceasefire. The question is: for what purpose?

For President Donald Trump, the objectives are clear. He is pursuing defined strategic goals that appear consistent even as tactics may shift. His broader aim is a reconfiguration of the Middle East (a New Middle East)—one that prevents the emergence or continuation of a religiously driven and militarised state structure in a key regional power.

From this perspective, the concern is not only governance in Iran, but the risk posed by a regime perceived as pursuing military expansion and, potentially, weapons of mass destruction capabilities. The strategic logic is therefore focused on ensuring such capacity is permanently constrained. In practical terms, this implies neutralising the ability of any governing authority to reach or maintain that level of power within a country of nearly 90 million people, many of them young, educated, and increasingly aligned with modern political values rather than the current theocratic-military system.

This system, in turn, is widely seen by its critics as being sustained by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its affiliated networks, which draw on national resources to maintain control.

From the opposing side, however, the calculations appear to be different. Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, and other senior IRGC-linked figures currently engaged in talks in Islamabad, appear to have misread the situation. Their presence at the negotiating table, reportedly facilitated by meetings with senior U.S. officials, including Vice President J.D. Vance, may have been interpreted as recognition of parity in negotiations.

This assumption may prove mistaken.

Rather than reflecting an equal negotiating position, the engagement appears conditional and limited. The belief that the strategic confrontation has effectively concluded, or that dialogue signals acceptance of the current power structure, risks a fundamental misinterpretation of the situation

This is a dangerous illusion.

The fundamental reality inside Iran has not changed. For over four decades, and with increasing intensity in recent years, millions of Iranians—particularly the young—have rejected the political and ideological foundations of the state. The January uprising did not create that reality; it exposed it.

What is missing is not public will, but structure. The protests of recent years, including the latest wave, have been largely leaderless. Courage has not been in short supply. Organisation has.

This is where current policy falls short. External calls for Iranians to “rise up” ignore a critical constraint: without credible leadership on the ground, mass mobilisation alone is not enough to achieve lasting change. It can shake a regime. It rarely replaces one.

The current moment, however, presents a narrow and significant opportunity. With the regime under sustained external pressure and its internal legitimacy deeply eroded, the conditions for meaningful change are closer than they have been in decades. But that change will not occur spontaneously. It requires coordination, leadership, and a viable alternative.

There is a risk, of course. Policymakers in Washington remain wary of repeating the chaos of Iraq in 2003 or the prolonged instability of Syria. But Iran is not Iraq, and it is not Syria. It is a country of nearly 90 million people, with a large, educated population that has repeatedly demonstrated its willingness to challenge authoritarian rule.

The greater risk is not action—it is misreading the moment.

Those now sitting at the negotiating table on behalf of Tehran, many of them drawn from the ranks of the IRGC, may believe that survival equals victory. That by enduring external pressure and engaging in talks, they have restored their position. That assumption is likely to prove mistaken.

Because the events of January have already answered the most important question.

The Iranian people have not accepted the system that governs them. They have challenged it—at scale, at cost, and with persistence.

Their cause is not dead.

It is waiting.