The United States believed that economic pressure would turn Iran’s middle class against the regime. Why hasn’t it?
In the weeks leading up to the launch of Operation Epic Fury, a middle-aged Iranian man stood before a camera and said what much of the world was surprised to hear.
“Look, we fought for eight years [at a time when] we didn’t even have barbed wire,” the man said, referencing the Iran–Iraq War from 1980 until 1988. “I am a protester [against the Islamic Republic], but if the goal is to open a path for the filth, the Zionists, and their pups to step in, then no, I am not a protester. No matter how many problems we have with one another…to take advantage and exert power over us—no! We remain here, and we will sacrifice our lives for this country.”
That man—interviewed at a protest against American and Israeli interference in Iranian affairs—was not alone. Carefully choreographed demonstrations are a staple of the Islamic Republic’s messaging strategy, and are regularly promoted by its institutions to give the appearance of support for the state. Yet these protests’ attendees were far more diverse than usual; one even included former political prisoners participating in a pro-Islamic Republic event for the first time in their lives. In spite of the vast differences among them, they each echoed a near-identical message: the Iranian people would rather fight and die before giving up “even one inch of our land” to foreign control.
Anti-American demonstrators within Iran, both pre and post-February 28, appear more demographically-inclusive than the youth-led “Women, Life, Freedom” movement beginning in 2022, with middle-aged and elderly Iranians in the 40s–60s range appearing alongside a younger demographic of 20s–30s. In this light, it is tempting to conclude that Iran’s middle class has finally taken to the streets. If it has, it has not done so in the way Washington had intended.
Iran Has Been Through Worse than Trump
Iran’s influential middle class has long been in the crosshairs of American ambitions for regime change. Under President Barack Obama, the United States instituted a sanctions architecture designed to economically asphyxiate middle-class Iranians, intended to turn them against Tehran. By and large, this policy did not work. After decades of imposed financial crisis, critical medicine shortages, and a miserable job market, it took the death of an authoritarian religious leader to bring them to the streets en masse—and what brought them there was not gratitude to the United States.
Highly educated and shaped by a historical memory of violent bloodshed over the eight-year Iran–Iraq War, Iran’s middle-aged and older middle class tends toward a cautious political pragmatism. And though the newly-minted Islamic Republic had its malcontents after the 1979 Revolution, these doubts were quickly overwhelmed by the cruelty of the ensuing war. For eight years, Iraq committed a string of atrocities against Iran, using chemical weapons against civilians and killing hundreds of thousands of people. The conflict decimated cohorts of young Iranian men, with almost a third of Iran’s casualties aged 15–19 at their deaths. Under these conditions, Iranians quickly conflated anti-Iraqi sentiment with support for the new government—leading Iranians of all ideologies to “rally ‘round the flag” in defense of the homeland, regardless of who was at the helm.
The Iran–Iraq War is also fundamental to understanding the Islamic Republic. Under the leadership of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the Iranian government endured all of the civilian deaths and the near collapse of its economy, and still refused surrender. Indeed, when Khomeini finally accepted the UN-brokered ceasefire in 1988, he did not frame it as a joyful, long-awaited peace, but rather as “drinking from a poisoned chalice.” A government that narrates its own survival as tainted endurance is not one that has been conditioned to yield under any circumstances.
In spite of this, Washington continues to operate under the assumption that sufficient military pressure will compel Tehran to capitulate to American demands on its security. Recent statements from US officials describing the bombing campaign as a “laser-focused” effort to destroy Iran’s military capabilities reflect the same assumption that strategic pain will force political submission—an assumption Iran’s own wartime history strongly contradicts.
Lessons from the Iraq War Go Unheeded in Iran
Across the Atlantic, the case of Iraq has taken on another kind of invocation. In recent comments, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has said that while there is no timeline for the military operation, American missions in the region are clear: to destroy Iranian military capabilities, including its navy, missile program, and nuclear infrastructure. Moreover, Hegseth has insisted that the Iran conflict is “not Iraq” and that it is “not endless.”
The Americans and Iranians have taken different lessons from their respective wars with Iraq. In today’s Washington, officials are hesitant to repeat the follies of the past in declaring open-ended ideological missions. Instead, in keeping with its transactional approach to diplomacy, the Trump administration has broken with the longstanding American tradition of presidents invoking a moral justification for foreign intervention. Contrary to the Trump administration’s initial overtures of liberation for the Iranian people from authoritarianism, Hegseth has clarified that “Operation Epic Fury” holds no utopian ambitions and will not include nation-building or democracy promotion. Nor has the administration attempted to validate the attack by promising to improve the status of women—a justification that would have become unconscionable after the operation’s first day, when an American airstrike killed over 100 children in a girls’ school in southern Iran. Still, it appears Washington is glad to “give” Iranians the opportunity to build a new Iran—while absolving itself of responsibility for anything that follows.
One lesson from Iraq that the United States has not connected to the context of Iran is the disastrous consequences of a power vacuum after an authoritarian regime is decapitated without a suitable alternative. In the case of Iraq, the destruction of state services and facilities, including the dissolution of the military, created a perfect storm for the rise of militant groups and other revenge-seeking entities hostile towards the West. Intentionally or otherwise, the United States is creating the same conditions in Iran; its current operations are actively destroying civilian and political infrastructure, the indisputable building blocks of liberal society. If financial development is also a prerequisite for democracy, then American behavior, including a historic emphasis on crushing sanctions, have certainly sent one aspect of Iranian society “back to the stone age.”
Amid a long history of thwarted diplomatic attempts and “almosts” between Washington and Tehran, the high cost of war has failed to deter the United States from launching a pre-emptive strike in anticipation of another pre-emptive strike. Ultimately, the current trajectory of the conflict describes a zero-sum standoff, in which the Americans will demand a surrender from Tehran—one that the “man on the street,” the middle-aged protester who has never once defended the Islamic Republic, and even the former political prisoner have all made clear they would rather die than give.
Washington has learned to stop promising democracy that it cannot deliver. It has not yet learned that the people it is trying to save have already decided that they have no interest in being “liberated” on a foreign nation’s terms.
About the Author: Anissa Ozbek
Anissa Ozbek is a researcher and program coordinator for the Middle East Studies Program at the Elliott School of International Affairs at the George Washington University, where she is also a US Department of Education Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellow for Persian. Her research areas include international relations of the Middle East, Iran’s nuclear program, and regional security. She has presented her findings on Iran and the region at international forums such as the British Society for Middle East Studies and her work has been published with the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy.
