On September 16, 2022, a young Iranian woman named Mahsa Amini passed away after an incident that occurred under the custody of the Islamic Republic’s Guidance Patrol, a force tasked with enforcing and promoting Islamic values and cultural norms. What at first seemed like normal protests by young Iranians who had diverging cultural values from the Iranian state soon turned into a global media campaign advocating regime change and in many cases, war.
The Kurdish ethnic-minority background of Mahsa Amini was strongly emphasized as activists sought to use this event to achieve their dreams of splitting up Iran into several smaller states, just as was done with Yugoslavia, the USSR, and other multi-ethnic states over the last half-century. The slogan that the movement’s activists championed for their grand campaign was ‘Woman, Life, Freedom’ (WLF), a mantra invented long before these events by Abdullah Öcalan, the founder of a militant Kurdish political organization called the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) [1].
Within a matter of days after Amini’s passing, the entirety of the vast foreign-based Iranian media network, as well as Iranian social media and large parts of the Western media, were mobilized to express their condemnation and to step by step, ramp up their rhetoric into advocation for an end to the 43-year-old Islamic Republic. Separatist groups joined a coalition of Communists, Monarchists, Liberals, and the infamous Mojahedin-e Khalq Organisation (MeK) as calls for a violent overthrow of the Iranian state spread like wildfire.
Iran quickly fell into a heightened state of hybrid warfare. Even many of the normally cooler heads and analysts started to say that the revolutionary Islamic state founded in 1979 was finally coming to an end. Day after day, night after night, Iranian and international audiences were bombarded with stories of unparalleled atrocities allegedly committed by the Iranian state and its supporters.
Alas, the supposedly million-man protest movement ended, and a relative state of normalcy returned. But why did this all happen? What caused the ‘Woman, Life, Freedom’ movement to become such a sensation? And who benefited from it all? This extensive and exclusive investigation will examine these questions, discuss what occurred, and analyze how everything fits into the broader context of Iranian and international politics.
Contents
Section One: Timeline of Events
Section Two: Atrocity Narratives
Martyrs
Mahsa Amini
Nika Shakrami
Hadis Najafi
Sarina Esmailzadeh
Khodanur Lojei
Asra Panahi
Aida Rostami
Armita Geravand
Shah Cheragh Terror Attack
Izeh Terror Attack and the Death of Kian Pirfalak
Schoolgirl Poisonings
The Curious Case of Hossein Ronaghi
Section Three: The Scale of Protests and Strikes
Protest Numbers and Popularity
Strikes
University Strikes
Workers’ Strikes
Shopkeepers and Bazaar Strikes
General Strikes
Section Four: Media
Social Media
Twitter
Instagram
Whatsapp
Satellite Television Channels
Iran International
BBC Persian
Manoto TV
Voice of America and Radio Farda
Section Five: The Role of Foreign States
Saudi Arabia
Iran International
Funding of Terrorist and Separatist Groups
The United States and NATO
Sanctions
Terror Networks
Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization
Media and NGOs
Israel
Relationships with Opposition Leaders
The Republic of Azerbaijan
Support for Separatist Groups
Section Six: The Power Struggle in Iran
Section Seven: The Saudi Deal
Conclusion
Bibliography
Section One: Timeline of Events
9 August 2022
Former Prime Minister and leader of the 2009 Green Movement, Mir-Hossein Mousavi, published an article questioning Iranian regional and military policy and speculating that Iran’s Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei wishes to establish a new monarchy in Iran and arrange the succession of his son Mojtaba Khamenei after his passing [1].
16 September
Mahsa Amini was pronounced dead and protestors gathered at Kasra Hospital in Tehran [2].
The New York Times published an article stating that the Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Khamenei, was gravely ill [3].
17 September
Amini was buried in her hometown of Saqqez in Kordestan Province [4].
Protests began in Kurdish-populated regions [4].
The first use of the Kurdish slogan ‘Woman, Life, Freedom’ (‘Jin, Jian, Azadi’ in Kurdish and ‘Zan, Zendegi, Azadi’ in Persian) occurred at Amini’s burial in Saqqez [5]. The slogan was created by PKK founder Abdullah Öcalan in his work on feminism [6].
18 September
A rally was held by students at the University of Tehran [7].
19 September
First reports of protestor deaths [8].
20 September
Death of Nika Shakarami [see below].
21 September
A member of the Basij (pro-government student and societal groups) was stabbed to death in Mashhad [9].
Death of Hadis Najafi [see below].
22 September
Riots began as police stations and cars were set on fire [9].
24 September
Diaspora rallies began outside Iran [10].
Death of Sarina Esmailzadeh [see below].
28 September
Iranian security forces conducted shelling and missile attacks against Kurdish separatist organizations in the area of the Kurdish Regional Government of Iraq [11].
German CSU politician Dorothee Bär attended a diaspora event in Berlin, becoming the first foreign politician to do so [12].
29 September
The song ‘Baraye’ by singer Shervin Hajipour went viral [13].
30 September
In response to allegations about the rape of a minor by a police chief, protests and rioting started in the Baluchi regions of Sistan and Baluchestan province, led by religious leader Mowlavi Naqshbandi [14, 15].
Armed clashes occurred between Iranian security forces and Baluchi protestors resulting in large casualty numbers, with some in the Iranian state claiming the presence of terrorist and separatist organizations among the protestors; the event has been referred to as “Bloody Friday” by many in the Baluchi community [93, 16].
1 October
2 October
Continuation of Sharif University incident [18].
Alleged killing of “Khodanur Lojei” [see below].
3 October
Iran’s Leader Ayatollah Khamenei made his first statement on the events, referring to them as riots instigated by foreign powers and dispelling the narrative that Kurdish and Baluchi Iranians seek to separate from Iran [20].
4 October
Iranian security forces again conducted shelling and missile attacks against Kurdish separatist organizations in the area of the Kurdish Regional Government of Iraq [21].
Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi gave a speech calling for unity [22].
5 October
French actresses cut their hair in protest of the Iranian government [23].
7 October
In an attempt to force shops at Tehran Bazaar to go on strike, rioters attacked and threatened shopkeepers causing temporary closures [24].
8 October
A national television broadcast was hijacked for a few seconds showing an image of Ayatollah Khamenei being targeted by a set of superimposed crosshairs while being surrounded by flames, captioned with various agitative slogans directed at the television audience and the verse "The Blood of Our Youths Is on Your Hands" accompanied by audio recordings of the chant ‘Woman, Life, Freedom’ [25].
12 October
Shopkeepers were forced to close repeatedly throughout the week in Kurdish regions [26].
Death of Asra Panahi [see below].
13 October
A police officer is set on fire in Rasht, Gilan Province [27].
14 October
EU Foreign Affairs Chief Josep Borell made a statement in support of the protests [28].
15 October
A fire broke out at Evin Prison in Tehran [29].
Iranian security forces conducted shelling and missile attacks against Kurdish separatist organizations in the area of the Kurdish Regional Government of Iraq [30].
17 October
The EU sanctioned 11 individuals and 4 entities in Iran, including the Basij and the Guidance Patrol [31].
22 October
A solidarity march was held in Berlin by members of the Iranian Diaspora that claimed an attendance of 80,000-100,000 [32].
The son of former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the founder and spiritual leader of the pro-Western Liberal ‘Moderate’ faction, Mohsen Hashemi Rafsanjani, made calls for changes to the constitution [33].
Former Minister for Roads and Urban Development in the Moderate-led Rouhani government, Abbas Ahmad Akhoundi, called on religious clerics to support the protestors [33].
26 October
In Shiraz, the Shah Cheragh shrine, a Shia pilgrimage site, was attacked by the Islamic State (ISIS) resulting in 15 deaths, including children, as well as over 40 injuries [34].
The Islamic State - Khorasan Province, known as ISIS-K, declared support for the protestors [35].
A member of the Basij called Arman Aliverdi was taken hostage by rioters in Tehran’s Ekbatan district and was repeatedly stabbed in an attempt to get him to denounce Iran’s Leader and government on camera. He was then left on the street until he was found and taken to the hospital, where he passed away two days later [36].
A member of the IRGC was shot dead in Malayer, becoming the 33rd member of the security forces killed in the riots [35].
30 October
A Tehran court held the first hearings for individuals accused of participating in riots [37].
3 November
US President Joe Biden vowed to “free Iran” in a speech in California [38].
Rioters attempted to stop traffic on a highway near Karaj and attack civilians using rocks, knives, and machetes. A police kiosk and a police van were burnt. A member of the Basij who was called up to provide security on the roadway was killed. [39].
A cleric at a Shia Mosque in Zahedan was shot dead [40].
4 November
Baluchi religious leader, Mowlavi Abdolhamid, called on the government to hold a national referendum [41].
11 November
Petrol bombs were thrown at a Basij base in Babolsar [42].
12 November
French President, Emmanuel Macron, met with diaspora activists in Paris [43].
13 November
The first death sentence related to the riots is passed down by an Iranian court for a defendant accused of setting a government building on fire [44].
16 November
Armed terrorists attacked civilians and security forces in the town of Izeh, Khuzestan Province, resulting in 7 dead and 15 injured; the death of Kian Pirfalak [45, see below].
18 November
Security forces conducted a major crackdown in Kurdish-populated towns in Iran using armored vehicles and helicopters. Live ammunition was used and suspected buildings used by separatist organizations were raided. Barricades were set up by separatist organizations, which made reports about the imposition of martial law [46, 47, 48].
22 November
40 foreign nationals were arrested for participation in riots [49].
5 December
Opposition plans for a 3-day strike of truckers and shopkeepers were unsuccessful as civilians continued their lives as usual [50, 51].
Colonel Ebrahim Kuchakzayi, the police commander accused of raping a Baluchi minor and using excessive force on protestors during the “Bloody Friday” incident of September 30th was found guilty on a series of charges by a military court and was sentenced to 15 months in prison and barred from any further service in civilian or military government [94, 95].
8 December
The first execution related to the riots occurred when Mohsen Shekari was executed after being found guilty of blocking traffic and severely injuring a police officer using a machete [52].
12 December
Majidreza Rahnavard was executed after being found guilty of killing two Basij members [53].
Death of Aida Rostami [see below].
15 December
UN General Assembly voted to condemn Iran for human rights violations [54].
23 December
Mowlavi Abdolhamid used his platform as a prominent cleric to denounce government actions [55].
1 January 2023
Two French nationals and a Belgian national were indicted for espionage and fomenting unrest [56].
7 January
Mohammad Mehdi Karami and Mohammad Hosseini were executed after being found guilty of the murder of a Basij member during the Karaj incident of November 3rd [57].
14 January
Diaspora television channel ‘Manoto TV’ announced the start of the “You Are My Representative” campaign to gather signatures to name former Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi as the representative of anti-government Iranians. This caused a rift among opposition activists, some of whom started a counter-campaign called “You Are Not My Representative” [58].
16 January
Diaspora Iranians held a rally near the European Parliament in Strasbourg to ask for more sanctions on Iran and greater aid for regime change [59].
23 January
The US government issued more sanctions on Iranian entities and individuals deemed responsible for executions [60].
26 January
The US House of Representatives voted to condemn the Iranian Government’s actions [61].
4 February
Mir-Hossein Mousavi published a letter calling for a new constitution to be drawn up by a newly elected body [62].
5 February
Former President, Mohammad Khatami, published a letter questioning the success of the 1979 Revolution and the Iranian constitution, stating that reforms within the Iranian system are no longer possible [63].
Iranian singer, Shervin Hajipour, was awarded the newly-created 2023 Grammys Special Merit Award for Best Song For Social Change by US First Lady Jill Biden [64].
10 February
Foreign-based dissidents from different factions agreed to unite to topple the Iranian government. These include former Crown Prince, Reza Pahlavi; former Reformist-turned-dissident, Masih Alinejad; Hollywood actress, Nazanin Boniadi; a relative of victims of flight Flight PS752, Hamed Esmailion; ex-judge, Shirin Ebadi; leader of the Kurdish separatist organization ‘Komala Party of Iranian Kurdistan’, Abdullah Mohtadi; actress, Golshifteh Farahani; and ex-footballer, Ali Karimi. [65].
11 February
Armed clashes occurred between Iranian security forces and Kurdish separatists in Dehloran leaving two soldiers dead [66].
18 February
American actress Kristen Stewart called for regime change in Iran at the Berlin International Film Festival [67].
6 March
Iran’s Leader Ayatollah Khamenei addressed the slowly growing epidemic of schoolgirls reporting symptoms of poisoning throughout the country and demanded immediate investigation and punishment for culprits [68].
10 March
6 of the 8 dissident leaders that met on 10 February formed the Alliance for Democracy and Freedom in Iran and signed the ‘Mahsa Charter’ [69].
Iran and Saudi Arabia signed a deal in Beijing to re-establish and normalize relations [70].
13 March
Head of the Iranian Judiciary, Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei, announced that 22,000 protesters were pardoned ahead of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan [71].
16 March
France 24 reported that "protests have dwindled in many parts of Iran", but that hundreds continued to protest every week in the province of Sistan and Baluchestan [72].
21 April
Hamed Esmailion left the Alliance for Democracy and Freedom in Iran over disagreements with monarchists [73].
The Alliance for Democracy and Freedom in Iran disbands [74].
19 May
Three men were executed after being found guilty of killing a police officer and a Basij member in Esfahan in November [75].
10 June
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and French President Emmanuel Macron had a telephone conversation discussing ways to develop relations between the two countries with President Macron stating that Paris seeks to cooperate with the Islamic Republic [76].
11 June
Pouya Molayi, an uncle of Kian Pirflak, runs over a police officer with his car on his nephew’s birthday and dies as a result of shots fired at him by police in their attempt to stop him [77].
20 June
Albanian police raided the Mojahedin-e Khalq Organisation’s Ashraf-3 camp near Tirana, seizing their computers [78].
22 June
Armed infighting breaks out between the Komala Party of Iranian Kurdistan and the Komala of the Toilers of Kurdistan [79].
8 July
Baluchi Islamist and separatist terrorist organization, Jaish al-Adl, attacked a police station in Zahedan, killing two members of the police [80].
10 August
The US and Iranian governments agreed to a prisoner exchange of 5 prisoners on each side (not necessarily related to protests) as well as the release of $6 billion of Iran’s frozen assets [81].
13 August
ISIS carried out another terrorist attack at the Shah Cheragh shrine in Shiraz leaving 2 dead and 7 wounded [82].
28 August
The governments of Iran and Iraq agreed to a deal according to which anti-Iran Kurdish separatist organizations will be disarmed and relocated away from the Iran-Iraq border by September 19, 2023 [83].
9 September
An unknown individual set fire to the back door of the Iranian Embassy in Paris [84].
13 September
The government of Iraq and the KRG began the relocation of anti-Iran Kurdish separatist organizations away from the Iranian border towards the west of Iraq, where they will be settled in new facilities and disarmed. These groups include PAK, PJAK, Komala, and the PDKI [85].
The US House of Representatives passed the MAHSA Act, increasing sanctions on Iranian leaders [86].
16 September
Anniversary of Mahsa Amini’s passing
A plot by opposition activists to murder Mahsa Amini’s father, Amjad Amini, and then blame it on the Iranian government to spark outrage and protests was foiled by security forces [87].
5 October
Armita Geravand incident [see below].
6 October
Iranian opposition activist Narges Mohammadi is given the Nobel Peace Prize [88].
22 October
Two journalists behind the sensationalization of the Mahsa Amini story, Elaheh Mohammadi and Nilourfar Hamedi, are sentenced to prison [89].
28 October
The death of Armita Geravand [see below].
11 November
Disgraced former Crown Prince of Iran, Reza Pahlavi, receives the 2023 Outspoken Award at the Spirit of Lincoln Gala, the most prominent Republican organization in the United States representing LGBT conservatives and their allies [90].
13 November
Foreign-based pro-opposition TV channel, Manoto TV, announces its pending closure in January 2024 [91].
15 December
Islamist and Baluchi terrorist organization Jaish al-Adl conducted a terrorist attack in Sistan and Baluchistan Province, killing 11 police officers [92].
Section Two: Atrocity Narratives
An important characteristic of the ‘Woman, Life, Freedom’ (WLF) movement was that it found its fuel in various tragic stories of atrocities that were blamed, in one way or another, on the Iranian government. These colorful stories were generally based upon presuppositions made by the supporters of the movement about the nature of the Iranian state and its willingness to commit heinous acts. Assumptions were made with little to no sources of evidence deemed necessary to prove the government’s culpability. As these narratives were repeated consistently and amplified on a global scale, often with the aid of high-ranking foreign politicians and celebrities, they were, for many, cemented as facts. However, upon deeper examination, it seems that things are not as simple as the chronicles of an evil dictatorship mindlessly killing its civilians portray. In this section, the most influential of these narratives will be examined to conclude what truly occurred.
Martyrs
Mahsa Amini
The events of the 2022 protests began with the death of Mahsa Amini. Amini was a young Kurdish-Iranian woman who was arrested on September 13th by the Guidance Patrol in Tehran and taken to a seminar to be briefed on the benefits of Islamic attire [2]. At this seminar, Amini collapsed, as shown in CCTV footage, and was then taken to Kasra Hospital [3, 4]. At the hospital, she fell into a coma and eventually passed away on September 16th [5]. This part of the story is agreed upon by all parties.
What is under contention, however, is what caused her collapse and ultimate death. Opposition activists and Western media claim that this was the result of blunt force trauma caused by blows to the head from members of the Guidance Patrol [4]. The evidence that is provided for this claim, however, fails to meet the standards generally required to come to such a conclusion. The first source for this claim is an interview with her cousin, Erfan Mortezai, a fighter for the Kurdish separatist organization Komala, who claims that the collapse of Amini was because of torture that occurred while she was under arrest [6, 7]. He, however, at no point in the interview provides any evidence for this claim [6]. Another source that opposition activists refer to is an unnamed hospital worker who is claimed to have said that her head was crushed by multiple blows [4].
Similarly, activists refer to an audio file that comes from a former IRGC commander in which he claims that Amini died from damage to her skull [9]. There is again no source provided for this claim by the former commander and nor is it discussed why a former commander who has long been an anti-government activist would have access to such information, especially considering that the IRGC is in no way in charge of the affairs of the Guidance Patrol [9]. Also, an interview in which Amini’s father states that he is certain his daughter died from blunt force trauma to the head is used to corroborate these claims [10]. Lastly, an alleged CT scan of Amini published by Iran International is claimed to show evidence of blunt force trauma to the skull [11].
The coroner in charge of her case, however, states that Amini died primarily due to an underlying illness that she had since she was a child [12]. The Iranian government stated that after fainting at the seminar facility, Amini suffered a heart rate interruption and lowered blood pressure, which her body could not respond to due to her having eruptions of disorders in the hypothalamus and hypophysis gland as a result of a craniopharyngioma surgery she had undergone at the age of eight [12]. Due to this illness and surgery, Amini took hydrocortisone, levothyroxine, and desmopressin as medication [12]. It is stated that ineffective cardiopulmonary resuscitation in the early minutes caused severe brain hypoxia resulting in multiple organ failure and her unfortunate death [12].
The hospital officially corroborated this, dismissing claims made about CT scans, by stating that her CT scans showed precisely that she did not die due to beatings on the head or body, but rather from the aforementioned circumstances [12]. A video was also released of her father before her death in the hospital stating that such surgery had occurred, that his daughter did indeed have the stated medical conditions, and that his daughter did not have signs of beatings on the head [13]. He would later deny these comments and state that the government’s explanation was a lie [13].
In September 2022, when these events were unfolding, the main source of physical evidence relied upon to prove that Amini was killed by a strike on the head was her CT scan which was heavily publicized by the network Iran International [114]. Iran International brought on a series of medical specialists to analyze the CT scan and examine Amini’s cause of death [114]. The first two of these doctors did not have any specialty in the field of neurology and practiced in one case, Nuclear Medicine, and in the other, Social Medicine [114]. Both of these individuals claimed that the CT scan showed clearly that Amini was struck on the head with force [114].
Following this, in late September, an Iranian-American neurologist and opposition activist called Reza Behrouz was brought onto the program to discuss the CT scan [114, 115]. Behrouz stated that the CT scan did not show any signs of a strike to the head and seemed mostly normal [114]. He further stated the only abnormality was an area that seemed like the effect of a previous surgery [114]. Behrouz stated that since he had heard Amini’s father state that his daughter had no such surgery, this CT scan must not have belonged to Amini and was therefore sent to Iran International to back up the claims of the Iranian government [114].
A year later, Behrouz made a tweet expressing his regret for his comments on Iran International and stated that “when we believe that a tyrannical regime is taking its last breaths, seeing the truth is difficult” [116]. He said in this tweet that he would soon expose what occurred regarding Iran International’s examinations of Amini’s CT scan and his role in the matter [116]. He followed this up with another tweet explaining that the guests who appeared on Iran International before him were not qualified to read or analyze the CT scan and that his analysis was based on the fact that Amini’s father denied his daughter’s childhood surgery [114].
Another pro-WLF neurologist, Shahram Makoui, corroborated Behrouz’s analysis of the CT scan in a tweet replying to him and agreed that the only abnormality was what seemed like the signs of intrusion made during an earlier surgery [114, 117]. Reza Behrouz has since deleted his tweet exposing Iran International’s propagandistic work during the early days of the ‘Woman, Life, Freedom’ movement, possibly due to pressure from the movement’s activists [114, 115, 117].
Another narrative regarding Mahsa Amini is that she was killed due to prejudice on behalf of the Iranian state against Iran’s Kurdish ethnic minority. However, no evidence has been provided for any premeditation of her arrest based on her ethnicity and neither has any evidence been provided to show that the Guidance Patrol systematically targets Kurdish-Iranian citizens [14]. Kurdish separatist activists claim that Amini’s real first name ‘Jina’, used by her close family, could not be registered in Iran due to anti-Kurdish laws that ban non-Persian or Perso-Arabic names, and therefore, she had to be officially registered as ‘Mahsa’ [15]. This claim is completely untrue since, as of November 2022, at least 6268 Iranians were registered with the Kurdish female name ‘Jina’ as their first name and no laws exist in Iran that restrict names to only Persian or Perso-Arabic ones [16]. Therefore, it is safe to assume that her official registration as ‘Mahsa’ was a choice made by her family and not one that was imposed on them.
Nika Shakarami
The next viral atrocity story that caught the eye of Western media was the story of another young girl called Nika Shakarami who was found dead on September 21, 2022 [17]. Opposition activists and Western media claim that Shakarami was chased down and kidnapped by Basij members due to her involvement in protests [17]. CNN and other outlets claim that they have videos of her being chased and hiding from Basij members, however, no videos have been released except ones of her protesting with others against Iran’s dress code laws [17]. Users on Twitter even claimed that Shakarami was raped, tortured, and had her organs harvested by members of the Basij and security forces [18, 19].
These claims are however not backed by any evidence and rely, as with other cases, on hearsay and presuppositions about the Iranian security forces. Her corpse was identified by her mother a week after her death and according to her autopsy report, no traces of bullets or evidence of rape and torture were found on the body [20]. Shakarami’s body was found in the courtyard of a building the morning after she attended protests with signs pointing to her dying due to a fall from height [20]. Her belongings such as a backpack were discovered on the roof of a nearby building [20]. Although CCTV footage shows her entering this building that night, her motives for entering the building and going to the roof are unknown, although some evidence suggests that she may have committed suicide [21].
The most despicable use of the unfortunate death of Nika Shakarami was made by a prominent opposition activist who emphasizes supposed LGBT oppression in her work [22]. The activist, Shadi Amin, claimed based on an alleged friendship that Shakarami had with a girl in Germany that Shakarami was a member of the “LGBT community” and presented her posthumously with an “Emergence of Lesbians” award [22, 23]. Shakarami’s family spoke out and denied these claims and Amin’s opportunistic use of their loved one’s death [23]. However, opposition activists did not listen, with BBC Persian publishing a maliciously worded article about the family’s rejection of these claims with a headline that makes it seem as though a quote from Shadi Amin about Shakarami’s alleged lesbianism is actually from Shakarami’s family [23, 24]. Only upon closer inspection of the article would one realize that the quote is actually from Amin and not her family, which effectively exemplifies the journalistic tactics that were used to push false narratives by opposition media [24].
Hadis Najafi
Hadis Najafi was a protester killed by gunfire in Karaj, Alborz Province on September 21, 2022 [26]. Opposition activists claim that Najafi was shot by government security forces that wanted to quell the protests [27]. Given the statements made by her family about how she had multiple small-shot bullets in her body in the same location, it is certain that she was killed by a shotgun [28]. Shotguns, however, are not a part of the standard equipment given to Iranian Police Forces [28]. Shotguns that fire the same kinds of bullets found in Najafi’s body were confiscated from groups of rioters who had used them to kill other civilians, as well as security forces [28]. Hence, it is more logical to conclude that Najafi was shot by rioters. It is important to note that Najafi was also from the Azeri ethnic minority, which given the separatist motives pursued by activists during these protests, may have been a reason why her death was highlighted in opposition media, in addition to the fact that she was a young woman [29].
Sarina Esmailzadeh
Sarina Esmailzadeh died on the 24th of September 2022 in Karaj, Alborz Province [31]. Opposition activists claim that she died because of beatings on the head by security forces at a protest [32]. They also changed the date of her death in their stories to make it align with protest dates in Karaj [31]. However, there is no proof that Esmailzadeh attended protests at all and her mother stated that she was at home that night [31]. Opposition activists claimed that her family was called by her friends to inform them of her death and the evidence provided for this is hearsay from an unnamed source [32].
Esmailzadeh’s mother and neighbors state that the cause of her death was a fall from height and a published recording of a phone call to the police by a neighbor at the time of the event corroborates these statements [31]. After the interview with her mother was released, activists claimed that her aunt was her mother and stated that Esmailzadeh’s mother had killed herself because of her daughter’s death [31]. This was, however, denied by her mother who stated that she had not killed herself in a television interview [31]. Esmailzadeh’s social media posts show that she suffered from suicidal ideations, a state of mind that may have been exacerbated by stories of atrocities regarding women and girls her age published by opposition activists in the days leading up to her death [31].
Khodanur Lojei
Opposition activists claim that a supposedly Baluchi-Iranian man named “Khodanur Lojei” was killed by Iranian Police in Sistan and Baluchestan Province on October 2nd, 2022 through a shot to the kidney [34]. They claim that a video that went viral on social media shows him arrested and being tortured as police taunt him with water when he is thirsty and handcuffed to a flagpole [35]. The man in the video, however, was not called Khodanur Lojei and was an Afghan migrant arrested for repeated counts of theft of mobile phones, whose real name was Sadegh Kebadani [36]. Also, no proof was provided for the cause of his supposed death except hearsay [34]. Later, a video surfaced of a dancing Baluchi man who was claimed to be Lojei before his death, however, the video was actually of a Baluchi-Iranian singer called Belal Nasroy [36, 37, 38].
Asra Panahi
Sixteen-year-old Asra Panahi passed away on the 12th of October, 2022 in Ardabil [40]. Opposition activists claim that Panahi was a schoolgirl who was ordered to sing a pro-government religious song called ‘Salam Farmandeh’ and was then beaten to death by security forces after refusing to do so [41]. Similarly to the case of Esmailzadeh, the date and time of her death were changed to match the early morning school hours [40]. Reporters within Iran state that Panahi died of a heart attack the night before this incident in a hospital that she was rushed to after she experienced symptoms of poisoning [40]. Doctors state that Panahi had underlying conditions that exacerbated the effects of this presumed poison, leading to her ultimate death [40]. It is also noted that not only did Panahi not attend the school that was stated in opposition reports, but that the picture used in opposition media was not even of her [40]. The news story was first reported by the so-called “Coordinating Council of Iranian Teachers’ Trade Associations” which has no proven relations to any teachers' organizations in Iran and had previously made confusing calls for teachers strikes during a period of the COVID-19 pandemic when schools in Iran were completely closed [41, 42].
Mehr News states that the video which activists claim to be of the Panahi’s arrest, showing police cars stationed outside of a school, was filmed after the supposed event occurred and that the day of the supposed event was an off-day for all schools in Ardabil [40]. Additionally, the song ‘Salam Farmandeh’ was released much earlier in the year, in March, and school sing-alongs, as well as a national sing-along, occurred in the holy month of Ramadan, over 5 months before the death of Panahi [43]. The Azeri ethnic minority background of Panahi must be highlighted as a possible cause for her alleged poisoning and the media coverage that was given to her death, as this would fuel the narrative that the Iranian government is a “Persian-chauvinist regime” oppressing non-Persian-speaking communities [44].
Aida Rostami
Aida Rostami, a general practitioner doctor, passed away on the 12th of December, 2022 [46]. Opposition activists claim that Rostami was secretly treating injured protestors in her home, when she ran out of supplies, went to a pharmacy to buy them, and then disappeared, reappearing the next day as a tortured corpse handed over to her family [47]. The primary source referred to as evidence for this colorful story is however never named nor is it discussed why this source had the aforementioned information [47]. Sources within Iran, such as Rostami’s family, as well as the Iranian judiciary, state that Rostami died after falling off or being thrown off a bridge in Tehran [46]. It is stated that Rostami had met up on the bridge with an ex-partner and was seen having an argument with him on this bridge before the incident [46]. The ex-partner was arrested and he stated in a televised interview that this was, in fact, the case and that the reason for their argument was Rostami’s new relationship and plans to marry another man and that she jumped off the bridge during this heated argument [46]. It is suspected, however, that the man himself may have pushed her off, although no conclusive statements have been released by judicial authorities [46].
Armita Geravand
Over a year after the death of Mahsa Amini, long after the ‘Woman, Life, Freedom’ movement had died down, a 16-year-old girl named Armita Geravand suffered a brain injury while entering a cabin in a Tehran metro train on October 1st, 2023 [49]. Opposition activists immediately jumped on this story and claimed that this injury was caused by a beating that she received from Guidance Patrol officers inside the train cabin [50]. Suddenly, after months of infighting and hopelessness, opposition activists came together again to condemn this supposed act of violence and to renew their calls for war and regime change against the Iranian government [51, 52]. Many even prematurely named her a martyr and gave condolences to her family and to their movement for her death, which did not occur until weeks later [51, 52]. Yet again, Geravand’s Kurdish heritage, which she shares with many across the country and in Tehran, was pushed to the forefront to advance the narrative that the Iranian government was systematically attacking Kurdish women [51].
The Foreign Minister of Germany, Annalena Baerbock, corroborated opposition claims in a tweet stating “Once again a young woman in #Iran is fighting for her life. Just because she showed her hair in the subway.” [53]. Similar statements were made by US Deputy Special Envoy for Iran, Abram Paley, with Western media also reporting this narrative [53, 54]. It seemed as though a repeat of the events following Mahsa Amini’s death was about to occur with the same explanation being given by opposition activists for Geravand’s injury and the same Kurdish-separatist and feminist themes being employed. However, this time events played out differently.
Iranian national broadcasting soon released an explanation from the metro staff at the station, an interview with her friends who were with her at the time of the incident, and a nearly 18-minute long video of her recorded by the station’s CCTV cameras from the moment she entered the train station that morning till the moment that medical staff arrived [49, 55, 56]. The video of her entering the train clearly shows that less than a second had passed from when she entered the train to when she collapsed [56]. The video then shows her friends, as well as other women, some of whom were not wearing a head-covering, tending to her as she is taken out of the train cabin and informing medical staff [56]. It can clearly be seen that there was not enough time for Geravand to have been reprimanded and beaten by a Guidance Patrol officer for the way she was dressed and that plenty of other women who were not abiding by full Islamic dress codes were present around her [56]. It is also important to note that the cabin she entered was a woman’s only cabin, which generally never have Guidance Patrol officers in them, as opposed to mixed cabins which may [51].
In the interviews, her friends stated that they would take this route to school every day and that while they were waiting for their train, Armita had complained about feeling hungry [55]. They state that no conflict had occurred between Geravand and any individual on the train and that upon entering the train Geravand suddenly collapsed, with her head hitting the train door and the platform, resulting in bleeding [55]. It is therefore most likely that Geravand collapsed due to light-headedness brought about by hunger and that the impact of her head upon hitting the door and platform caused her injury. After the incident, she was taken to a hospital where she remained until her unfortunate death on October 28th [55, 58].
Shah Cheragh Terror Attack
On the 26th of October 2022, three gunmen entered the Shah Cheragh Holy Shrine in Shiraz and opened fire on worshippers, killing 15 and injuring over 40 civilians [60, 61]. This attack, which was condemned by the UN Security Council as a terrorist attack against Iran, was claimed by the Islamic State (ISIS) [62, 63]. This, however, did not satisfy opposition activists who claimed that ISIS was lying and that the government of the Islamic Republic had carried out the attack itself to portray the riots as negative and to disrupt supposedly large-scale Cyrus Day rallies that were planned for October 29 [64].
The activists’ alleged rationale was that first, the gunmen could not have entered the shrine with such large guns without the approval of the government, second, that police arrested the gunmen without being scared of any explosive vests or belts and third, the Islamic Republic had supposedly carried out false flags like this in the past [64]. The event that was primarily brought up as an example of a previous false flag was the burning of a cinema in Abadan during the 1979 Revolution which the government of the time blamed on the revolutionaries that later succeeded in establishing the Islamic Republic [65]. As can be seen, these arguments rely purely on speculation.
The Iranian government and Leader Ayatollah Khamenei vowed to get revenge for this deadly terror attack and on July 8th, 2023, two of the gunmen were executed for their crimes [66, 67]. Opposition activists mourned these executed gunmen as martyrs of their cause and stated based on pure speculation that their interrogations and court cases had occurred under duress [68, 67].
A repeat of the terror attack occurred involving two new gunmen on August 13, 2023 [69].
Izeh Terror Attack and the Death of Kian Pirfalak
On the 17th of November 2022, an armed terrorist attack occurred in the town of Izeh in Khuzestan Province resulting in 7 deaths and over 10 wounded [71, 72]. Among the dead were elderly and, most notably, a 9-year-old boy named Kian Pirfalak [73]. Opposition activists claim that Pirfalak and other victims were killed by the government of Iran due to its brutality and thirst for blood [74, 75]. Pirfalak’s mother corroborated these claims and even defended those who were prosecuted for his death, labeling them martyrs [76]. This has given credence to opposition claims due to the Iranian cultural attitude of bestowing respect on those who are mourning. However, the true story of Pirfalak’s death and the occurrences in Izeh on the 27th is not what these activists claim.
The attack in Izeh came on the second night in a three-night-long call-up for protestors on behalf of foreign-based media channels [77]. In the town of Izeh, both on the 16th and the 17th, armed rioters appeared, injuring two on the first night and carrying out the infamous attack on the second [77]. These gangs were filmed shooting at CCTV cameras to disable them and terrorizing civilians [77]. On both of these nights, opposition social media and satellite TV channels celebrated the armed gangs that conducted attacks for their supposed bravery in taking up arms and their killings of members of the security forces [77]. However, on the 17th, after news had reached these outlets that elderly civilians and a young child were among the victims of the terrorists, the story abruptly changed [77]. Now, it was stated that these terrorists were undercover security forces wearing plain clothing who were there to shoot at civilians, whether they were protesting or not [77].
The Pirfalak family had approached the scene of the shootings in their car on the 17th, where they were told to turn around by Basij forces acting as security [77]. They, however, continued on the path and were shot at by the armed rioter gangs [77]. After Kian, along with his wounded father, was rushed to the hospital by security forces, rioter gangs rushed to the hospital, attacking security personnel, disabling CCTV cameras, and attempting to kill witnesses of the shooting event [78]. Kian Pirfalak was turned into the second most important “martyr” of the ‘Woman, Life, Freedom’ cause, after Mahsa Amini, with major Iranian celebrities, as well as foreign media outlets and organizations advertising the distorted narration of events [79, 80]. To this day it is unclear why Pirfalak’s family has sided with those who organized and partook in the terrorist attacks.
On the 11th of June 2023, Kian Pirfalak’s uncle ran over a police officer on his nephew’s birthday anniversary resulting in both the death of the officer and his own death as police shot at his car to stop him [81].
Schoolgirl Poisonings
Beginning in November of 2022, Iranian schools began reporting that students, in particular schoolgirls, were experiencing symptoms of poisoning starting at the Noor Art School in Qom [83]. This resulted in accusations by opposition activists that elements within the Iranian government were poisoning these schoolgirls to punish them for their supposed participation and support of protests and prevent them from gaining an education, with allusions made to the Taliban in Afghanistan [84, 85, 86].
This claim is completely inconsistent with reality, as from the very start of the Islamic Republic, the religious authorities have greatly advocated for and supported women’s and girls’ education, with the gender literacy gap being diminished drastically since 1979, and with more Iranian women attending universities than men [87, 88]. By the early 2000s, a little over two decades after the revolution, enrollment rates for girls in primary and secondary schools became equal to boys [89]. Meanwhile, concerning university enrollment, women constitute 70% of medical/basic sciences students, and in other fields, they largely equalize proportionally to men [89]. By comparison, before the 1979 revolution, boys outnumbered girls ~2:1 in primary/secondary school enrollment, while in technical schools/university enrollment, men outnumbered women 81% vs. 19% [89]. The Islamic Republic has even criticized the Taliban in Afghanistan for their policies regarding women’s work and education and urged them to make changes [90].
In March 2023, the Iranian government began arresting suspects involved in these alleged poisonings, after the Leader Ayatollah Khamenei proclaimed it a priority to get to the bottom of the matter [91, 92]. Certain researchers and scholars from inside and outside Iran first proposed the theory that the poisoning symptoms were the result of mass psychogenic illness, which teenage girls are particularly susceptible to and many examples of which had previously occurred in other countries [93, 94].
One strikingly similar example can be seen in the US following Trump’s victory in the 2016 Presidential election. There were reports that many women in high school and college skipped classes en masse [96]. Many more mourned in despair due to Clinton’s loss, feeling that Trump was going to “take away” all their rights [97]. Lastly, vast amounts of high school and college women experienced stress, trauma, or even hospitalization with acute clinical symptoms due to Trump winning [98, 99, 100].
Sensationalist reporting and fear-mongering, as was employed against Donald Trump during the 2016 US Presidential elections, can have hazardous effects on the mental and physical well-being of audiences, especially the young and impressionable. This content spreads like wildfire through social media such as Instagram, Snapchat, and Twitter, in effect causing a chain reaction among the groups targeted by it. The result, in this case, was mass panic, hysteria, absenteeism, despair, stress, and psychologically induced hospitalizations.
With this context and example in mind, the theory regarding the Iranian schoolgirls and mass hysteria seems likely. This mass hysteria was a result of the emotional stress that young girls were put under by opposition activists who made consistent reports at the time – broadcasted by the full might of Western media and social media – that the government was aimlessly killing and torturing young girls from their age group. This form of mass hysteria spreads quickly via social media or mainstream media and creates mass panic, which was why dozens of cases happened within a similar time frame.
Eventually, on the 28th of April, the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence published a statement conveying their findings that the causes of the symptoms, depending on location and circumstance, were:
Stink bombs, such as those bought at prank stores.
The spraying of pepper spray or similar substances by students who wished to cancel classes or to be playful.
Gas leaks or car exhaust issues in or near school buildings.
In a few cases, purposeful attacks using poison by rioters who would then film the events and send them to foreign-based opposition media to be reported on.
Most importantly and most commonly, mass hysteria or mass psychogenic illness. [101]
The Curious Case of Hossein Ronaghi
One story that perfectly exemplified the ‘Woman, Life, Freedom’ movement and its media strategy was the story of Hossein Ronaghi. Hossein Ronaghi is an opposition and former Green Movement activist living in Iran. He had previously become famous for publishing a letter speaking on behalf of the Iranian people and stating that he welcomes sanctions from the USA and other Western countries as they will help Iran become a Liberal Democracy [102]. Ronaghi was arrested by Iranian police on the 22nd of September 2022 while interviewing with the Saudi-owned channel Iran International [103, 104].
It was quickly reported by opposition outlets that Ronaghi was beaten in jail and had both his legs broken by police [105, 104]. It was then reported that they refused to treat his broken legs as well as another illness and that Ronaghi’s life was in danger [106]. Then it was said that he was on a hunger strike, refusing all water, sugar, and salt, and that he was suffering from partial kidney failure as a result [104]. Renowned Reformist spokesman, Mostafa Tajzadeh, who was in prison with Ronaghi corroborated this story, stating that Ronaghi could die at any minute [104].
On the 14th of November, he was taken to a hospital in Tehran where activists held a vigil for him overnight, with his family claiming that even his release to the hospital was part of a plot by the Iranian government intended to kill him [107]. The United States government even stepped in with National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan stating that “The torture and mistreatment of political prisoners like Mr. Ronaghi must cease” [108]. Claims were even made that in the hospital, his heart had stopped working and a defibrillator machine was used to resuscitate him [109].
However, events outside of the simulated reality of the ‘Woman, Life, Freedom’ movement yet again did not match the activists’ claims. Ronaghi was released as a result of amnesty given to certain political prisoners by the Head of the Judiciary after Iran’s victory over Wales in the 2022 World Cup, and it soon turned out that the stories about his ill health were untrue [109]. Firstly, it turned out that Ronaghi’s legs were never broken as images were released of him standing on his legs without the use of crutches or other aids [109]. The pictures additionally showed Ronaghi in good health with no signs of a 64-day hunger strike or physical torture seen on his body. The hospital stated that Ronaghi never confronted any heart issues and that therefore at no point was a defibrillator machine used on him [109]. After these pictures were released, his activist brother, who had been the source of most rumors, deleted his Twitter account [109].
Soon thereafter, a statement was released by a fellow prisoner and opposition activist who stated that from the day that Ronaghi entered the prison, he showed no signs of torture and did not have any broken legs [110]. He also revealed that although opposition media claimed that Ronaghi was on a months-long hunger strike, he was consuming high-sugar foods like honey and ground sesame and was put on vitamin and nutrient drips by prison staff [110]. This activist stated that he had tried to contact opposition media to tell them this, but they all refused to air the story and since he feared the backlash from the WLF movement that would ensue if he released the story himself, he abstained from doing so [110]. This prisoner complained that by lying, Ronaghi had cheapened the value of a hunger strike and effectively taken away one of the only tools his fellow prisoners would have had to combat any perceived injustices [110]. The claim of a 64-day hunger strike is made even more ridiculous when one considers that the famous IRA militant Bobby Sands only took 66 days to die while he was on hunger strike [111].
Section Three: The Scale of Protests and Strikes
Protest Numbers and Popularity
One of the major narratives pushed by the opposition regarding the ‘Woman, Life, Freedom’ movement is the description of it being “popular” and a “mass movement”. Such narratives are pushed by figures like Masih Alinejad, who in her recent op-ed, described WLF as a “mass movement” [1]. Based on available data from Western sources and OSINT (open-source intelligence), we can see that this is far from the truth, especially regarding support inside Iran. One major OSINT source who publishes daily numbers updates with detailed breakdowns is Mark Pyruz, an independent analyst who has been cited by major Western mainstream and Iranian opposition press such as PBS [2], AFP/France 24 [3], and even Iran International [4]. He moreover co-ran a blog with Nader Uskowi titled Uskowi on Iran [5], which has been frequently cited by major Washington think tanks such as the Atlantic Council [6]. We can see that by no means is he a weak source or a pro-Iranian government “propagandist”.
Based on numbers that Mr. Pyruz has published, all total forms of dissidence peaked on October 26th, 2022 [7] with roughly 18,000 protesters or rioters nationwide, and these numbers completely fizzled out by December 2022 [8]. Meanwhile, according to the same figure, days with protests would generally see around 1000-3000 protestors turning up on average, nationwide.
According to the breakdown of turnout given for days adjacent to the peak (there is no breakdown for the day of the peak itself), the majority of the protest turnout was from students [8]. There was very little to no working-class backing for the protests, with occasional strikes occurring for unrelated reasons such as wages, inflation, or prices, as discussed in the sections below. The protests by the diaspora dwarf that of the totals for Iran throughout the months of dissident activity. In Berlin for instance, according to official police estimates, somewhere around 30,000 protesters showed up on October 22, around the same time frame as the peak of the protests in Iran [9, 10]. It is important to note that many of the people who showed up to these diaspora protests were non-Iranian locals – e.g. city liberals – coming to “show solidarity” with their Iranian diaspora “comrades”.
Attitudes towards previous protests should also be investigated, as they provide insight into attitudes in Iran towards various movements and the tactics that they employ. For this, polls published by the University of Maryland’s Center for International and Security Studies – also known as IranPoll – will be examined. This is chosen due to the reputable methodology and more importantly, the neutrality of the source. It is frequently cited by Iranian media such as IRIB, IRNA, and Fars News; American media such as NewsWeek, ABC, and Forbes; and other international media such as Guardian, RT, Times of Israel, and others [11].
In a previous poll (shown below) conducted by IranPoll following the 2017-18 protests, around two-thirds of Iranians believed that most peaceful protestors chanting slogans against government policies should be released. However, attitudes towards protestors against Islam or Iran’s political system changed with a two-thirds majority favoring some degree of punishment (a plurality supporting moderate sentences). A majority of 80% or more support some degree of punishment for those who burn the Iranian flag, damage property, attack police, or injure bystanders, with a majority even supporting harsher sentences in some cases. [12]
Throughout WLF, a lot of violence and rioting was seen, a glimpse of this can be seen in some of the narratives discussed above such as the Izeh Terror Attack and the Pirfalak fiasco. Others less discussed in the article include reports of stabbings by anti-government civilians against pro-government security, civilians, and random bystanders [13, 14, 15]. The video compilation below also showcases some of the violent moments seen in WLF in which rioters set fire to apartment buildings, small businesses, a city bus, and personal vehicles; in addition to opening fire with shotguns and attacking truckers/trucks. The police response to such wanton violence is seen as appropriate and in line with the will of Iran’s majority as mentioned above [12].
Moreover, as noted above, a majority of Iranians prefer to see the release of peaceful protesters on light charges [12]. Around 22,000 protesters who were arrested were pardoned by the government and judiciary ahead of Ramadan in 2023, with their protest-incurred records being cleared [16]. This, once again, is in line with the Iranian populace’s sentiments on what would be a proper response to such actions.
Lastly, it should be noted that WLF broke with previous recent protest events in Iran such as those in 2017 and 2019. These previous protests were, in large part, caused by former President Rouhani’s attempted policies to further liberalize the Iranian economy via ending fuel subsidies (which would have skyrocketed fuel prices) or dollarization that caused an increase in egg prices. According to polling in 2021, these two protests were seen by a majority of Iranians as bringing the attention of officials to problems in the economy [17]. That is not to say there were no regime change advocates and foreign-backed troublemakers attempting to incite riots and conduct violence. Such subversive agents were active, but they weren’t a focal point for these events and were seen as a minority, which makes sense when one considers that only a minority of Iranians believe that regime change was the main focus of these protests [17].
WLF was different due to the smaller yet highly violent nature of the opposition and the relatively high number of deaths involved (200+ for WLF; 30 for 2017), and due to the movement’s explicit goal of overthrowing the government over cultural complaints about hijab [18]. Following the 2017 protests, less than 16.4% of Iranians supported “fundamental change” to Iran’s government, with over 76.7% opposing such change [12]. Similarly, with regards to hijab or other religious laws, 57.7% of Iranians think that the government does the right amount of enforcement, while 17.6% believe the govt exerts too much control on personal lives and 17.9% believe the govt exerts too little [12]. WLF’s culture-war-oriented desire for regime change caused the movement’s activists to be more violent and ideologically motivated extremists. As seen in the video compilation, briefly mentioned above, and about to be detailed in sections below, WLF rioters attacked other civilians who did not support their views or cave to their demands of “strikes”. This in turn made the movement very out of touch with most Iranians, resulting in lower participation in dissidence and greater unpopularity.
It can be concluded with the abundant evidence presented that it is misconceived or false to describe ‘Woman, Life, Freedom’ as a “mass movement” and to name the tactics of said “movement” as popular.
Strikes
In a similar case to lies published about protest numbers by WLF activists, there were also many misreportings regarding so-called strikes and mass strikes organized by the movement. These strike plans started three days after the passing of Mahsa Amini on the 19th of September with calls by Kurdish separatist organizations to have a mass strike in Kurdish-populated regions of Kordestan and West Azarbayjan Provinces [20]. Outlets such as ‘Euronews’ claimed that these strikes were expansive and also included the cities of Tehran, Rasht, and Esfahan as well as the aforementioned provinces [20].
However, no sources were cited regarding these strikes and their effectiveness, and no reports of strikes were made anywhere across internal Iranian media. The general trend for these supposed strikes was that either regular worker-employee disagreements that were ongoing for years would be reported as pro-WLF striking, groups of riots would force shops to close and then report this as striking, or videos of supposed strikes would be filmed outside working hours and reported as strikes aiming at regime change.
University Strikes
Perhaps the strike calls most heeded were the calls for the striking of university students. Radio Liberty reported on the 24th and 25th that university students across the country were refusing to take part in classes and Deutsche Welle reported that certain professors as well as celebrities and artists had also joined these strikes [21, 22, 23]. However, it remained unknown how strikes in these sectors would impede the functioning of the national economy or aid in overthrowing the government.
Workers’ Strikes
Throughout late 2022, opposition media consistently made reports of workers’ strikes taking place throughout the country [24]. Opposition activists claimed that the Iranian working class had joined the ‘Woman, Life, Freedom’ (WLF) movement against hijab and ethnic oppression by conducting strikes to cripple the national economy and force regime change [24]. Reports were made in foreign-based media that oil, gas, and petrochemicals workers in Asaluyeh, Masjed-Soleyman, Abadan and Tehran, as well as workers at the Haft-Tapeh Sugar Factory and the Tabriz Tractor Factory (Tractor Sazi Tabriz), had joined the movement against the Guidance Patrol and the Islamic Republic as a whole [24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29].
With regards to oil workers, in some cities, no workers’ actions occurred altogether, and in others such as Asaluyeh and Tehran, strikes did not occur but rather sit-ins and gatherings were conducted by workers to make demands regarding their pay and contracts and were in no way related to the WLF ‘feminist revolution’ [28, 30, 31]. With regards to Haft-Tape and the Tabriz Tractor Factory, these were again, years-long disputes over pay and working conditions, wholly unrelated to the new WLF movement [32, 33].
Shopkeepers and Bazaar Strikes
Another opposition claim was that shopkeepers, most notably in bazaars, which play an important role in Iranian economic life, had joined their feminist revolution by closing down their shops and going on strike [34, 35]. However, these were also misreported as opposition journalists would report regular closures of shops (such as on holidays) as strikes, and when this tactic could not be used, groups of thugs would be sent into bazaars to force shopkeepers to close their businesses and forcibly participate in “strikes” [36, 37, 38, 39].
General Strikes
The WLF movement made two attempts at coordinating mass national strikes. The first of these attempts was from the 15th to the 17th of November and the second was from the 5th to the 7th of December [40, 41, 42]. Although in both cases these attempts were reported as successful, this was far from the truth [40, 41, 42]. In the case of the November strikes, video evidence and reports from Iranian news agencies show that the overwhelming majority of shops and businesses remained open [43]. The same was reported during the December call to strikes [44].
Section Four: Media
Social Media
Twitter
On a related note to the previous discussion on protest numbers above, important questions should be raised regarding botting and inflated numbers when it comes to social media. One particular article from the Western liberal-leaning site Vox published on December 12th, 2022 offers a glimpse into the scale of botting that occurred with social media trends through the course of the ‘Woman, Life, Freedom’ movement.
“I’ve not seen something of this scale before,” Marc Owen Jones, a professor and author of Digital Authoritarianism in the Middle East, told me. Some 330 million tweets on the Mahsa Amini hashtag in Persian were sent — in one month, he said. “By way of comparison, #BlackLivesMatter over eight years got about 83 million. And since February, the word #Ukraine has been mentioned 240 million times,” he added. It renders the hashtag useless for news consumers looking for real-time analysis of what’s happening. [2]
What’s interesting – and quite absurd – is that “Mahsa Amini” had over FOUR times more tweets than #BlackLivesMatter throughout its entire history. Meanwhile, #Ukraine was mentioned a little over half the number of Mahsa Amini, yet the Ukraine conflict had been occurring for a much longer time frame (11 months at the time) compared to the ‘Woman, Life, Freedom’ protests (3 months at the time). This is even though the Ukraine conflict has much larger publicity, public knowledge, and relevance than the death of a woman in a faraway country [3].
The second point of contention that should draw suspicion is that the 330 million mentions of “Mahsa Amini” over the 3 months were in the Persian language. Twitter in Iran only has 3.4-4 million users according to an ISNA report published in June 2023 and isn’t even close to being a popular social media [4]. According to the report, it is instead Instagram and Telegram that have the most users in Iran. Meanwhile, as for the diaspora population, there are a total of 4,037,258 Iranians living outside of Iran according to a 2021 report from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs [5]. It can be assumed that only a fraction of this population would use Twitter. But even if we were to assume all four million in the diaspora use Twitter, that would only bring the total Twitter usage by all Iranians to eight million. Thus in other words, over three months, each user must have made 42 tweets about Mahsa Amini to reach 330 million mentions – and this is a generous estimate, considering that we highly overestimated the number of diaspora Twitter users in this hypothetical. It should be very clear that those 330 million mentions were not from inside Iran, nor organic, and were a result of botting and large-scale spamming.
Several opposition groups are known to have been using bot/troll farms in the media campaign that occurred following Mahsa Amini’s death. The infamous Mojahedin-e-Khalq Organization (MeK) is one major user of bot campaigns, and in fact, has been for quite a while even before the WLF movement. The first instance of the MeK using a “troll army” of bots was seen in 2018, when there were reports of mass spamming of regime-change hashtags by bots, while ironically many legitimate Iranian individuals’ accounts were suspended [6, 7]. This prompted the counter-hashtag “#YouAreBots” by some Iranian users on Twitter [6]. The MeK even conjured up a fake persona named “Heshmat Alavi” using several ghostwriters to publish over-the-top articles in Western mainstream press attacking Iran and praising the MeK’s leaders [8]. Articles were hosted on prominent sites such as Forbes, The Daily Caller, The Diplomat, Al Arabiya, and others [8]. Several sites such as Forbes have since cut off relations with the “author” and subsequently removed his articles due to the author’s unverifiable credentials [8], although Alavi’s Twitter page is still around and active [9].
In 2020, The New York Times published an article on the MeK, mentioning the extensive bot farms of the MeK after interviewing 8 former members [11]. Many members in the MeK are held against their will in the group [11, 12], hence why the MeK is often described as a “cult”. Another article published by The Intercept similarly mentions the mass bot farms and spamming done by the group, as corroborated by high-ranking MeK defectors such as Hassan Heyrani, Hassan Shahbaz, and Reza Sadeghi [7, 8]. According to Hassan Heyrani, some 1500 or more MeK members operated the bot army in 2018 in near slave-like conditions [7], analogous to Indian call centers or sweatshops. In the MeK’s computer rooms, individuals are given specific posting guidelines and are required to constantly churn out social media posts all day utilizing specific keywords and multiple accounts per person [7, 13, 17]. It is reported that many Twitter accounts suspected to be run by the MeK suddenly stopped posting following the Albanian government’s raid of the MeK’s compound in June 2023 [14].
A bombshell dropped on December 10th, 2023, in which the admin of the MeK’s official Twitter page came out and exposed that the MeK is holding most of the group hostage against their will, and they are threatened to work for the group or else harm will be done against their families [15, 16]. The admin-turned-whistleblower, “Mohsen”, dropped this bombshell on the MeK’s official Twitter account. He stated that he may face severe repercussions by the group for his actions but chooses to sacrifice himself “for the awareness of the Iranian people”. He finished by stating he would release information about the cult group’s network inside Iran and to “stay tuned for updates.” The MeK has since deleted the tweet and has not commented.
Instagram
Instagram is by far the most popular social media platform in Iran, primarily since it was made exempt from government filtering of the internet before the protests [18]. Approximately 24 million, or 29%, of Iran’s population use Instagram and Iran is the 7th largest user of the application worldwide [18]; newer reports suggest possibly even higher usage, at around 48 million users or over half of Iran’s population [73]. As such, the American-owned Instagram played an important role in spreading false information and calling for violence throughout the riots. Instagram became a place where various anti-Iranian media warfare tactics such as lies about pre-1979 Iranian history, stories of supposed atrocities, and even methods for making homemade weapons to use on the streets of Iran were spread [19, 20]. Instagram circumvented its own rules regarding the promotion of violence and actively took to promoting accounts advocating violence and terrorism within Iran through its algorithm while at the same time banning accounts that were not in support of the riots [21].
In addition to this, it played an important role for celebrities, who would often rent their accounts out for money to opposition activists, to spread messages enticing violence to their millions of followers [21, 22]. Previously benign accounts like sadaf_beauty that would share make-up tips and tutorials for women began to teach protestors how to make Molotov Cocktails and berate and insult those who refused to participate in the WLF movement [22, 23]. Another such example is mo.rasoulipour, a very large art account with around 100,000 followers that previously would post only about Iran’s ancient and medieval history as well as painting historical portraits [24]. Following the start of WLF, this account began to similarly circulate calls for overthrowing the government. From creating infographics spreading WLF’s atrocity narratives in the liberal Corporate Memphis style – aka the “soulless Big Tech” style of art – to promoting violence and teaching people how to make Molotov Cocktails, the account was able to garner over a million total likes from all its WLF-related posts [24]. Furthermore, celebrities like ex-footballer Ali Karimi used their platforms to encourage their followers to take to the streets and engage in vandalism and destruction of property to achieve regime change and the installation of a liberal government in Iran [25].
WhatsApp
The messaging application WhatsApp also plays an important role in Iranian social life with approximately 71% of Iranians over the age of 18 using the platform [27]. In a speech on the use of platforms such as WhatsApp and Telegram within Iran, a spokesman for the government mentioned how these platforms were not only used to advertise the methods of construction for Molotov cocktails or the destruction of property but were even used by users to advertise how to buy and use weaponry such as guns during the protest period, with the platforms remaining unresponsive to Iranian requests to enforce their terms and conditions regarding illegal activities and the promotion of violence [28]. Alongside Instagram, WhatsApp acted as an important platform to organize and procure supplies and information to conduct violent acts that resulted in the losses of life that occurred during the WLF movement’s activities [29].
Satellite Television Channels
A phenomenon that plays a unique role in Iranian politics is the existence of foreign-based satellite television channels. These have adapted over history from their original form of foreign-based radios such as Radio Berlin, which belonged to Nazi Germany and had an influential role in Iran in the 1930s, and BBC Persian which was created in response [30, 31]. These later became television news channels that are watched in Iran through satellite receivers, which exist in around 30% of Iranian homes according to statistics from 2021 [32].
Iran International
By far the most influential satellite television news channel during the events of the ‘Woman, Life, Freedom’ movement was the Saudi-owned channel ‘Iran International’ [34]. The channel launched in 2017, quickly became a hub for anti-government activists with impressive set designs and high-quality production [35]. It soon established itself as a forerunner in the promotion of separatist organizations, becoming famous in 2018 for having a congratulatory interview with the head of the Al-Ahvaziye separatist organization after its members carried out a terrorist attack in Khuzestan Province [36, 37]. It has also promoted other – often contradictory – opposition factions like the MeK, or the former Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi and his supporters [34].
Throughout the 2022-2023 riots, the channel became the main command center for the WLF movement, actively normalizing the killing of security forces and calls for civil war, even going so far as to organize strikes and protests, advertising locations and timings on air [38, 39, 40]. The Iranian government has designated the channel as a terrorist organization and even made an official complaint to the British broadcasting authorities as the channel was based in London, England, however, British authorities stated that they did not find anything wrong with the channel’s content [41, 42]. A few weeks before the Iran-Saudi rapprochement of early 2023, the channel peculiarly moved from London to Washington, D.C. in the United States after which its content temporarily became more focused on infighting within the Iranian opposition and less focused on leading protests within Iran [43, 44, 45]. Later, in September of 2023, it was exposed by the former director of BBC Persian that the control and funding of Iran International had been transferred from the government of Saudi Arabia to the government of Israel [46].
BBC Persian
The oldest and most sophisticated of the foreign Persian-language media channels still functioning is undoubtedly the BBC’s Persian broadcasting service. After opening in 1940, BBC Persian has had a very influential role in Iranian history, first as a radio station and then as a television channel [31]. During the early 1950s, it played an important role in publishing propaganda against Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh and his government who were attempting to nationalize Iranian oil [70]. It even aided in the 1953 coup against Mossadegh by sending coded messages to coup plotters during operations [71]. BBC Persian also played an important role in the lead-up to the 1979 Revolution [48]. Its most important role in the Islamic Republic era was as the leading broadcaster promoting and spreading anti-government news during the 2009 Green Movement protests [49]. During these much larger protests, the BBC played the role that Iran International did in 2022. During the 2022-3 events, however, although it provided pro-WLF coverage, it was overshadowed by other networks such as Iran Intl. and Manoto TV.
Manoto TV
The channel ‘Manoto’ is primarily a socio-cultural channel that also does news shows, with most of its content coming with a distinct political leaning. The channel is closely aligned with the Pahlavi-monarchist movement, producing countless documentaries and nostalgia-based programming about Iran under the era of the Anglo-American-backed Pahlavi dynasty [51, 52, 53, 54]. The primary financial backers of Manoto have been exposed as the US Pentagon and the Israeli government [55, 56]. Similar to other networks, Manoto’s studio is located in London, England, from where it strongly promoted the WLF movement in its broadcasting, acting as one of the main nodes of information for members of the movement and encouraging violence and regime change [57, 58, 59]. In November of 2023, it was announced that the channel will be closing by January 2024 as they no longer have the necessary funds to operate, indicating that the backers of the channel no longer see it as an effective tool against the Iranian government [60, 61].
Voice of America and Radio Farda
The government of the United States of America also plays a role in the Iranian media sphere through its outlets ‘Voice of America Persian News Network’ (VoA) and ‘Radio Farda’. VOA Persian is a child broadcaster of ‘Voice of America’, which by its own admission is owned and funded by the US government [64]. It is staffed by members of the large Iranian Diaspora in the United States and produces content aiming at regime change with a monarchist leaning [65]. It sparked outrage in 2007 when it brought on the former leader of the Baluchi Islamist and separatist terrorist organization, Jundallah, and referred to him as a “popular resistance movement” leader [66]. Although its role has diminished over the years, it still provided pro-WLF reporting during the movement’s brief period of relevance and relayed opposition narratives about events [67].
‘Radio Farda’ (Radio Tomorrow) is the Iranian branch of the US-government-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty [68]. This organization was formed by the CIA during the Cold War as an anti-communist propaganda outlet [72]. As can be seen in the citations of this article, during the 2022-3 protests it took a pro-protestor line and spread narratives regarding supposed atrocities and Iranian government actions that fueled the WLF movement and its participants.
Section Five: The Role of Foreign States
The role of foreign states in providing the necessary political, monetary, and logistical support to fan the flames of the opposition in Iran cannot be understated. These opposition movements would not get any spotlight on the media or the internet without the backing of these major players. Let us begin our investigation of the major foreign actors that fueled unrest in Iran.
Saudi Arabia
Iran International
Iran International or Iran Intl. is one of the main networks of the opposition that fueled unrest and broadcasted many false or inflammatory narratives, as described in detail in the above sections. Here, we shall discuss the role foreign states, particularly Saudi Arabia, played with regard to this media network.
Saudi Arabian capital played a key role in establishing Iran Intl., with the network receiving over $250 million in funding directly from the Saudi court to set up operations in London, in 2017 [2]. The director of the company that runs Iran International, Volant Media, is a Saudi national named Adel Abdulkarim who is well-connected to other major figures in the Saudi Royal Family [2]. This includes Abdulrahman al-Rashed, who sat on the board of the Saudi Research and Marketing Group (SRMG), the largest publishing company in the Arab world [2]. He was also the former general manager of another Saudi-owned channel, Al Arabiya, and helped manage operations and funding for Iran International [2].
Another leading Saudi figure who served as an advisor to Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman regarding foreign, domestic, and media policy was Saud al-Qahtani, who was also involved in funding for Iran Intl [2, 3, 4]. Figures such as Nabeel Al-Khatib were also embedded into Iran Intl. as consultants or “representatives of investors” to help aggressively push the network into covering stories beneficial to Saudi foreign policy at the time [2]. The Saudis also hired staff from Vice News to help craft Iran Intl. as a “trendy” liberal outlet to better target the youth and reshape Saudi Arabia’s image among Iranians [5].
Iran Intl. effectively served as an arm of Saudi soft power to go in an offensive aimed at taking the fight between Saudi Arabia and Iran into Iran itself. This is why it gave positive coverage to various, contradictory opposition forces (as noted in the above sections) and was the most aggressive in its rhetoric against the Iranian state. Interestingly, a week before the Iran-Saudi deal in March 2023, Iran Intl closed its London headquarters – where most other opposition media are traditionally located such as BBC Persian and Manoto TV – and moved to Washington DC [6, 7, 8].
As per the new March 10th agreement, one of the clauses states that Saudi Arabia shall not foster or support militant groups or hostile media against Iran [9, 10]. As was mentioned earlier, in late September of 2023, it was exposed by the former director of BBC Persian that the control and funding of Iran International had been transferred from the government of Saudi Arabia to the government of Israel [11]. It can be assumed that outside funding is highly important for the network as the network doesn’t have advertisements [2]. Either way, the network had served as a powerful, primary outlet for the Iranian opposition via its Saudi Arabian and other financial backers, acting as a proxy to the benefit of Iran’s regional adversaries.
Funding of Terrorist and Separatist Groups
As a part of its regional campaign against Iran, Saudi Arabia not only used its soft power and financial muscle to create media networks targeting Iran but also to support several terrorist and separatist groups.
One such group was Jundullah, a small Baluchi terrorist organization that was active in the 2000s and 2010s [13]. Jundullah was responsible for a string of suicide bombings and gunman attacks killing 296 and injuring several hundred civilians and security forces over many years [14, 15]. Some of the gross abuses of the terrorist group include hostage-taking and execution of bystanding civilians; attacks on mosques, schoolchildren, marketplaces, and other non-military targets; and also, setting civilians and cars on fire [14]. Al Arabiya, the state media of Saudi Arabia, managed to get a hold of the group’s leader, Abdolmalek Rigi, and his spokesmen for several interviews, praising them as heroic resistance fighters, in a similar manner to the previously mentioned incident with Voice of America in 2007 [13, 16, 17]. This raised suspicions about the possibility of Saudi and American clandestine support for these groups due to the ease of access they had to gain interviews, with this support finally being confirmed in 2009 [13, 17, 49].
Rigi himself was radicalized in a Saudi-sponsored mosque in Pakistan [18]. Shortly following Rigi’s capture and capital punishment by Iran, Jundullah went defunct and was succeeded by several smaller terrorist groups such as Jaish al-Adl and Ansar al-Furkan. These groups continue to conduct sporadic attacks and have likely inherited Jundullah’s clandestine ties to Saudi and US intelligence as they collaborate with other Saudi/US/Israel-backed networks such as the Al Nusra Front in Syria [18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23]. Recently on December 15, 2023, Jaish al-Adl militants crossed into Iran from the border with Pakistan and carried out an attack killing at least 6 policemen, with several militants being killed or apprehended by Iranian authorities [24]. All in all, these low-level terrorist insurgencies represent a pressure point utilized against Iran by its rivals such as the US and Saudi Arabia.
A second major set of groups supported by the Saudis are various separatist and terror networks in Khuzestan Province in the southwestern corner of Iran. The previously mentioned Ansar al-Furkan claims to operate and carry out attacks in Ahvaz, Khuzestan [26], while Jundullah/Jaish al-Adl has voiced support for Kurdish separatists [15, 27]. A former US State Department advisor and employee, Vali Nasr, implicated Saudi Arabia and the USA in funding several Sunni fundamentalist groups (Baluchi, Kurdish, and some Arab) to promote sectarianism and division inside Iran [29].
The “Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahvaz” (ASMLA) is a fringe Sunni Arab ethno-nationalist/separatist terror group funded by Saudi Arabia that has carried out bombings in 2005-2006 and a gunman attack on civilians, children, and personnel during a 2018 parade in Ahvaz [30, 31]. The group’s political wings, which are based in exile in the Netherlands and Denmark, split into two factions in 2015, supposedly over how to handle Saudi funding and petty squabbles [30, 32]. The group has close ties to other, Sunni fundamentalist groups such as the aforementioned Jundullah, Ansar al-Furkan, and elements of the Free Syrian Army (FSA), having dedicated an attack in 2013 to the FSA [32]. This is despite the fact the majority (70%) of Ahvaz’s Arab population is Shia, and the majority of Khuzestan province itself is non-Arab (Persian and Lor) [32]. As mentioned earlier, the Saudi-funded news network Iran International held a congratulatory interview with the head of the ASMLA organization after its members carried out a terrorist attack in Khuzestan Province in 2018 [33, 34].
As per the recent March 10th agreement signed in Beijing, Saudi Arabia is to cease any kind of support to any such separatist groups and terrorist militants operating against Iran [9, 10]. It should be noted that these insurgents generally functioned at a low-level intensity and did not pose any real threat of overthrowing the government and establishing local power – they only sporadically carried out terror attacks over many decades. These groups also did not play any major or direct roles in the unrest following Mahsa Amini’s death. However, their origins and ideologies did help provide various opposition groups, media, and foreign states with talking points to promote separatism in Iran, as can be seen with the case of “Khodanur Lojei” discussed in previous sections.
The United States and NATO
Sanctions
One of the primary methods that the governments of the United States and its allies in the UK and EU use to foment unrest in Iran is through various unilateral sanctions regimes [28]. The United States, given its global economic power, is the primary force behind this strategy. US sanctions on Iran come in two forms: primary and secondary [37]. Primary sanctions block US entities and individuals from working with Iran and secondary sanctions target non-American entities and individuals, by essentially prohibiting anyone who works with Iran from conducting business in the United States or through American financial systems [37]. These sanctions mainly target Iran’s energy sector, financial sector, arms trade, government, and other important aspects of the economy [37].
Various sanctions packages have been enacted on Iran by the US since the 1979 Revolution, however, the most serious have been put in place after the 2009 Green Movement protests [37].
In 2012, the Obama administration put in place a series of intense sanctions which were referred to as “crippling sanctions” [38]. Later, in 2015, an agreement was reached in which certain sanctions would be lifted on Iran in exchange for Iran limiting its nuclear program (this will be discussed in detail in later sections) [39]. In 2018, the Trump administration exited this agreement and began a “maximum pressure campaign”, placing the most severe sanctions possible on Iran [40]. In the wake of the ‘Woman, Life, Freedom’, the US government placed even more sanctions on Iran and Iranian entities related to the Guidance Patrol, as well as Iran’s defense programs, however, the effectiveness of such new packages is doubtful as essentially all important sectors and actors in the Iranian economy and government have already been sanctioned years before [41, 42].
The United Kingdom and European Union have placed similar sanctions on Iran, most especially in the last decade and a half [43]. These sanctions are effectively the same as American sanctions however they prohibit Iranian economic activity in the territories of the UK and EU through primary mechanisms. The most important sanctions placed by the EU on Iran are the SWIFT sanctions enacted in March 2012, which cut off all Iranian banks from the primary global banking messaging system and in effect isolated Iran’s banking system from the rest of the world [44].
One of the major actors involved in designing these Western sanctions on Iran, Richard Nephew, wrote a book in 2017 detailing the nature of these mechanisms and their purpose [28, 46]. In the book, Nephew explains how the purpose of sanctions is to impoverish the Iranian population and therefore cause unrest and incite the Iranian people to partake in a regime change operation to overthrow the government of the Islamic Republic [28]. He explicitly mentions, for instance, the increase in the price of meats and other foodstuffs during key Iranian holiday periods as a sign of this policy’s success and states that this is in line with the US government’s overall goals [28]. Through these mechanisms, the United States and its NATO allies in the UK and EU place pressure on the Iranian people to further their project for regime change in Iran. The economic issues caused by the sanctions have led to increased dissatisfaction with the government among Iranians and thus provide fertile soil for any regime change movements such as ‘Woman, Life, Freedom’ to be implemented [47].
Terror Networks
The CIA has been implicated in supporting separatist groups and terrorist militants in Iran for the last two decades. As previously mentioned, they have ties to Arab, Baluchi, and other terrorist/separatist networks – possibly using Saudi Arabian capital as a proxy to obfuscate clandestine ties [29, 49]. A report from The Telegraph corroborates this and states that the US has been clandestinely backing various hostile terror networks as a means to place pressure on Iran over its nuclear energy and missile programs [50]. Similar to the CIA's use of Saudi Arabia, the US intelligence agency is also known to delegate many of its operations to Israel’s Mossad, with many operations being effectively joint US-Israeli collaborations, the details of which are covered in the section below discussing Israel’s role in WLF [51].
Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization
The group given possibly the most prolific vocal support from major US officials in recent years is the MeK (Mojahedin-e Khalq) Organization. To provide a brief background history of the organization, the MeK was originally founded in the 1960s and sought to overthrow the Pahlavi monarchy and create a state that synthesized Marxism with Political Islam [52]. However, following an ideological split in the group, it was taken over by Massoud Rajavi and, later, his wife Mariam Rajavi.
Following the 1979 revolution, Rajavi lambasted the new revolutionary government for not including the creation of a “classless society” in the new constitution and subsequently boycotted the referendum for the new constitution. This led Ayatollah Khomeini to bar Massoud Rajavi from running for President in the 1980 elections, stating that “those who had failed to endorse the Constitution could not be trusted to abide by that Constitution”. After a few failed political alliances and foiled attempts to steer politics, Rajavi organized riots and protests on June 20, 1981, to overthrow the new revolutionary government. This was met with force by security forces, especially due to the tense state of the country following Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Iran in September of 1980. Due to the deaths of 16 protesters at this event, Rajavi responded by “declaring war” on the government, with the MeK carrying out the Hafte-Tir bombing on June 28, 1981, killing 72 people including several prominent government officials [14, 52].
The Hafte-Tir incident was the first in a long list of bombings carried out by the MeK that targeted everything from government offices and officials to civilians and public buildings such as mosques, residential blocks, and street corners [14, 52]. These terror bombings, along with the fact that the MeK also ended up siding with Saddam’s invasion of Iran (setting up their HQ “Camp Ashraf-1” in Iraq from 1986-2003) made the MeK extremely unpopular in Iran and gave them a reputation of being traitorous terrorists/cultists [52, 53]. Following the 2003 Iraq War, the group signed a ceasefire with the US after some armed clashes and standoffs [54], and eventually relocated its compound to Albania (Camp Ashraf-3) [52]. The future of the group remains uncertain following the aforementioned shutdown of the group’s compound by Albanian authorities in June 2023 [55].
As mentioned earlier, the MeK is frequently described as a cult. This is because the organization micromanages the lives of its members, who are barred from leaving once in the organization [57]. Members who go out of line or attempt to leave are subjected to various forms of physical and sexual abuse, torture, forced sterilizations, or even death [57]. While its ideology historically was a synthesis of Marxism and Islamism, the organization effectively became a cult surrounding the Rajavi family following their takeover of the organization. The MeK’s “ideology” is whatever the Rajavis proclaim today, often morphing to please different interests while denying their organization’s history [58]. The right wing of Western mainstream politics views the MeK as staunch defenders of Israel and Western values against Iran’s so-called “mad mullahs” [59]; among the liberal progressive left, the MeK are seen as advocates of liberal democracy, “women’s rights”, “human rights”, and other Liberal values [59].
The group has always been the most hardline in the Iranian opposition movement, not shying away from advocating a war with Iran. In this aspect, they can be seen as almost like a vanguard that other opposition groups eventually tailed. Positions such as sequestering support from the US government, advocating for violent terror attacks and armed uprisings, and supporting a US invasion of Iran were all originally MeK positions before being adopted by other opposition groups and leaders during WLF such as Masih Alinejad and others [58].
Starting in the 1990s but especially following the Iraq War, the MeK launched an intense, multi-million dollar lobbying campaign in the US to be delisted from the US State Department’s list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs) [61, 62]. In 2009, the EU removed the MeK from its FTO list [59]. By 2012, Hillary Clinton had also delisted the MeK from the US’s FTO list during her tenure as US Secretary of State under Barack Obama [52]. The MeK enjoys considerable support from Republican Party officials and other major neoconservative figures such as Mike Pompeo, John Bolton, Rudy Giuliani, Mike Pence, Elaine Chao, Newt Gingrich, Mitch McConnell, and others [54, 63, 64]. The organization pays such figures hefty sums of cash to attend its rallies in Paris and elsewhere, with, for instance, John Bolton being paid upwards of $180,000 to speak at one such event [63].
Hilariously, the MeK is also known to “rent crowds” of random individuals and non-Iranians to attend its rallies and make their organization seem popular [66]. Other major political figures however support the group without such payment [54, 61]. Such intense lobbying is why US administrations and Congressmembers frequently promote the group despite its unpopularity in Iran [63]. However, their support is not restricted to just Republicans, as Democrats such as Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, Robert Torricelli, Bob Menendez, and others also support the group [61, 67]. In February 2023, following the events surrounding the ‘Woman, Life, Freedom’ movement, over 160 members of the US Congress signed a bipartisan endorsement of Maryam Rajavi, the MeK, and officially announced their support for the organization’s activities [68]. Beyond just the US, the MeK also has close ties with EU officials and various Members of the European Parliament, Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu and his Likud government in Israel, and Saudi Arabian intelligence officials such as Prince Turki Al-Faisal [52, 59, 69].
The MeK seems to have a lot of funding given how much it spends on lobbying, although the sources of revenue for the group remain very murky and unclear [70]. Historically, Saddam Hussein supplied the group with all the necessary funding, weapons, intelligence, and other logistics required for their operations [71]. However, after 2003, one of the main sources of funding for the MeK is believed to be Saudi Arabia, along with several fake charities and fundraiser events across the US and EU [52, 62]. Those fundraisers and charity events may simply be fronts to obfuscate clandestine financial support from US, Israeli, or European intelligence agencies [70].
Following the Iran-Saudi normalization deal in 2023, it’s likely that the Saudis have cut all funding for the group. The US’s CIA, alongside Israeli and Saudi intelligence agencies, frequently collaborated with the MeK for the last two decades to conduct intelligence operations in Iran [72, 73]. The operations included intelligence sharing regarding Iran’s Nuclear Program, murder sprees against Iranian scientists, and various bombings and sabotage missions [63, 69, 57, 52, 72, 73]. The MeK serve as on-the-ground agents in Iran who physically carry out operations while intelligence agencies such as the CIA and Mossad provide the training, logistics, and debriefs that are necessary [73].
Other operations conducted by the MeK, as discussed in detail in earlier sections, include online psychological influence operations via the use of mass troll farms of bots [75]. Lastly, they also try to initiate agitation on the ground via graffiti or plastering leaflets with anti-government and pro-MeK messaging. They upload videos and pictures of these minor activities to social media, however, they seem to garner near zero attention as indicated by their low Twitter activity [76, 77]. These MeK operations are done with the tacit approval of – if not direct collaboration with – foreign governments like those of the US, Israel, and Saudi Arabia and their intelligence agencies.
Media and NGOs
Before and throughout the ‘Woman, Life, Freedom’ movement, the US government directly funded several Iran-related media projects. While there were overall many different clandestinely supported and openly supported media projects, this segment will briefly brush through some major relevant projects. These media projects in turn work with many NGO groups to aid regime change, with the main sponsor of many of these groups being the NED, as will be discussed below.
As previous sections mention, the Voice of America (VOA) Persian News Service is one major US government-owned and funded propaganda outlet, staffed by Iranian diaspora and reporting from a pro-monarchist bent [78, 79]. Another US-funded propaganda outlet is Radio Farda which is a Persian language subsidiary of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) [80]. Both of these outlets played major roles in distributing the atrocity narratives discussed earlier in this article. It is notable that Masih Alinejad, a major opposition figure, works at VOA’s Persian News Service, and is paid over $700,000 in grants directly from the US government for her regime-change-oriented propaganda campaigns and speeches, in addition to her sources of income [81]. Masih will be covered in detail under the Israel section of this article, as her role in WLF is heavily tied to the Israeli state.
In the years leading up to the WLF movement, the US State Department’s Global Engagement Center funded an NGO project called the ‘Iran Disinfo Project’. The project was founded by Mariam Memarsadeghi, and from around 2017 to 2019, they provided $10 million in funding to the media project to “counter Iranian propaganda” [82]. The Iran Disinfo Project was another parcel of the Trump administration’s media apparatus to apply “maximum pressure” on Iran, alongside other Western-aligned outlets such as Radio Farda and VOA Persian [82].
In 2019, the propaganda project received negative press and controversy when it was exposed that the majority of the activity of the project was dedicated to harassing those deemed not “sufficiently” anti-Iran or too “moderate” [82, 83]. Some of the people attacked by the Iran Disinfo Project were BBC journalists, Western Think Tank members, and members of Human Rights Watch [83]. These people and their organizations ironically are many of the same who were involved in conjuring or circulating some of the ridiculous narratives that formed the basis of WLF, which was discussed at the beginning of this article. Others who were attacked were those who were not specifically a part of the monarchist/Pahlavi wing of the Iranian opposition [82].
This infighting inside Iran’s diaspora opposition was commonplace before and now after WLF [84]. The MAHSA Charter alliance that effectively linked all major groups in the exiled opposition – including monarchists, separatists, leftists, ex-reformists, and MEK sympathizers – collapsed in less than six weeks, lasting from February to April 2023 [85]. Additionally, this debacle also demonstrates the earlier point made about the gradual radicalization of Iranian opposition groups, with this development being nudged into reality by the US government.
Following the 2019 debacle, despite “cutting” with the Iran Disinfo Project, the US State Department continued to fund new projects by Mariam Memarsadeghi. One such project was Tavaana, a hawkish opposition media outlet parallel and similar to others such as Iran International. Tavaana, founded in 2010, is led by the same personnel as the Iran Disinfo Project and is effectively a bait-and-switch parallel to the former project. Memarsadeghi is the project leader of Tavaana, with another figure Brittany Hamzy being the project manager for both Tavaana and the defunct Iran Disinfo Project [82]. Funding which was previously meant for the Iran Disinfo Project and was cut off following the 2019 debacle, was instead redirected to Tavaana.
In conjunction with the previous discussions about media and NGOs, it's important to also discuss the NED. According to publicly available data, the US via the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) gave at least ~$5,000,000 in grants to various Iran-related liberal NGOs (“non-governmental organizations”) in the leadup to WLF from 2016-2021 [86]. The NED is one of the US’s primary vehicles for regime change in the post-Cold War era. During the Cold War, the CIA clandestinely conducted coups, armed militant opposition groups, or funded counter-revolutions against target countries (typically Communist states) such as China, Chile, Vietnam, and the PDPA’s Afghanistan. The CIA indeed continues to conduct similar activities to this day, with notable examples such as Operation Timber Sycamore in Syria. However, it has often delegated the role of toppling governments deemed undesirable to the USA to groups such as the NED and the International Republican Institute (IRI; the Republican Party wing and subsidiary of the NED) [87].
The NED was established in 1983 at the behest of Tom Kahn, a Shachtmanite/neo-Trotskyist advisor and speechwriter for then-Senator Henry Jackson, and introduced to Congress by Congressman George Agree [89]. Congressman Agree and Kahn believed that the US needed a tool distinct from the CIA to support subversive movements against the USSR and the Eastern Bloc [89], resulting in the creation of the NED. The NED funds and organizes networks of liberal NGOs on the ground in target countries that coordinate with each other and with Western media, using soft power to topple governments unfavorable to US interests worldwide. Examples include the collapse of Communist Poland in the 1980s; the manipulation of Nicaraguan elections in 1990, which caused the collapse of the first Sandinista government; the manipulation of Mongolian elections in 1996 to elect pro-US free market libertarians; the manipulation of Russian elections in 1996 to reelect Yeltsin and his pro-US neoliberal government; the 2014 Euromaidan coup in Ukraine; and many more [87, 90, 91].
This strategy is largely the same as the one employed by liberal billionaire oligarch George Soros [89]. Soros’ group, the Open Societies Foundation (OSF), played a parallel role to that of the NED and helped conduct the 2000 Bulldozer coup in Serbia, the 2014 Maidan coup in Ukraine, and more, often collaborating with the NED in funding many of the same NGO groups such as recently in Kazakhstan 2022 [92, 93]. Given the large sums of money given by the NED to a plethora of different regime-change NGO groups, the NED most likely also played a role in the creation of the ‘Woman, Life, Freedom’ movement.
The mobilization of Western celebrity influencers such as Dua Lipa, Justin Bieber, or Kanye to support the WLF regime change movement fits the modus operandi of US government-aligned groups like the NED or OSF, who specialize in the use of soft power to topple governments [94, 95, 96]. Exerting influence through agents and producers, as well as manipulation and other tactics are used to get celebrities to pressure their followers to join in on movements against targeted governments or entities. The US government has similarly used such influence operations before as evidenced by Joe Biden’s White House meeting with some of the largest TikTok influencers, which aimed to recruit them to help influence youth online [97].
But there is also direct evidence that at least some of the aforementioned celebrities were contacted to issue the statements they made on Iran and the WLF regime-change movement. Kanye West accidentally showed his DMs on a live stream or screen recording in which he was seen being fed what to say about Iran and WLF by Shervin Pishevar [99]. Shervin Pishevar is a big tech mogul who has many close connections to the US government. Shervin was a top fundraiser for Obama’s 2008 and 2012 Presidential campaigns and also hosted fundraisers for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign alongside George Clooney [100, 101]. He was appointed by Obama to be an entrepreneurial member of multiple US State Department delegations [102]. He was also appointed under Barack Obama to the Fulbright Scholarship Board in 2015 [103].
For context, the Fulbright Scholarship was established to create careers for university students in the State Department, intelligence and research, and related government agencies and departments [104, 105, 106, 107]. Moreover, many Fulbright scholars abroad (studying or alumni) have been caught and charged with spying for the US, such as in Bolivia, Russia, China, and others, and are kept closely under the wing of US embassies [108, 109, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114]. In effect, the program is another wing of the US’s soft power, working in conjunction with USAID, NED, OSF, NGOs, and media outlets.
Shervin was also part of a 15-member big-tech consultation with President Obama, alongside other big names like Apple CEO Tim Cook, to discuss NSA surveillance, how to prevent“unauthorized intelligence disclosures” following the Edward Snowden leaks, and the US government’s internet technology [115]. Lastly, Shervin is known to have involvement in the 2011-2013 Arab Spring where he developed and provided internet technology to liberal NGOs on the ground to bypass government internet cuts or filtering [116]. Thus, the celebrity post can be seen as ultimately tying back to NGOs such as the US government’s NED and Soros’ OSF, exemplifying the use of soft power for the toppling of governments. These networks function like a big spider’s web, obfuscated by endless chains of connections, that aim to ensnare and devour targets while effectively hiding in plain sight. This specific case of a high-level operative like Shervin giving Kanye talking points about Iran is just one of many examples of this obfuscated spider web connecting Western governments to Western entertainment, attempting to use soft power to achieve geopolitical aims.
Overall, several NGOs are created with the aim of toppling certain governments such as Iran’s. George Soros’ Open Societies Foundation (OSF) also funds a significant number of similar or the same NGOs/projects and occupies the same niche as the NED. For reference, based on publicly available grant data published by OSF themselves, OSF provided little over $2.06 million in grants between 2016 and 2021 [117]. The listed recipients of these funds are various “pro-democracy”, “human rights advocacy”, and similar NGOs, as well as a related research project into the state of Iran’s economy and society under the pressure of US-led sanctions [117]. It is possible that much more funding was provided as data for 2022 were not published and these are only the numbers that the OSF chose to publish for public viewing.
This represents only one of many different wings of the US’s labyrinthine byzantine bureaucracy working to overthrow Iran’s government. Another non-NED sponsor of “pro-democracy” regime change NGOs is the US State Department directly themselves. In 2020 alone, the US State Department was allocated over $55 million by Congress to overthrow Iran’s government [82, 118]. It has been documented that up to that point since 2004, the US State Department spent a whopping $515 million total to “promote democracy” and overthrow the Iranian government [82].
It is important to note that these regime change operations, often called “color revolutions”, are generally planned for several years. An example of this can be seen in the 2009 Iranian “Green Movement” which sought to topple the Iranian government of then-President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad over supposed electoral fraud. Discussions of a “Green Revolution” were openly made in US Congress as early as February 2005, where NED co-founder Mark Palmer stated before the House of Representatives International Relations Committee that “most importantly, the committee believes we must get behind the democrats and dissidents in Iran. We see that as the solution, that there needs to be a—we have had an orange revolution, perhaps a green revolution now in Iran” [119].
Within the time frame leading up to the 2009 Green Movement, NED grant spending for Iran skyrocketed from $56,000 in 2004 [120] to $545,000 in 2005 [121], with total spending from 2004-2009 being $6,206,000 [122]. While this may not seem much, it must be considered that the MI6 and CIA were able to overthrow Iran’s Mossadegh with only £700,000 in 1953 ($26 million today) [123]. Moreover, it should be kept in mind that these are only the figures which are publicly released, and only for one of many different regime change vehicles. Likely, much more clandestine funding and involvement by US government agencies such as the State Department or CIA remains classified and unreleased. The US State Department for instance does not publicize the activities, grantees, or beneficiaries of the previously mentioned $515 million spent to promote regime change [82]. With all this context in mind, likely, plans and preparations for regime change events such as those seen in WLF were made in advance, just as they were with the Green Movement.
It can be concluded that the US government was, without question, the biggest player leading the charge against Iran in the last two decades and it laid much of the groundwork for ‘Woman, Life, Freedom’. It is undeniable that the US spent hundreds of millions, or potentially over a billion dollars, to try to topple Iran’s government in the last two decades. This was done either directly through the State Department, the NED, CIA or indirectly via various NGO networks, media projects, and other forms of soft power. This does not even include extraterritorial proxy conflicts such as in Syria where the US sought to knock out Iran’s regional allies to further isolate and weaken Iran, an event which will be discussed in sections further down in this article.
Israel
Without a doubt, the principal backer of the events of late 2022 in Iran and the ‘Woman, Life, Freedom’ movement as a whole was the government of the State of Israel [125]. As opposed to previous attempts at color revolutions in Iran, this attempt was not led directly by the USA, UK, or EU states but was primarily an Israeli operation [125]. This does not mean however, that the USA and other governments did not play a significant role since it is well known that the CIA delegates its operations regarding Iran to the Israeli Mossad and therefore, like all government efforts in Israel, it can be considered as a US-Israeli collaboration [126].
It would also be naive to assume that Mossad’s aim for this operation was regime change in Iran, as the institution is more than likely aware of its capabilities and the ability of the Iranian state to defend against such attacks [125]. The aims of this operation were threefold. Firstly, Israel aimed to cause chaos and insecurity within Iran and therefore cause damages for its enemy to deal with [125]. Secondly, the operation was supposed to cause a distraction for the new government of Iran and inhibit advancements toward the new foreign policy objectives undertaken by the government of President Ebrahim Raisi [125]. Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, the operation aimed to damage the new government's reputation and Iran’s population to distrust it [125, 127].
This event was, therefore, not necessarily supposed to be a full-blown regime change operation, but it did set the stage for a possible future operation, possible details of which were later released after the exchange of American and Iranian prisoners in late 2023 [126]. One of the American prisoners released was a woman named Fakhr al-Sadat Moeini who is believed to have been a CIA/Mossad operative who was sent to Iran to set the stage for a complex event that would trigger a civil war in Iran [126]. The plan seems to have been that a series of major terrorist attacks would be conducted in Iran’s capital after which a small region inhabited by an ethnic minority would declare independence and be provided weaponry and funding to establish a government and fighting force capable of challenging the Iranian state [126].
Relationships with Opposition Leaders
One field in which Israel’s influence over the WLF movement can easily be seen is the relations that the state maintained with the foreign-based leaders of the movement. The first of these leaders is the disgraced former Crown Prince of the Pahlavi dynasty, Reza Pahlavi. Pahlavi made a visit to Israel in April of 2023, in which he asked for Israeli help for the overthrow of Iran’s government and engaged in Jewish religious rituals to show his loyalty to the Israeli state [128, 129].
Reza Pahlavi maintains the same extreme position as the Israeli government concerning a possible military invasion of Iran and was quoted in the early 2000s stating that the United States should attack Iran instead of Iraq and Afghanistan as Iran was the “eye of the octopus”, using the same phrase that Israeli leaders use regularly in their media broadcasts [128]. Reza Pahlavi and his supporters were extremely supportive of such a possible invasion in the early 2000s and have helped normalize this outlook among the Iranian opposition groups [128]. The ideology of the Pahlavi monarchists also places a great emphasis on supposedly great historical relations between Iran and Israel with the story of Cyrus the Great’s freeing of the Jews in Babylon being a central tenet of their belief system that is used to express support both for Israel as a representative of the Jewish people and for the modern Liberal doctrine of ‘Human Rights’ [131].
Another leader of the WLF movement with close ties to Israel is Massoumeh Alinejad Qomi-Kolayi, better known as ‘Masih Alinejad’. Alinejad, who, as a WLF leader, started a campaign to boycott Iranian sports, especially the Iranian National Football Team during the 2022 FIFA World Cup, started her political career as a Reformist journalist and activist in Iran [132, 133]. Although she worked for countless important Reformist newspapers, after her exit from Iran she was left in a dire situation as a refugee in the United Kingdom [134]. However, suddenly, she burst onto the scene as an opposition activist leading campaigns against hijab policies inside Iran from afar [133, 134].
Her career took its most notable turn when she was propelled to fame after being given an award by ‘UN Watch’, an organization with allegedly close ties to Israel that monitors supposed anti-semitism occurring within the United Nations [134, 135, 136]. She previously worked as an employee of the United States government in the ‘U.S. Agency for Global Media’ and most recently appeared at the Halifax International Security Forum, calling for Israeli attacks on Iranian nuclear facilities [133, 137]. Notably, during the WLF movement’s peak she appeared on the podcast of American media figure, Jordan Peterson, to preach her message for regime change in Iran [138]. Peterson is an employee at ‘The Daily Wire’, a network co-founded by pro-Israeli commentator Ben Shapiro who some allege has ties to the Israeli state [139, 140].
Perhaps the most organized and motivated non-ethnic opposition grouping supported by Israel is the Mojahedin-e Khalq Organisation (MeK). Due to their militarized nature and rigid organizational structures, this political organization-turned-cult is a valuable asset for Iran’s enemies [142]. Previously Israel had teamed up with the MeK to assassinate Iranian nuclear scientists and the relationship between the two groups has flourished after the collapse of the MeK’s previous backer, Ba’athist Iraq [143]. The MeK played a major role in the simulated revolution of 2022-23, using their online presence, which consisted of bots as well as accounts claiming to represent so-called ‘Youth Neighbourhood Committees’ in Iran [142]. Given the group’s unpopularity among Iranians in both the diaspora and in Iran, an alternative face had to be used as their representative in the WLF movement.
Hamed Esmailon, a father and husband of victims of a passenger flight shot down by Iranian armed forces in the chaos after General Qasem Soleimani’s assassination in January 2020, was quickly catapulted to fame during the WLF movement, transforming from mourning father to regime change operation leader [144]. Overnight, Esmailion grew into a social media sensation, backed by thousands of Twitter and Instagram bots [146]. He led the large diaspora protests in Berlin and his image as a mourning father was mythologized, turning him into a saintly figure for the opposition [144].
What was left unsaid, however, was that Esmailion had long-standing ties to the MeK, whom he wrote novels about in the 1990s and 2000s [146]. His link to Western and Israeli politicians was a man named Kaveh Shahrooz, who had previously gained notoriety for writing a letter to G7 leaders asking for them to conduct regime change in Iran [147]. Shahrooz and Esmailion spoke at political events alongside Irwin Cotler, the head of the Israeli lobby in Canada, and named him as their mentor [147]. Cotler is a member of the Israeli Council on Foreign Relations and, in 2023, he was awarded Israel's Presidential Medal of Honour by Israeli President Isaac Herzog [148, 149]. Alongside another mentor of Shahrooz called Terry Glavin, Cotler was one of the forerunners in getting the MeK off of the US and Canadian terror lists [147]. All four of these men have ties to the MeK’s ‘National Council of Resistance of Iran’, with Cotler giving a speech in honor of dead MeK combatants and personally meeting with the cult leader Maryam Rajavi [147].
The Republic of Azerbaijan
Another prong of Israel’s strategy against Iran is the use of alliances with neighboring states to place pressure on Tehran. The most important of these states is perhaps the Republic of Azerbaijan. Baku and Tel Aviv have formed a strong relationship in recent decades, primarily aimed at challenging Iran, buying and selling arms, and controlling trade routes, most notably for energy [151]. In recent years, Israel has strongly backed Baku in its war against the Republic of Armenia by providing weaponry and military assistance [152].
If Baku seizes Syunik province – if not the entirety of Armenia – it effectively gains a monopoly over North-South trade between Iran and Europe/Russia. Success for Baku in its plans to cut off Iran from Armenia would mean the potential disconnection of Iran from Europe and Russia through the only route not controlled by the NATO Alliance, and would therefore greatly limit Iran’s potential for trade and isolate Iran to the benefit of Israel [152].
Israel also benefits from the Republic of Azerbaijan’s participation in pan-Turkic projects and the connection of Turkey to Central Asia as this would provide Israel with greater access to energy corridors and resources from the Caspian region and aid it in its plan to establish itself as an energy hub for Europe [152]. Baku also harbors several Iranian Azeri separatist groups and figures exiled from Iran, while Baku’s media, officials, and other major figures often tout their jingoistic rhetoric about the need to “liberate” what they call “South Azerbaijan” (much of Northwestern Iran that is inhabited by ethnic Azeris) [152].
Around the time of the WLF movement, on the 28th of January 2023, a drone attack took place on a military site in the city of Esfahan [154]. Although it did no significant damage, the Iranian government blamed Israel for this attack, and later speculation arose that these quadcopters had taken off from the territory of the Republic of Azerbaijan [154, 155]. It would not be surprising to see future collaborations between Baku and Tel Aviv aimed at Iran given the strong alliance formed by these two states in recent times.
Support for Separatist Groups
The most important groups that Israel used for their operations on the ground in Iran were separatist organizations and, most importantly Kurdish separatist organizations. Israel’s sponsorship of these groups has its roots in a doctrine developed by David Ben Gurion called ‘The Alliance of the Periphery’ [157, 152]. This doctrine states that Israel should use non-Arab states in West Asia to aid it against its enemies and it has been extended since the mid-20th century to include Kurdish organizations as well [152]. The importance of these groups grew especially after Iran’s 1979 Revolution which pitted the the new Islamic Republic against Israel and the United States and in recent decades, Israeli officials have written various articles and given many speeches calling for the balkanization of Iran [152, 158].
This can also be seen in the social media accounts of a suspected Mossad member and employee of the FTD (a US-based Israeli lobby with ties to the Likud Party) named Brenda Shaffer who works closely with the Baku government [152]. During the WLF riots, Shaffer consistently retweeted various separatist groups from a range of ethnicities including Kurds, Azeris, Turkmen, and Arabs [152]. This is in line with Israel’s doctrines as the balkanization of large states in the region would distract regional powers from Israel and provide it with new allies, a policy successfully implemented with regard to the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in Iraq [152]. Israel also pushes towards this goal by promoting an anti-Islamic and Persian-centric ideology, especially among Pahlavi monarchists, which sows divisions among Iranians and acts as a form of Persian separatism from Iran as a unified nation [131].
Israel’s relationships with Kurdish groups and leaders such as the Barzani family and the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (PDKI) are long-standing and deep with PDKI armed militias conducting their initial training in Israeli boot camps [152]. The relationship with the Barzani family especially has resulted in strong Israeli influence in the KRG, in both security and energy-related affairs [152]. Notably, the KRG leader, Masoud Barzani, gave condolences to Iranian Kurds for the death of Mahsa Amini, fueling the ethno-separatist narratives surrounding the riots [152]. Even many of the slogans of the WLF movement, including ‘Woman, Life, Freedom’ originate in Kurdish groups and were used by Kurdish groups in Syria who aided the establishment of an American occupation force in the North-East of the country that allows the US to take control of and export Syrian oil and wheat [161].
During the WLF movement, the main active Kurdish separatist parties in Iran were the PDKI and the Komala parties [161]. The Komala parties also have long-standing ties with Israel and have cooperated with Israel in operations to sabotage Iranian military facilities, with the ‘Komala Party of Iranian Kurdistan’ attempting to conduct terrorist attacks in Iran with the aid of Mossad even before the start of the WLF riots [152, 162, 163]. The head of the PDKI, Mustafa Hijri, expressed the sentiments of many of these Kurdish separatist groups in an interview with Jerusalem Post where he stated that Iran is the common enemy of Israel and Kurds and explicitly asked for Israel’s help to overthrow the Iranian government [152]. The leader of the Komala Party of Iranian Kurdistan, Abdullah Mohtadi, as well as Mustafa Hijri and various other Kurdish separatist leaders, appeared frequently on opposition media channels during the WLF movement’s peak, encouraging viewers to kill security forces and any individuals related to the Iranian government [152, 164]. These leaders would be invited onto channels like the BBC to recount baseless stories about government atrocities, aiding in the radicalization of Iranian audiences [152].
During the WLF riots, Kurdish groups would conduct brief cross-border raids into border towns like Oshnavieh which resulted in celebrations across opposition media who interpreted these separatist actions as “liberation” [152]. To win favor with other opposition groups, these Kurdish separatists state that they support a doctrine of federalism, however, this can be interpreted as a first step towards balkanization as can be seen in the case of Iraq’s Kurdistan Regional Government, which acts as a US-Israeli puppet state in Iraq and functions separately to the Iraqi government [152].
Section Six: The Power Struggle in Iran
To properly understand the events of late 2022, it is vital to analyze the role of different factions in Iran and their power struggles. Although many analysts in the West portray the political class of the Islamic Republic as a completely unified bloc under the control of a supreme dictator, this is far from the truth. Since the very early days of the Islamic Revolution, many factions have existed in the popular front bloc that formed the Islamic Republic. Although many of these factions, such as non-Islamic Liberal Democrats and Communists, were purged in the 1980s, strong disagreements persisted amongst the clerics and revolutionaries that ultimately consolidated their dominance in the revolutionary period [2].
The issue that most divided this new political class was foreign policy. As opposed to the “hardline” or “principlist” faction that saw sovereignty and opposition to Israel and American imperialism as one of the primary aims of the revolution, a faction also existed that sought to work with the West, and although they saw no harm in ousting the Shah, they still believed that Iran should follow a Liberal economic and political path, albeit under a more Islamic framework [3]. This faction came to be primarily led by Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and would even engage in negotiations with the US government in the 1980s known as the Iran-Contra Affair [4, 5].
After the death of Ayatollah Khomeini, Hashemi Rafsanjani, or Rafsanjani, as he now preferred to be called, became the first President of Iran under the new post-Khomeini constitution [6]. He and his party, the Executives of Construction, were known as the ‘Moderate’ faction and they began a process of liberalization in the economic and socio-cultural spheres [7]. Rafsanjani’s two terms as President were then followed up by the birth of the closely aligned ‘Reformist’ faction led by President Mohammad Khatami [8]. Khatami’s government pushed a policy of increasing liberalization and attempted a rapprochement with the USA under the framework of a “Dialogue of Civilisations” [9, 10]. In his time, Iran saw his supporters conduct the first attempt at major political change conducted through street protests during the 18 Tir movement [11].
Khatami’s Presidency was then followed up by Ahmadinejad, whose Presidency saw a patchwork of policies and political alignments as well as the largest protest movement in the Islamic Republic’s history as millions protested the outcome of the 2009 Presidential elections under the leadership of the Reformist candidate, former Prime Minister Mir-Hossein Mousavi [13, 14, 15]. In 2013, the Reformist-Moderate movement won back power as Hassan Rouhani won the presidential elections with the promise to negotiate with the USA and end Iran’s sanctions [16].
The Reformist-Moderate faction, more commonly referred to as just Reformists, generally aligns themselves with the interests of big business, major capitalists, and the Chamber of Commerce in Iran [17, 18]. The Rafsanjani family themselves are one of the richest in the country and hold large plots of land in Kerman Province [19]. From 1989 till today Iran has seen the implementation of strong neoliberal policies spearheaded by the Reformist movement, leading to the expansion of the power of oligarchs [17, 18]. After the Obama administration implemented so-called crippling sanctions on Iran in the early 2010s, the economic interests of this oligarchy were threatened [19].
To alleviate these sanctions, in 2013, Hassan Rouhani ran for the presidency, with an unprecedented level of advertisement and media excitement around his campaign, to negotiate with the West and get sanctions lifted [20, 21, 22]. Rouhani won and pushed negotiations with the USA into overdrive, resulting in the 2015 ‘Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action’ or JCPoA, according to which Iran would limit its nuclear program and in return would have certain sanctions lifted [23, 24]. This was supposed to be the first step in a series of negotiations that would then target Iran’s military capabilities and regional network of alliances, finally resulting in the Islamic Republic becoming a Western-aligned nation, aiming to follow the developmental model of nations such as Japan and Germany [22, 25, 26]. One such example was that in 2016, merely one day after US President Barack Obama’s executive order was signed lifting Iran nuclear sanctions as part of the JCPOA, Obama signed new sanctions targeting Iran’s missile/defense programs [67]. Not long after, Reformists such as Rafsanjani hinted at being willing to negotiate away Iran’s missile program, by issuing statements such as “the world of tomorrow is a world of dialogue, not missiles”, which sparked political feuding between Reformists and Principlists [68, 69].
In 2018, however, everything changed when US President Donald Trump pulled out of the JCPOA, started his “maximum pressure” sanctions campaign, and Iran’s economy fell into an unprecedented recession [27, 28]. The Reformists, who continued to be the ruling party at the time under Rouhani, did not aid the economic situation. In addition to passing hyper-neoliberal economic policies, they had delayed Iranian trade deals with China that would have alleviated and offset pressures caused by Western sanctions, all in the hopes of returning to an idealistic JCPOA with the West. For instance, Xi Jinping proposed Iranian cooperation/entry into China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) as early as 2015 and 2016 [64, 65]; Rouhani wouldn’t take him up on his offer until years later in 2021 when Iran finally joined BRI, after mounting pressure from Khamenei and the economic situation [25, 66]. Adding to this, Trump also assassinated Iran’s highest-ranking military commander, General Qasem Soleimani, in early 2020, and destroyed all hopes for the Reformist project within Iran [29].
Following the failure of the JCPOA and the terrible economic decline of Iran, caused by sanctions and the hyper-neoliberal policies of the Rouhani government, the Reformist movement lost all the wind in its sails [31]. By the time of the 2019 parliamentary and 2021 presidential elections, they had no popular candidates who could run in the elections as the grand promises of the last two administrations had proven fruitless. As a result, a Principlist parliament was formed in 2020, and “hardliner” Seyyed Ebrahim Raisi won the 2021 presidential elections [32, 33]. For the first time in decades, the Iranian government seemed unified from top to bottom. However, before things could settle and Raisi could begin to implement his policies, the ‘Woman, Life, Freedom’ movement suspiciously sprung up, claiming to not only challenge Raisi but also to want an end to the Islamic Republic as a whole.
Although complete regime change was demanded by the movement, suspicions about the role of the Reformists shouldn’t be set aside. An interesting fact about the foreign-based media organizations that led the ‘Woman, Life, Freedom’ movement is that they are to a large extent staffed by journalists who worked for Reformist-owned papers and networks inside Iran such as Sharq, Etemad, Entekhab, and Hammihan [34, 35]. In addition to this, these Reformist papers are often cited by foreign-based networks as primary sources for their stories [34, 35, 36]. The story of the death of Mahsa Amini as a possible result of Guidance Patrol brutality was first published by the Reformist paper Etemad [37]. Other Reformist newspapers also played important roles in the propagation of this narrative, the sensationalization of the story, and the fueling of protests.
In a joint statement by Iran’s major intelligence agencies, the Ministry of Intelligence and IRGC Intelligence, it was revealed that two journalists, one working for Sharq, named Niloofar Hamedi, and the other working for Hammihan, named Elaheh Mohammadi, played pivotal roles in the creation of riots and the ‘Woman, Life, Freedom’ movement [38]. In this statement, and in the later documentary film called ‘Khabarchin’ or ‘Informer’, which uses significant audio evidence, it was revealed how Hamedi was one of the first journalists to arrive at Kasra Hospital after Amini was taken there [38, 39]. It is shown in recordings how she attempted to provoke the Amini family, who did not believe that their daughter had died due to beatings from the Guidance Patrol, that this was indeed a case of government brutality, and that they should seek justice for this alleged physical violence [38, 39]. Elaheh Mohammadi similarly went to Mahsa Amini’s hometown in Saqqez, Kordestan Province to provoke Amini’s relatives into holding a similar stance and to provoke people around the family to view the matter as anti-Kurdish discrimination, thus helping to incite ethnic conflict in the region [38, 39].
In the documentary, it is shown how Mohammadi and Hamedi attended conferences and workshops, supposedly for journalism, held by agencies connected to the United States government and the US Central Intelligence Agency and that they maintained contacts with and took instructions from foreign-based handlers about how to provoke protests and steer them [39]. At the end of the documentary it is revealed using audio evidence from one of Mohammadi’s phone calls that she attended the first protest in Tehran at Keshavarz Square and purposefully incited the use of the “Woman, Life, Freedom” chant along with other chants that centered around Kurdish separatist and feminist themes [39].
The connection between Reformist media and the foreign-based opposition is less surprising when it is considered that some of the heads of the WLF movement and its media apparatuses were former Reformist politicians and activists within Iran. For instance, one of the self-proclaimed leaders of the movement, Massoumeh ‘Masih’ Alinejad, was a Reformist activist during the Khatami administration [41]. Also, the head of Iran International, Ali Asghar Ramezanpour, was a deputy Minister of Culture during the Khatami administration [42]. Additionally, foreign-based satellite TV networks like Iran International will often have famous Reformist analysts such as Sadegh Zibakalam on their programs [43].
Moreover, the same networks and celebrities that promoted the WLF movement were vital in backing Hassan Rouhani’s 2013 and 2017 election campaigns, as well as providing positive coverage of JCPOA negotiations [44]. This is not to mention the huge support that they gave for the 2009 Green Movement protests which, unlike the 2022 protests, involved millions of people, genuinely challenged the Iranian government, and laid the groundwork for a decade of liberal governments and policies throughout the 2010s [45, 46]. The Green Movement protests acted as the pilot for an internet-based protest movement, with the social media network Twitter throwing its full weight behind the movement and later served as a model for the Arab Spring and other regime change attempts [47, 48, 49].
It is also interesting to note the actions of major Reformist politicians during the WLF protests. Rather than calling for calm and an end to hostilities, many Reformists actively fanned the flames of the riots. An important precursor to the events starting in September was the letter by 2009 Green Movement leader Mousavi, who, writing under house arrest, baselessly stated that Ayatollah Khamenei wished for his son to replace him as Leader after his death, thus turning Iran into a monarchical state [50]. This was coupled with a New York Times article in mid-September that stated that Khamenei was deathly ill, causing protestors to think that they must save Iran from this upcoming tyranny of a possible “Khamenei dynasty” [51]. Mousavi again made similarly agitative statements in a February 2023 letter where he said that Iran needs to move beyond the Islamic Republic towards a new order [52]. Khatami followed this up a day later with a letter that seemed tamer but effectively spread the same message, questioning whether the 1979 Revolution had benefited Iran and declaring that the possibilities for reform within the Iranian system were dead [53].
The children of Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani made similar statements and comments, pushing their base towards a more radical position of opposition to the entire Iranian system of governance as opposed to just the Raisi administration, and as terrorist attacks took place in Iran, very little was heard in the form of condemnation from major Reformist figures [55]. A former Minister of the Rouhani government even asked the clergy of Iran to support the protest movement which by that time was clearly advocating for regime change [55]. Until recently, the head of the oligarch-led Chamber of Commerce was a strong advocate of the movement’s most radical tendency on his social media profiles but still retained his job for a long time due to Reformist support [56, 57, 34, 35]. Long after protests died down, leading Moderate and spokesperson for the Executives of Construction party, Hossein Marashi, stated on national television that the causes of the 2022 protests and previous ones were “disagreements within Iran’s political class”, hinting at the possibility of Reformist involvement in the stoking of riots and protests [34, 35].
This is not surprising when the economic interests of Iranian oligarchs, who are primarily aligned with the Reformist-Moderate faction, are considered. Prominent Reformist figures and thought-leaders such as former presidential advisor to President Rouhani, Mahmood Sariolghalam, regularly make appearances at Western think tanks and conferences such as Chatham House and the World Economic Forum to ask for more sanctions and pressure to be placed on their opponents inside Iran [58]. This is partially because increased economic pressure on Iran causes smaller and medium-sized businesses to fail and allows the oligarchs to further entrench their monopolies [58]. However, the main reason is that the oligarchy believes that the Islamic Republic’s foreign policy is detrimental to their businesses and they wish for the West to place pressure on their internal opponents so that they abandon their anti-American and anti-Israeli stance [58].
Generally speaking, the oligarchy in Iran has strong economic ties with the Western world and has over the years, starting in the late 2000s, succeeded at dollarizing the Iranian economy and getting rid of all price controls [60]. This allows them to set prices for goods, which they hold monopolies for, at prices similar to those in place in Europe and North America and to trade them in US dollars [60]. This means that the higher the price of the dollar, the more profits the oligarchy gains in Iran with a direct 1 to 1 ratio [60]. Hence, the WLF protests were highly beneficial for this oligarchy. Since they control most of the currency trade in Iran, they were able to use the excuse of the protests and the resulting anti-Iranian sentiment in the West to artificially increase the price of the dollar to nearly double its previous rate and therefore, greatly increase their profits [60]. This is while, at the same time, Iran ran a trade surplus, which would naturally strengthen the value of the Iranian Rial relative to the dollar barring any artificial interventions [61].
Now with the 2024 parliamentary elections looming, the Reformists are seeking to capitalize on the gains of the WLF movement. Although before these events, it seemed as though they had lost all social capital, they are now seeking to run on a ticket of increasing women’s rights and liberalizing the cultural sphere in the upcoming legislative elections, attempting to use women candidates as leaders of their campaign [62]. BBC Persian, the forerunner in the foreign-based media sphere, is now speaking of the failure of revolutionary mindsets and emphasizes the need to take a reform-minded approach to the liberalization of Iran [63]. At the same time, Iranian government broadcasting is allowing Reformist figures back on air to help deradicalize those who fell victim to the propaganda of the WLF movement [34, 35]. Ironically, the Iranian diaspora activists who so strongly advocated against any rapprochement with the Iranian government, have yet again become foot soldiers of the Moderate-Reformist faction, propelling them back into relevance after their disastrous collapse in the late 2010s.
Section Seven: The Saudi Deal
An important event that completely changed the trajectory of the WLF movement was the Saudi-Iranian rapprochement in early 2023. In what came as a surprise to many, the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia signed a deal on March 10, 2023, to renormalize relations following nearly a decade of tensions. While many, especially in the alt-media sphere, have claimed this to be a result or success of “Chinese-brokered diplomacy”, nearly nobody has showcased the unsurprising reality of the matter: China had little to do with this deal other than serving as a neutral meeting point for negotiations. What this deal is contingent on were two fronts: geopolitical results of conflicts in the region, and political results of a near-decade of Saudi funding for Iran’s opposition and its media apparatus. While it is understandable why many think China “brought” this peace, it is a simple and ungrounded conclusion that doesn’t explain why these negotiations happened at all. It is important to understand the full context to comprehend why the Saudis even approached Iran to negotiate at all. This section will limit the scope to wider geopolitics and won't discuss Saudi backing for various media or groups operating inside Iran – this was discussed in depth in previous sections.
Regarding the first front, geopolitics, Saudi Arabia, which was backed by or collaborated with the United States through this endeavor, engaged in a regional struggle against Iran in the arenas of Syria and Yemen. Before discussing the conflicts themselves, a brief recap of Iranian-Saudi relations should be discussed. Before 1979, the ruling Pahlavi monarchy of Iran and Saudi Arabia were allies and part of the US’s “two-pillar” security architecture in the region, acting as bulwarks against the Soviets and their regional allies. Iranian-Saudi relations soured in 1979, following Iran’s revolution, due to Saudi fears of possible Iranian attempts to “spread the revolution” to its borders, especially among the Shi’a minority in the eastern, oil-rich coast of Saudi Arabia.
The Saudis had a similar fear regarding the republican Arab Nationalist governments such as those of Nasserist Egypt, Colonel Gaddafi’s Libya, or Communist South Yemen since the 1950s. The Saudis filled the role of a “conservative power” that sought to quash Iran’s revolution in its infancy, almost in a similar fashion to what regional powers attempted after the French Revolution of 1789 or the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. This was why the Saudis and other GCC Arab monarchies stood behind Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi invasion of Iran, vitally financing him with upwards of $150 billion (1980 USD) in loans for Iraq’s war effort [3].
The Saudis furthermore hosted American troops and bases, which were used to target Iran’s navy in Operation Praying Mantis in 1988. This resulted in heavily strained relations between the countries until after the war and Ayatollah Khomeini’s death, after which there was a period of detente. Under the liberal reformist governments of Rafsanjani and Khatami, Iran-Saudi relations were normalized, with trade being conducted alongside collaboration regarding oil production via OPEC. This continued into the Ahmadinejad government until the latter half of his presidency when accusations of advancing a “nuclear weapons program” were leveled against Iran by the United States and other Western powers. Thereafter, Saudi Arabia partook in Western attempts to isolate Iran via sanctions, embargoes, and other means, such as a Western-backed trade war in the oil market, resulting in souring relations [4].
Tensions also flared when Saudi links to various militant groups such as Jundullah were unearthed, as described in previous sections. Relations continued to gradually worsen following a hajj pilgrim stampede that got many Iranians killed in Mecca, in which Iran blamed negligence by Saudi authorities, calling them “unfit” to be custodians of the holy cities [4]. The execution of prominent Shi’a cleric Nimr al-Nimr by Saudi Arabia resulted in an outcry from religious Iranians who subsequently torched the Saudi embassy in Tehran [5]. This was the final straw that completely broke relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran, with all diplomatic ties being cut from that point on. This context will now help us understand the roles of the two states in the Syrian and Yemeni conflicts.
Saudi involvement in the Syrian Civil War was caused by a multitude of reasons. The first reason has to do with Assad’s Syria being traditionally an Iranian ally since the 1980s. This led to Syria allowing Iran to transport weapons through its territory to various militias in Lebanon, most notably the Lebanese organization Hezbollah [7]. Iran also constructed several supply depots in Syria to facilitate this. Syria meanwhile had quashed several pro-Saudi factions in Lebanon since the 70s when Damascus intervened in Lebanon’s civil war. Relations between Saudi Arabia and Syria particularly soured following the assassination of key Saudi ally and Saudi-Lebanon dual citizen, Prime Minister Rafic Hariri. He was perceived to be under Syria’s protection as Syria was occupying much of Lebanon at the time, so the Saudis blamed Syria for the assassination, a charge that Syria denied [8]. At the same time, Syria politically backed and armed many different Lebanese militias over the decades, increasingly aligning with pro-Iranian factions in Lebanon following the conclusion of the Lebanese civil war, with Hezbollah becoming a major Syrian ally and recipient of support in the 2000s [9].
All of this was detrimental to the Saudis, as it caused them to lose influence, economic opportunities, and political allies. The Iranian-Syrian alliance became especially significant in 2011, due to the context of increasing Iranian isolation in the face of UN sanctions over its nuclear energy program, which were spearheaded by the US and its allies. Syria was one of the few state allies Iran could depend on, as otherwise, Iran was practically an international pariah state. Knocking out Syria and its political sovereignty by overthrowing Assad, would more broadly isolate Iran, therefore serving as a major goal for Saudi Arabia, as well as Israeli and American planners [10].
Another significant weight pushing Saudi Arabia to intervene in Syria was the fact that before the war, Iran had heavily invested in Syria including a $10 billion pipeline project between Iran, Iraq, and Syria signed in 2011 and set to be operational by 2016 [11, 12]. This pipeline project would have allowed Iran to export energy to the Mediterranean and Europe very easily, with Syria majorly benefitting from lowered energy costs due to increased supply, the collection of a commission on oil profits as a transit partner, as well as a new role a shipping hub to the broader Mediterranean through its ports that would most likely see major development. This was highly detrimental to Saudi and ARAMCO's plans to construct a rival pipeline that was rejected by Syria which would flow from Saudi Arabia, through Jordan, Syria, and Turkey, and finally arrive in Europe [12]. This alternative pipeline project was also a factor in causing Turkey to intervene in Syria as well [13]. Knocking out Syrian political sovereignty could also open the doors for more economically exploitative, one-sided deals beneficial for the Western bloc of the US and Saudi Arabia. Meanwhile, the erosion of Syria’s ability to protect its independence during the civil war would leave it vulnerable to the plundering of its resources by hostile foreign powers, as will be discussed further below.
Other notable pre-war Iranian economic projects in Syria included a $500 million investment in the construction of several Syrian power plants and a $60 million investment in joint-automobile production, with Iran and Syria having a $545 million in total trade volume in 2010, marking a record in Syrian-Iranian trade as of 2019 [15]. The total of all pre-war Iranian investments in Syria (excluding the pipeline project) was $2.5 billion [16]. Halting these Iranian economic projects, kneecapping Damascus’s political sovereignty, and further isolating Iran, as mentioned above, were vital to Western and Saudi plans in the region.
The issue of Damascus’s sovereignty also had relevance in other matters as well, which helped draw in the main country sponsoring regime change in Syria: the United States of America. Damascus’s political sovereignty always posed a threat to Israel, who had fought several wars previously with Syria, most notably in 1967 and 1973 with Bashar al Assad’s father, Hafez al Assad. In the 2000s, Israel was alarmed by Syria’s nuclear energy program [17, 18]. The US had previously pressured Russia and Argentina to cease exports of supplies and machinery necessary for Syria’s nuclear energy program in 2006 [18], while Israel had struck Syrian nuclear facilities and killed its nuclear scientists in 2007 [18, 19].
Israel had also fought various resistance groups during its occupation of Southern Lebanon from the 1980s until its withdrawal, as well as a full-scale war with Hezbollah in 2006. Syria’s, alongside Iran’s, support, supply of cash, arms, and even volunteers for Palestinian and Lebanese resistance groups fighting Israel in Lebanon and Palestine had drawn Israel’s ire, and by extension the US [8, 20, 21, 22, 23]. Israel has admitted to assassinating Syrian generals responsible for collaborating with Iran to support said groups [18].
After normalizing relations with Iraq in 1997, Syria is known to have helped the Iraqis get around UN sanctions and smuggle oil [24]. Syria strongly opposed the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 [25], while sheltering many former Iraqi officials and civilians fleeing the country [24]. Syria also was accused by American officials and the new Iraqi government of having provided finances, arms, or other support for various Sunni Iraqi militias fighting US forces, while additionally allowing volunteers to travel to Iraq to fight the Americans [24, 26, 27, 28]. Thus, it was strongly in the interest of the US, and its allies such as Israel, Saudi Arabia, and others to overthrow Bashar al Assad’s government to destroy Syria’s political sovereignty. The ultimate objective would be to install a weak, decentralized, friendly regime that couldn’t make its own sovereign decisions and wouldn’t stand in the way of Western plans for the region.
The Saudi adventure in Syria started with a condemnation of President al-Assad “due to his method to deal with the anti-government opposition” in August 2011 by King Abdullah al-Saud; this was followed by a withdrawal of ambassadors from Syria in February 2012 [29]. Within a few months, reports emerged in mid-2012 that the Saudis were financing and arming rebels in Syria, with some speculating that this may have begun even earlier [30]. Indeed, the Saudis partook in the CIA’s Operation Timber Sycamore which sought to topple Bashar al-Assad’s government. Leaked files from Hillary Clinton indicate vast Saudi support for Syrian rebels, including Al Qaeda in Syria, with the Saudis being the top financer and arms supplier for the rebels throughout most of the war, which undoubtedly delighted the United States [31, 32]. The US would come to heavily rely on Saudi capital to run Operation Timber Sycamore [31].
The list of Saudi-supplied rebel groups in Syria is fairly extensive, including but not limited to: Jaish al-Fatah (Army of Conquest; an Al Qaeda affiliate), Jaish al-Nusra (Al-Nusra Front; an Al Qaeda affiliate), Jaish-al Islam (Army of Islam), the Free Syrian Army (FSA), FSA Southern Front, the 13th Division FSA, the Free Idlib Army, the Syrian Revolutionaries Front (SRF), the Authenticity and Development Front, the Syrian Martyrs’ Brigades, and the Revolutionary Commando Army among others [13, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36].
Eventually, the Saudis would begin to distance themselves from most Syrian rebels as the Assad government’s eventual victory in the war became inevitable [38]. The intervention of Iran and Hezbollah in 2013, who deployed ground forces in Syria, was decisive in checking further rebel advances and taking back strongholds like Homs in 2014. Russia’s intervention in 2015, following Qasem Soleimani’s visit to convince President Putin of a plan to win the war, tipped the balance in favor of Syrian government forces [39, 40].
By 2018, most rebel and ISIS strongholds from Aleppo to Daraa had been recaptured by Syrian government forces. Also by 2018, the Saudis had unsurprisingly dropped ties to most of the above-mentioned rebel groups, instead shifting their focus towards developing ties with factions in the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) or “Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria” (AANES), which controls the northeast of Syria [41, 42, 43, 44]. Of particular interest to the Saudis were Arab factions in the SDF.
Interestingly enough, around the same time, reports had emerged of the plundering of Syrian resources in SDF-held territory by Western corporations, with implications for Saudi Arabia’s participation [45, 46, 47, 48]. The region is oil-rich and produces the bulk of Syria’s agricultural products and food. There is also a US troop presence in Northeast Syria where - unsurprisingly - most of them are there solely to “secure” the oil fields, as former President Donald Trump stated [49], allowing for the aforementioned plunder. Upwards of $107 billion of losses have been incurred by Syria as of late 2022 due to the US-led plunder of the country’s northeastern region [45, 48, 49].
Nonetheless, it should be noted that the SDF/AANES is not a monolithic force, but rather a highly factionalized loose alliance of various militias and organizations with different political leanings, backgrounds, and ethnic/religious compositions. Some of these are Arab, others are Syriac Assyrians, while the predominant organizations leading the alliance are Kurdish. Some organizations are liberal democrats such as the ENKS and KDP-S and others are socialists such as the PYD which is the dominant party in AANES [50].
At times, these militias fight each other in armed clashes while political organizations also issue threats to one another [50, 51, 52, 53]. Several factions are in favor of separatism and collaboration with US troops or the KDP-led Kurdish Regional Government in Iraq, such as Mazloum Abdi and his supporters [50]. Meanwhile, others such as Aldar Khalil of the PYD want reintegration with the Syrian government and favor cooperation with Syria, Iran, and Russia, especially to counter Turkey [50, 54].
The liberal factions in AANES are currently in a weak position in the power struggle [50]. This has led to ongoing negotiations between Damascus and the SDF that could undermine the future of the US occupation and its allies in Northeast Syria [55, 56]. Currently, the Syrian government, Russians, and Iranians have forces deployed in some SDF-occupied territory to prevent and contain further Turkish advances into the region, cooperating with the SDF in certain localities [54]. For instance, the YPG, a PKK-affiliated militia in the SDF, has set up a joint operations command with Iran, Syria, and Russia north of Aleppo in Tel Rifat [57].
This brings us to the present status quo in Syria, with a semi-autonomous/ambiguous status in Syria’s Northeast along with pockets occupied by Turkey or pro-Turkish rebel groups in the North along the border and in the area of Idlib, US bases scattered in the Northeast and Al-Tanf, while the situation in Golan Heights has remained unchanged for decades as Israel continues to occupy the region. However, with regard to the Syrian Civil War, the US and its allies, including Saudi Arabia, completely failed in their aforementioned primary objectives to overthrow the Assad government, break Iran’s supply routes and contact with Lebanon and Palestine, and establish the desired Saudi energy pipeline to Europe through Syria.
With Syria being discussed, the second main conflict point between the Saudis and Iran was in Yemen. To understand the context of the conflict, it has to be considered that Yemen during the Cold War was split in two, with a northern half that remained independent during the colonial era and a southern half that was colonized by Britain. Following decolonization, South Yemen eventually became an independent Marxist-Leninist state. Meanwhile, the North became an Arab Nationalist state after bloody internal conflicts. In 1978, Ali Abdullah Saleh took over North Yemen via a coup d’etat. Eventually, instability in South Yemen led to regime changes and an eventual reunification of North and South Yemen. However, despite unification, instability continued in the South with the government seeking Saudi assistance to put out Southern secessionists in 1994. This led to the growth of Saudi influence in Yemen and the spread of the Wahhabi sect, as a result of increased funding for new mosques and clergy, as well as the importation of Wahhabi militias to fight for the Saleh government [59].
One major opponent of Saleh was Badreddin al-Houthi, a former parliamentarian and major Zaydi Shia cleric from Northern Yemen. He became a vocal critic of Saleh on grounds of his massive financial corruption and criticized him for being backed by Saudi Arabia and the United States at the expense of the Yemeni people and Yemen's sovereignty [61]. In 2004, he and his political allies launched an insurgency against Ali Abdullah Saleh’s government after Saleh placed a $55,000 bounty on Badreddin al-Houthi [59]. Bardreddin’s political movement was thus formalized as “Ansarallah” (companions of God), more commonly known as “the Houthis”. The Ansarallah movement’s stated goals are establishing government accountability, ending corruption, providing utilities, ending discrimination towards Zaydi Shias, establishing fair fuel prices, creating job opportunities for ordinary Yemenis, and ending Western influence in the country [62].
In 2011, during the Arab Spring, Saleh stepped down following unrest across Yemen and handed power to his Vice President Hadi, as per a Saudi-brokered deal. Hadi won an uncontested election in 2012 as the sole candidate, but the situation did not get better. In 2014, Hadi cut fuel subsidies which led to the Houthis ousting him in a popular revolution following mass protests in 2015, and seizing Yemen’s capital Sanaa, while Hadi went into exile in Saudi Arabia [83]. This was immediately condemned as a “coup” by Saudi Arabia and its allies who used this pretext to launch a direct military intervention into Yemen in 2015 [63].
As opposed to Syria, in Yemen, the roles are reversed with Iran playing much less of a direct role, while the Saudis directly intervened in Yemen with their military. Direct Iranian shipments of weapons to Ansarallah seem relatively rare due to the difficulty of bypassing the naval blockade set up by the Saudis and their allies, though the US and Saudis have repeatedly claimed to intercept dhows smuggling Iranian arms to Yemen, a claim which Iran denies [64]. However, Iran and its Lebanese ally Hezbollah have found other ways to back Yemen’s Ansarallah. Iran has used military attachés from the Quds Force (QF), the extraterritorial wing of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), which specializes in irregular warfare, to great effect in Yemen at little cost.
The Quds Force is known to have transferred Iranian technical know-how to the Houthis on how to build and mass produce a plethora of different small arms, drones, naval mines, fast attack craft, land vehicles, and missiles [64]. Some examples include the Houthi Qasef family of UAVs derived from Iran’s Ababil family; the Houthi Waeed family of UAVs, derived from Iran’s Shahed family; Tankil anti-ship ballistic missile, derived from Iran’s Raad-500 SRBM; Hatem MRBMs cloned from Iran’s Kheybar-Shekan MRBMs; the Falaq MRBM, cloned from Iran’s Qiam-2 MRBM; and so on [64]. IRGC-QF and Hezbollah are known to have given military training to Houthi fighters and commanders on how to employ the aforementioned weapons in addition to general tactical and strategic advisory [64]. In some cases, the training was not done in Yemen, but in Iran itself.
Meanwhile, between 2015 and 2019 alone, Saudi Arabia spent nearly $340 billion purchasing arms and at least $265 billion in its military campaign against Yemen (nearly $200 million a day) [66]. There are no official disclosures of Saudi expenditure against Syria, although it is claimed in an estimate by The Economist that the kingdom spent over $1 billion a week in Syria during the height of the war between 2012 and 2018 [67]. This would put Saudi expenditure in Syria at over $312 billion over six years. The resulting total cost of these military adventures for Saudi Arabia surpasses nearly a trillion dollars.
By comparison, the US spent at least 3 trillion dollars on the Iraq War if not more, over 2 trillion dollars in Afghanistan, $1.1 billion in Libya to overthrow Gaddafi, and at least around $1-10 billion in Syria between 2011-2017 [68, 69, 70, 71, 72]. Most US spending regarding Syria went to conducting airstrikes and Tomahawk missile strikes, including against Syrian government forces, while only $1 billion has been publicly disclosed as the cost of the CIA’s Operation Timber Sycamore aimed at overthrowing Assad [71]. It is possible that much more was spent than publicly disclosed. Regardless, Saudi Arabia’s ridiculous levels of spending on these wars are similar to some of the US's costliest forever wars, such as Afghanistan.
Around the same time frame, according to the US State Department and the US state-affiliated think tank CSIS, Iran spent a total of only $16 billion from 2012-2018 to support Syria, Hezbollah, Ansarallah (Houthis) in Yemen, and various Palestinian resistance organizations such as Hamas, PIJ, and PFLP [84]. Iran’s low-budget irregular/asymmetric warfare strategy prevailed in Syria where Western and Saudi-backed rebel groups were largely defeated throughout most of the country, save for Idlib. It also prevailed in Yemen where the Saudi intervention failed to dislodge the Houthis, all the while suffering major losses such as those incurred during the Houthi attack on Saudi ARAMCO’s oil facilities in Abqaiq.
As victory for the Saudis seemed more and more distant in these conflicts, with all efforts increasingly appearing to be futile, calls for negotiations began to increase. The Saudis began negotiations with the Syrian government around 2019 for the restoration of diplomatic ties, alongside Iran and the Houthi forces in Yemen, though the latter negotiations yielded little results. In 2020, Iranian General Qasem Soleimani was assassinated by a US drone strike at Baghdad International Airport in Iraq while en route to initiate unofficial negotiations in the Saudi embassy for restoration of ties between Iran and Saudi Arabia [73]. This resulted in continued strained relations, with closed-door contacts failing to establish any progress in negotiations.
The straw that finally broke the Saudi camel’s back was the failure of the WLF campaign, as almost a decade of media buildup and funding of the Iranian opposition proved futile. This event ultimately forced the Saudis to seriously pursue negotiations with Iran for normalization of relations in February 2023. Within a month, the now-famous peace deal was signed in Beijing. China’s role, as mentioned previously, was to simply serve as a neutral meeting ground for the two powers and facilitate talks. It would be far too diplomatically humiliating for Saudi representatives to effectively “beg” for the normalization of ties by traveling to Tehran itself. Thus, it can be summarized that Iran’s hard power regional overmatch and the failure of Saudi soft power finally prompted the formation of this deal.
The deal has many significant consequences for the time being. As per the March 10th agreement signed in Beijing, Saudi Arabia is to cease any kind of support to any separatist groups and terrorist militants operating against Iran [75, 76]. The two parties have agreed to not interfere in such internal affairs of each other [76]. The parties have also agreed to find some kind of resolution to the Yemen conflict, though no terms were agreed upon as Saudi-Houthi negotiations are currently progressing independently [76]. Meanwhile, normalization with Iran also led to Saudi normalization with Syria a little over a month later [77].
The cession of Saudi support for any Iranian opposition groups means that many of the previously mentioned groups from Liberals involved in WLF to separatists in Iran’s ethnic-minority regions will fizzle away to total irrelevance, as some already largely have. Other dependent groups such as Iran International have sought alternative sponsors, with it being exposed that the influential media network has now come under Israeli ownership [85]. The agreement continues to hold almost a year later despite Gaza’s October 7th surprise attack on Israel and Houthi Yemen’s involvement in the war. More importantly, the Saudis have refused to engage the Houthis in Yemen any longer in a bid to maintain the truce that has been in place since 2022 and to pursue further peace negotiations and detente with Iran [78, 79]. Most notably, Saudi Arabia has even gone as far as rejecting US invitations to join its failed Task Force against the Yemeni group in December of 2023 [80, 81, 82].
Conclusion
Living through the days and months of the ‘Woman, Life, Freedom’ movement as an Iranian can best be described as surreal. Every day, audiences were confronted with a consistent barrage of fake atrocity stories, each more outlandish than the last. Throughout this period, the slightest dissent against these narratives would result in calls for murder and torture by the WLF activists, who would intimidate and harass any Iranians and non-Iranians who disagreed with them [1].
What made the 2022 regime change movement unique from previous iterations was its simulated nature. As soon as a person put their phone down and turned off the television, no signs of a mass nationwide movement could be seen anywhere in Iran. Online, it seemed as though something truly extraordinary was occurring, something not seen since the 1979 revolution. But in real life, apart from sporadic riots in the early weeks and violence in Kurdish and Baluchi regions, people continued their normal lives uninterrupted.
Regardless, opposition media figures consistently made claims every day that the “regime” was about to collapse [2, 3]. With every passing prediction proving untrue, new ones were made and the great victory of the movement was consistently postponed by a few days or weeks [2, 3]. Media channels pumped out story after story about the imminent collapse of the Islamic Republic with Iran International and Israel’s i24 News publishing a ludicrous story about how Iranian government officials were making arrangements and fleeing to Venezuela as they feared the overthrow of their state [4, 5].
Unfortunately many Iranians, especially in the diaspora, believed these stories and seemed to truly think that a government that had survived four decades of war and sanctions was now going to fall because of feminist youth who would soon replace them with a ragtag team of separatists and professional regime change TedTalkers. Each segment of the diaspora-based opposition clung to their particular leader as the movement played out its natural course and infighting began. Today, the only segment remaining with a significant online presence are the largely American-based Pahlavi monarchists, who in their complete unawareness of Iran’s conservative culture, believe that they can bring the disgraced Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi to power in Iran and reestablish a monarchical system. Meanwhile, the former Crown Prince has recently won an award for being a supporter of LGBT rights and his wife has openly had a long-standing affair with a French boyfriend [6, 7].
The failure of the ‘Woman, Life, Freedom’ movement to bring about the imaginary events that opposition media were claiming as real was nonetheless very irritating for the activists who wished to see Iran in the same state of armageddon that they saw on their smartphones. This end-times scenario, however, only came to fruition during the brief lapses caused by terror attacks conducted by WLF’s supporters in Shahcheragh and Izeh. The narrativization around these terrorist attacks and violence, in general, was yet another major difference between this regime change movement and its previous iterations. Outlets like Iran International proudly aired programs calling for armed conflict and celebrating the murder of security forces. Celebrities took to social media to teach people how to make homemade bombs and advertisements were found on regular social media networks for the purchase of firearms.
The normalization of terrorism and advocacy for civil war had never before reached such heights in the anti-Islamic Republic movement, outside of fringe cults like the MeK. Hand in hand with this was the normalization of separatism. Previously, a highly taboo and frowned upon matter among the self-avowedly patriotic opposition movement, advocacy for the balkanization of Iran became more widespread as foreign-owned media outlets purposefully spread the message to their audience. For many Iranians, even those not particularly fond of the Islamic Republic government, it became clear that the current Iranian state was the only thing standing in the way of civil war and national tragedy.
The propaganda of the movement did, however, have lasting effects, especially on two groups of people. Firstly, inside Iran, upper-middle-class youth were especially affected as they were the primary targets of foreign-based media’s calls to turn into neo-guerilla fighters against the Iranian state. Given their relatively higher use of the internet and as a result, their more Westernized and non-traditional social and political views, middle-class high-school and university students who did not feel represented by the Iranian government were thrust into the center stage and given a new identity as revolutionary warriors. As the movement died down, many felt defeated, however still, some were left permanently radicalized by the constant propaganda.
The other group that was arguably even more affected was the Iranian diaspora. The millions of Iranians who live abroad, mostly in Western countries, were mobilized by the movement to become the supposed voice for those inside the country. Rallies and marches against the Islamic Republic soon became rites of passage for members of the diaspora who seemed to firmly believe that with the help of Western governments, they could overthrow the Iranian government from Berlin, Los Angeles, and Toronto. Today many are unwilling to ever return to Iran for fear of being recognised and arrested for their participation in rallies calling for sanctions and war on their homeland. The WLF movement significantly expanded the already wide rift between Iranians in Iran. Those abroad as many in the diaspora no longer have any understanding of realities inside Iran, choosing to instead believe the stories of a hellish wasteland in which people are brutally murdered every day for no reason other than to satisfy a cartoonishly evil dictator and his brainwashed supporters.
The events of late 2022 also had other effects on Iran. It has been estimated by the International Monetary Fund that, as a result of the WLF movement, Iran suffered a loss in GDP equal to 1% or approximately 3.5 billion dollars. This means that Iranian GDP growth for the Iranian calendar year 1401 (March 2021-March 2022), which was 4%, could have been as high as 5% had the movement not occurred [11]. These losses occurred for various reasons such as damage to public and private property by rioters, decreased tourism during the protests, and decreased foreign investment due to safety concerns [12].
In addition to economic losses, the protests also resulted in changes in norms regarding ‘Hijab’ or dress code in Iranian society. According to recently published statistics by the University of Tehran, after the protest movement, approximately 6.4% of women in Iran no longer abide by dress code laws and roam the streets without a head covering, with numbers reaching as high as 9.3% in the capital city, Tehran [13]. Approximately 10% of women in the survey reported that they have adopted a more relaxed attitude towards Hijab, for instance, wearing a less concealing form of head-covering or overall dress while still abiding by the mandate and 4.6% stated that they would not abide by the dress code if there were no laws mandating it [13]. It seems that the Iranian government now seeks primarily to enforce the dress code in state institutions, universities, and schools, similar to French laws limiting access to women with hijab [14].
Although opposition activists called for a renewal of protests on the anniversary of the passing of Mahsa Amini, nothing came to fruition, with even diaspora rallies being limited in numbers [15, 16]. This is most likely due to a combination of factors. Primarily, opposition networks inside Iran were thoroughly exposed during the 2022 movement and require time to be rebuilt, meaning that no serious efforts can be coordinated inside Iran. Secondly, as previously mentioned, Kurdish separatist groups based in Iraq, which put up the greatest challenge to the Iranian state in 2022, were forced to move away from the Iranian border in a deal struck by Iranian and Iraqi authorities.
Furthermore, after the Iran-Saudi rapprochement, as well as the aforementioned deals and conversations between Iran and Western states, the anti-Islamic Republic movement now receives less outside support and funding for its project. This has been made even more significant in recent months as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in Gaza has drawn away the attention and resources of the United States and Israeli governments who were some of the primary backers of the movement. Lastly, it must be assumed that many of the young people who were mobilized in 2022 have lost enthusiasm since the movement failed to reach its goal of overthrowing the government and are no longer receptive to calls for protests by foreign-based media outlets.
In conclusion, from an opposition activist perspective, the ‘Woman, Life, Freedom’ regime change movement can be labeled as a failure. However, it did serve a purpose. By mobilizing opposition to the government of Ebrahim Raisi and its policies the movement seems to have partially reinvigorated the Reformist-Moderate faction which had lost all social credibility after the failure of the JCPoA nuclear deal. This grouping now seeks to participate in the 2024 legislative and Assembly of Experts elections, and the 2025 Presidential elections, using the momentum of the protest movement to regain its lost power. Their allies in foreign-based media channels have begun to steer Iranian liberals towards this more reform-minded alternative to regime change, making the partial resurgence of the Reformist movement the only major outcome of the WLF movement.
As of now, it seems as though the Guardian Council will allow the Reformists to retake their positions in the Iranian political system and run in the coming elections. The extent of their participation and their level of success in these elections are questions that will have major repercussions for Iranian politics and global geopolitics. If Reformists regain power and steer Iran’s foreign policy towards increased relations with the West and a renewal of the JCPoA negotiations, Iran will be left with a weakened military and more Western influence in its national economy. This would be a break from the ‘Look-East’ policy of the government of Ebrahim Raisi that seeks to work more closely with partners in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, BRICS, and other emerging multilateral institutions; a project that is seeking to use Iran’s capacity for providing security and potential as a major transit hub to build an international trading system that is independent of the West and the United States [18].
This new foreign policy has thus far turned Iran into an important node in the new confrontation between Western powers and the non-Western world, with Iran acting as the third power in a triad that has formed with the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China [20]. The derailing of this new foreign policy and the damages it would incur for Iran would weaken the new emerging global system and damage the non-Western world in its confrontation with American unipolarity. This would leave allies such as Russia in a more fragile state and could destroy the new-found confidence of states such as Saudi Arabia in their pursuit of less Western-orientated policies.
For Iran itself, such an outcome could result in war, civil or external, and the possible destruction of the Iranian state as a whole. This would result in Iran suffering a similar fate to the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, Syria, Libya, or other destroyed and semi-destroyed countries and would be a defeat for the Iranian nation that could take centuries to recover from. Therefore, the next few years are a critical impasse. The ‘Woman, Life, Freedom’ movement was most likely only the first step taken by the Islamic Republic’s adversaries in their pursuit to disrupt the foreign policies of the new Iranian government, and more events like it can be expected. If Iran is capable of withstanding them, it will emerge with an important role in a new global order, but if it fails, the world could again be plunged into the post-Cold War order in which one state rules and others follow.
Bibliography
All web sources are accessible in the in-text citations in the article and bibliography; in-text citations without a hyperlink are book sources listed in the bibliography below:
https://rtsg.substack.com/p/women-life-fiction-bibliography