Iran remembers: Intruders can’t be liberators

As Henry Kissinger once said, every (claimed) success in foreign policy is just an admission ticket to the next crisis. The events of the last week mark a major shift in US President Trump’s foreign policy outlook towards the Middle East. The region, over the last few decades, has been reshaped by a fundamental shift in the balance of power in its region: the rise of Israel. It is economically, technologically, and militarily superior to most of its regional counterparts which is why the Gulf States too now are eager to join hands and work closely with Israel.

When Netanyahu dubbed Operation Rising Lion, the intended message was as clear as it was calculated: Iran’s regime, weakened, and fractured, could be pushed to a large-scale collapse from within through an externalised force exercising transnational repression. The question is: Was this a strategic masterstroke or a catastrophic miscalculation for the Israelis?

One of the dangers of military actions is that it often seeks to expand a ‘victor’s ambitions’ as seen in context to Israel’s constant efforts to use military action against its foes. Netanyahu’s framing of the strikes went beyond military logic. By directly invoking the 2022 protest slogan Zan, Zendegi, Azadi (Woman, Life, Freedom), he aimed to reach past Iran’s leadership and appeal to its people, particularly those already disillusioned with theocratic rule.

His message painted Israel not as an aggressor but as an unlikely liberator, clearing the path for Iranian self-determination. It’s a bold narrative, tapping into the spirit of domestic dissent, but one that ignores the complex political, cultural, and psychological terrain of Iran.

The operation aimed to achieve what sanctions, cyber warfare, and international isolation had failed to do: fracture the regime by making daily life unbearable and forcing citizens to turn their rage inward. When an external force inflicts visible harm, even fractured societies often find unity in nationalism. The risk isn’t just of failure to topple the regime; it’s of breathing new life into it.

Iranians across the political spectrum reacted to this not with revolt, but with resentment. Civilian casualties, job losses and damage to key industries like electronics in Shiraz have blurred internal divides, forging solidarity against a shared external enemy. Moreover, history doesn’t favour externally-scripted regime change, especially in a country with a long memory of foreign interference.

The 1953 CIA- and MI6-backed coup still casts a long shadow in Iran, shaping public attitudes and reinforcing the Islamic Republic’s paranoia. Even among regime critics, the idea of dancing to Israel’s tune remains deeply unpalatable. Operation Rising Lion may have struck hard, but perhaps not wisely. In its attempt to weaponise Iranian discontent, Israel may have underestimated the emotional and historical weight of nationalism and overestimated the readiness of Iran’s fractured opposition to rise. As the fallout continues, the line between destabilisation and strategic overreach is growing thinner, and the stage is now set for the battle not just between states, but for the hearts and allegiances of a wounded nation.

Flags and fault lines

This moment in Iran reveals an uncomfortable paradox. While Israel intended to weaken the Islamic Republic by hitting both military and civilian infrastructure, it has, however temporarily, shifted the political mood inward, toward the flag.

Rather than isolate the regime, it risks isolating dissenters, forcing them to recalibrate in an atmosphere now charged with national trauma and defensiveness. The attack on Shiraz, where an electronics industry was destroyed, offers a case in point. Though it may have served the military objective, it also crippled a key employment hub, drawing outrage from ordinary Iranians who otherwise hold little love for the regime. When livelihoods are incinerated under foreign fire, the space for anti-regime critique shrinks, morally, emotionally, and strategically.

And yet, beneath this momentary cohesion lies a brittle core. The deep anti-regime sentiment that had built up over years spurred by economic stagnation, repression, and generational frustration, has not vanished. But it remains leaderless. Despite widespread dissatisfaction with Ayatollah Khamenei and his inner circle, Iran’s opposition remains dangerously fragmented. A regime change cannot be orchestrated from abroad; it requires a credible domestic movement, something Iran currently lacks.

Outside Iran, the picture is no better. The exiled opposition is a divided camp, with no unified political strategy or mass credibility. Reza Pahlavi, son of the former Shah, may command symbolic capital in Western capitals, but within Iran, his movement is considered the weakest among several disjointed factions. Without discipline, without shared goals, and without a clear pathway to institutional power, the opposition cannot convert grievance into governance.

The result is a haunting contradiction: the strikes may have rattled Iran’s foundations, but they have not loosened its grip. Instead, they have deepened the regime’s survival instinct and stalled the momentum of protest. And for many Iranians, the louder the foreign calls for change grow, the quieter their own voices become. This silence is not consent, but it is caution. And that caution is rooted in memory. To understand the choreography of silence, restraint, and nationalism unfolding in Iran today, one must also listen to the echoes of its past.

From the 1907 Anglo-Russian Convention that carved the nation into foreign “zones of influence,” to the 1953 coup that ousted the democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh, Iran’s political memory is steeped in intrusion masked as liberation. These aren’t just dusty pages in a history book. They are active scars, animating both the regime’s worldview and the public’s ambivalence towards foreign intervention. Every Israeli missile that strikes Iranian soil isn’t just a present-tense threat; for the people, it reverberates backward, awakening a well-honed national reflex: resist the outsider first, debate the insider later. What we’re witnessing in Iran, then, is not just a geopolitical standoff, but also a historical echo.

(Deepanshu is a professor of economics at the Jindal School of Liberal Arts and Humanities, O P Jindal Global University; Najam works with the university’s Centre for New Economics Studies)