Tehran’s show of strength—and the cracks beneath
Behrouz Turani
Iran International
Tehran is signaling no retreat in the face of escalating protests, issuing fresh threats and hardening its rhetoric even as unrest continues across multiple cities.
Iran International
Tehran is signaling no retreat in the face of escalating protests, issuing fresh threats and hardening its rhetoric even as unrest continues across multiple cities.
Rather than acknowledge public anger or suggest compromise, Iran’s leadership has moved to project defiance—tightening control, mobilizing loyalists and insisting that the state remains firmly in charge.
That posture was most clearly on display on state television on Friday, with thinly veiled threats against protesters, including warnings to parents to keep their children off the streets “if they care about their safety.”
Channel 3, one of the country’s most-watched stations, framed the unrest as a coordinated assault on the state, while commentators denounced protesters for demanding basic civil rights even as images showed security forces firing tear gas and live ammunition into crowds.
Tehran’s mayor, Alireza Zakani, said protesters in the capital had set fire to dozens of buses and public buildings, branding them “terrorists” while omitting that many of those buses are routinely used to transport detainees.
Parallel universes
Leading this hard line—as always—was Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who delivered a defiant, threat-laden speech after a night of furious protests. He accused demonstrators of acting on behalf of foreign enemies and vowed to confront what he called “sabotage” with force.
Throughout the day, television screens depicted two Irans unfolding in parallel.
On one channel, young men with patchy beards sang aging anthems glorifying violence and sacrifice in the name of religious devotion. On another, images showed frustrated protesters attacking a supermarket—only to leave without taking anything. The two sides appeared to inhabit different moral and political universes.
The attacks on regime icons, including toppled effigies of former IRGC Qods Force commander Qasem Soleimani, point to something deeper than rage: the breaking of a spell.
For decades, Khamenei cultivated the image of an untouchable ruler—a giant towering over a society long conditioned to fear the machinery of repression. But power often begins to erode symbolically before it does materially.
An unmistakable shift
The Islamic Republic’s response to loud cries of rejection has been to insist, ever more loudly, that nothing essential has changed. Yet the need for such insistence is itself revealing. Giants do not announce their strength; they assume it.
When power must be constantly performed, restated and enforced on screen, it is often because the myth that sustained it is beginning to crack.
Iran’s leadership may yet suppress the unrest. It still commands formidable coercive tools. But the scenes now unfolding—even through the narrow lens of state television—suggest that something has shifted.
The state is shouting certainty into a country that no longer appears convinced. And once that moment arrives, the fall of a giant is no longer unthinkable—even if it is not yet complete.
Tehran’s unveiling of a towering statue depicting the Roman Emperor Valerian kneeling before pre-Islamic Persian King Shapur I has renewed criticism of the Islamic Republic’s appeal to nationalist sentiment following the June war with Israel.
For over forty years, the theocracy purged ancient Persian history from schoolbooks, replacing it with post-Islamic narratives. But after the 12-day conflict with Israel, officials have turned to the distant pre-Islamic past to rally a divided society.
From murals of ancient kings and soldiers to patriotic songs added to Shi’ite mourning ceremonies performed before Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, Tehran now embraces imagery once deemed heretical by its own revolutionary ethos.
'Kneel before Iran' campaign
Tehran’s Revolution (Enghelab) Square was the scene of an unusual spectacle on Friday as officials unveiled a massive bronze statue depicting Roman Emperor Valerian kneeling in submission before Sassanid King Shapur I, commemorating Iran’s victory at the Battle of Edessa (260 AD).
The event was held under the slogan “Kneel before Iran,” part of what authorities describe as a campaign to project “national unity and historical pride” following the June war with Israel.
Tehran Mayor Alireza Zakani, a staunch ultraconservative, said on X: “Enmity with Great Iran can only end in kneeling before this historic nation.”
Municipal official Davood Goodarzi said the installation would be accompanied by visual displays depicting “other victories of Iranians over foreign aggressors,” including the defeat of British forces by local commander Rais-Ali Delvari, Mirza Kuchak Khan’s resistance against Russian troops, and Surena’s triumph over Rome at the Battle of Carrhae in 53 BCE.
The goal, Goodarzi said, is “strengthening concepts such as national dignity, social unity, and Iranian identity.”
The statue, he said, would remain temporarily at Revolution Square before being moved to a city gateway “where it will stand as the first emblem of Iran before diplomats and foreign visitors.”
Unveiled women were allowed to attend the unveiling ceremony—an uncommon scene at events organized by Tehran’s ultra-hardline municipality.
The turn to the pre-Islamic past
The sharp reversal also recalls remarks once made by Khamenei. In a 2011 speech, he asserted that “all the great military victories of this nation came after Islam,” dismissing pre-Islamic accounts as “things that are not documented.”
In 1987, he had said that prophets triumphed over kings such as Cyrus and that “nothing remains of these monarchs in history but names remembered with derision.”
Nevertheless, pro-government social media accounts have now gone so far as to circulate posters equating Khamenei himself with Shapur, showing him standing with a staff as Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump kneel before him. The caption reads: “You will kneel before Iran.”
'Hypocrisy'
Pro-government figures have hailed the move as a patriotic success. Conservative political reporter Hossein Saremi posted: “Today’s grand Iranian gathering showed that people and the state share one essence: Iran itself. Nothing can take our homeland away.”
Others, however, called the spectacle “hypocrisy.” Journalist Gholamhossein Pashaei wrote on X: “Every year you close Pasargadae to stop people from celebrating Cyrus Day, yet you unveil Shapur’s statue in Enghelab Square with drums and fireworks during Fatimiyya (mourning period)!”
Dissident commentator Hamid Asafi called the ceremony “a perfect snapshot of the Islamic Republic’s contradictions.”
On Telegram he wrote: “A week ago they closed Cyrus’s tomb out of fear of the crowds, and now they glorify Shapur in the same breath. The Islamic Republic fears living history but poses for selfies with its corpse.”
He added: “They know people no longer respond to rosaries and sermons. That’s why they’ve brought history back to the stage—in a controlled costume. If they can’t erase the past, they’ll try to own it.”
The irony deepened as UNESCO formally recognized Cyrus’s Charter as one of the earliest human-rights documents.
President Masoud Pezeshkian wrote on X: “Iran, the cradle of dialogue, justice, and coexistence, can still inspire peace today.”
Users swiftly replied, questioning how such pride could coexist with a government that blocks access to Cyrus’s tomb each year to those wishing to visit it on his birthday.