Size, Fear, Anger, Repression, and More: Key Factors to Watch in Iran

I was present in Iran during the 2009 Green Movement, when demonstrations in Tehran reached hundreds of thousands and, at moments, more than a million participants. That scale posed a real challenge because it mobilized a broad, urban, secular, and religious middle class demanding reform. Today’s protests are geographically dispersed and persistent but appear to involve far fewer people at any given moment. More importantly, they have not yet translated into sustained strikes in strategic sectors such as oil, petrochemicals, transportation, or large factories. The decisive fact is not the courage of those protesting, but the millions of fence-sitters who sympathize yet fear joining them.

Second, fear works because it is rational—and because the state still functions.

Fear in Iran is not only about repression in the narrow sense. It is also structural. Leaving aside the current inflationary surge, currency collapse, and spikes in food prices, Iran’s administrative system still has the capacity to function relatively competently. The state continues to deliver subsidized education, health care, transportation, fuel, electricity, and water, alongside extensive welfare and patronage networks.

For much of the urban middle and working classes, protest is not a simple moral choice. It is a calculation that weighs political frustration against the risk of losing access to a system that, however corrupt, still provides. There is also the often-overlooked figure of the “dissatisfied Islamist”: citizens who accept the Islamic Republic’s framework but are deeply unhappy with its performance. Many of the merchants who have closed their shops in protest—traditionally conservative and sometimes regime-aligned—fit this category. Their actions signal economic grievance and political pressure, not necessarily a desire for regime overthrow. In both cases, fear is not cowardice; it is rational risk assessment.