The Iranian regime is gambling on the wider world looking away

Iran is convulsing in protest. After a disconcerting delay in media attention, much of the world is once again watching as courageous Iranians from nearly all the country’s 31 provinces defy internet blackouts and deadly crackdowns in yet another fight for freedom.

The astonishing images of indefatigable defiance are already seared into our consciousness.

The lone man, head bowed and legs crossed in the middle of the street, blocking a convoy of advancing regime forces on motorcycles. Young women, hair uncovered, lighting cigarettes from burning photos of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. An elderly woman, bloodied after a projectile struck her in the face, marching forward and shouting, “I’m not afraid! I’m not afraid! I’ve been dying for 47 years already.”

This is certainly not the first time Iranians are revolting against the Islamic Republic. Far from it. Nor is it the first time hopes have surged that the regime might finally crack. From the 2009 Green Movement following the disputed presidential re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, to the 2017-2019 economic protests, to the 2022-2023 “Woman, Life, Freedom” uprising sparked by the killing of Mahsa Jina Amini, Iranians have repeatedly taken to the streets demanding dignity, accountability and a future free from tyranny.

Each time, the world watched. Until it didn’t.

Until the next global crisis emerged. Until attention drifted. Until Iran, and its people, were quietly relegated back to the geopolitical background noise.

In the years I spent speaking to Iranians inside Iran and across the diaspora while researching and writing Unveiled: Inside Iran’s #WomanLifeFreedom Revolt, one reality became painfully clear: the Islamic Republic has survived not because it enjoys broad-based support and legitimacy, but because it has perfected its repression machine, and because it has learned it can often act with impunity once fatigue kicks in and the world looks away. Even as the world is watching, anti-government Iranian news outlets like Iran International have reported on the death toll of protesters already exceeding 2,000 amid intense internet shutdowns.

The Woman, Life, Freedom uprising marked a profound rupture in Iranian society. It was not simply a protest against compulsory hijab laws or a single atrocity, but a direct challenge to the ideological foundations of the Islamic Republic itself. Women led it. The youth sustained it and disseminated its message of Zan, Zendegi, Azadi (Woman, Life, Freedom) across cyberspace. Protest slogans moved beyond reform to a rejection of clerical rule, of imposed quasi-morality, and of violence as a governing tool.

What we are witnessing now is not the return of that uprising, but its continuation.

Despite mass arrests, executions, forced confessions, schoolgirl poisonings, and relentless surveillance, the regime has failed to restore the pre-2022 status quo. Acts of everyday resistance, including unveiled women in public spaces, students confronting authorities, workers striking, families publicly mourning executed loved ones, have become normalized forms of dissent. This is precisely what terrifies the Islamic Republic most: not a single explosive moment, but sustained, society-wide refusal that becomes impossible to contain.

Yet history shows that moments like this are fragile.

Time and again, international attention has faded just as pressure mattered most. Vague and elusive diplomatic engagements loomed. Executions spiked quietly. Protesters vanished into prisons. The regime learned a dangerous lesson: wait it out.

That lesson cannot be reinforced again.

The protests unfolding today come at a moment of acute vulnerability for a regime that is economically strained, weakened militarily, and increasingly reliant on brute force rather than consent. This is a historic juncture because Iran’s future will be shaped by whether its people are supported and remembered, or abandoned.

Solidarity means sustained visibility. It means amplifying Iranian voices rather than speaking over them. It means holding perpetrators accountable and not rewarding repression with silence.

Above all, it means resisting the temptation to move on.

The people of Iran have not moved on. They can’t afford to. They are still in the streets, still defying bullets, and still insisting at immense personal cost that another future is possible.

As Iran’s streets continue to be electrified by mass revolt, I find myself returning to Shervin Hajipour’s extraordinary ballad, Baraye (“Because of”), the unofficial anthem of the 2022 uprising. The Grammy Award-winning song weaves together  social media posts by Iranians expressing reasons for their discontent and for why they took to the streets. Those voices, as urgent then as they are now, capture not only what Iranians reject, but what they are so bravely fighting for:

For dancing on the streets

For the fear of kissing in public

For yearning for an ordinary life

For this dictatorial economy

For this polluted air

For our nonstop tears

For students and their futures

For peace and serenity

For woman, life, freedom

Jonathan Harounoff, Israel’s international spokesperson at the United Nations, is the award-winning author of “Unveiled: Inside Iran’s #WomanLifeFreedom Revolt.”