Why Iran’s regime fears the people more than foreign missiles

2026-03-13 - 18:14

As the geography of Iran is overshadowed by the fog of a foreign war, a climate of tension and anxiety has taken hold. Yet, amidst the external turmoil, the most fundamental question is where the real war is actually taking place. The true battlefield does not lie on Iran’s borders, but in its streets. Even if the regime eventually strikes a deal with foreign adversaries to preserve its power, there is no compromise to be made with an Iranian society that demands freedom and dignity. The only possible outcome to this domestic conflict is the definitive end of the mullahs’ 47-year occupation of the country. Citizens declared as enemy combatants The regime’s top security officials have explicitly shifted their crosshairs onto ordinary citizens, revealing the ruling establishment’s true fears. In a blatant admission of the regime’s war on its people, Ahmad-Reza Radan, the commander of the State Security Forces, told state television on the evening of March 10, 2026: “If anyone comes to the streets at the enemy’s request, we do not view them as a protester. We view them as an enemy and will deal with them as we deal with an enemy. All our forces have their fingers on the trigger.” By defining protesting citizens as enemy combatants, the regime has made it clear that its primary adversaries are the Iranian people themselves. Militarizing the streets of Iran Driven by the dread of popular dissent, the regime has transformed major cities into heavily fortified military zones. Plainclothes agents and Basij forces have established widespread checkpoints to instill terror. On March 13, 2026, the official state news agency IRNA reported: “In the fourteenth day of the war, security and law enforcement preparations in cities are expanding... In addition to extensive checkpoints in cities and thoroughfares, street patrols have tripled to guarantee sustainable security during the war period.” The oppressive atmosphere is so suffocating that on March 10, the Coordinating Council of Iranian Teachers’ Trade Associations issued a statement describing the environment in Tehran over the past few days as resembling a “military barracks.” The lingering nightmare of the uprising The root cause of the regime’s hysterical domestic crackdown is the trauma it suffered during the nationwide popular uprising of December 2025–January 2026. The mullahs are terrified that the repressed anger of the people will resurface on an even larger scale. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Intelligence Organization openly connected the current international tensions to the recent uprisings. In a statement on March 13, the IRGC claimed that the “evil enemy” is trying to exploit wartime fears to reignite street riots. Recalling their previous statements, the IRGC reiterated their paranoid belief that the winter “street riots” were merely a “prelude to military strikes,” prompting them to order Basij and IRGC mercenaries to maintain a “constant presence in the scene.” Dehumanization and threats of brutal massacres To justify extreme violence against its own population, the IRGC has resorted to dehumanizing the participants of the recent protests, labeling them as “Neo-ISIS” in a separate statement. Furthermore, the IRGC Intelligence Organization explicitly threatened the public, warning that if new protests erupt, a blow “harder than January 8” awaits them, referring to the most brutal day of the January uprising, where the regime’s security forces opened fire and killed thousands of protesters. These frantic measures prove that the gap between the Iranian society and the regime has passed the point of no return. The true nightmare keeping the mullahs awake is not a foreign attack, but the irreversible momentum of a people determined to reclaim their country.