Sina Toossi is a Senior Non-Resident Fellow at the Center for International Policy. He writes on U.S.–Iran relations, Iranian politics and society and nuclear nonproliferation. His work has appeared in Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, The Guardian and Al Jazeera English, among other outlets. He tweets at @SinaToossi.
In many Western capitals, a standard cliche about Iran is stubbornly frozen: The country remains a hardline theocracy bent on regional hegemony, holding to a revisionist agenda in the Middle East and beyond. Yet, the months since the June 2025 war—in which Israel and the United States jointly bombed Iran—complicate that narrative.
A close reading of Iran's domestic debates, shifting media landscape and evolving social tensions reveals a state and society focused above all on survival. That imperative encompasses the political system's durability, national cohesion and the renegotiation of a strained social contract.
That focus on survival has produced a complex and sometimes contradictory environment. The Islamic Republic is not easing its grip; in key areas it is hardening it. Yet, in parallel, the system is allowing an unprecedented degree of public debate about its strategic choices, from foreign alignments to cultural and social norms.
This combination of newfound openness in some arenas and intensified repression in others contradicts dominant Western narratives. Iran is neither a state nearing collapse nor a confident power determined to remake the region. Rather, it is a self-interested state maneuvering from a strategic corner while hedging aggressively against internal and external threats.
The June war amplified this dynamic, which many Iranians experienced not as another battle in the long conflict with Israel but as a direct effort to break the country. Israel launched its surprise attack amid U.S.–Iran nuclear negotiations, killing more than a dozen senior commanders and nuclear scientists.
Iran is neither a state nearing collapse nor a confident power determined to remake the region. Rather, it is a self-interested state maneuvering from a strategic corner while hedging aggressively against internal and external threats.
- Sina Toossi
Over the following week, Israel hit state television headquarters, Evin prison and a meeting of top officials at the Supreme National Security Council, among numerous other targets. Operatives sent death threats to officials and their families to spur defections, while coordinated disinformation campaigns aimed to trigger bank runs and unrest. Strikes on intersections and energy and financial infrastructure amplified the sense of a campaign designed to destabilize the country.
Yet, instead of chaos, much of Iranian society rallied, not necessarily behind the Islamic Republic as a government but behind Iran as a nation. Iranians widely viewed the attacks as a foreign assault launched as the state pursued diplomacy, and this perception generated a striking degree of unity in an otherwise polarized society.
That national threat bridged deep political divides, with figures often sidelined by the ruling establishment reacting with urgency. Former President Hassan Rouhani called the strikes an effort to "finish" Iran. Reformist former President Mohammad Khatami framed the war as a bid to "dismember" the country, warning that military resilience would only be sustainable with economic reform, reduced corruption and improved public satisfaction.
Similarly, Independent unions, women's rights defenders, student groups and non-governmental organizations condemned the Israeli-American assault, stressing that war would fall hardest on ordinary people. Statements from leading dissidents Narges Mohammadi, Nasrin Sotoudeh and more than five hundred other activists insisted that external pressure and war would only empower the security state, shrinking space for peaceful change. Their message was clear: Iranians do not want war and do not see it as a path to democracy.
Still, this shared sense of external danger has not fully translated into political easing at home. In many everyday spaces, life feels more open. Many women move through cities without hijab as cultural life has taken a new vibrancy. Large artistic events and concerts draw crowds, independent theaters and music venues are thriving and mixed-gender public exercise and sports gatherings have grown common.
But these openings collide with the state's existing divisions. The reformist administration of President Masoud Pezeshkian has resisted conservative demands for tighter controls, sidelining last year's proposed mandatory hijab law despite hardliner pushback. Much of this contest now unfolds through digital and legal tools rather than physical coercion. The Kish women's marathon—celebrated by many yet condemned by conservative institutions and referred for prosecution—captures this whack-a-mole pattern: Society organically moves forward as a fractured state oscillates between accommodation and suppression.
Meanwhile, the state hardens its position in more sensitive areas. Security services have arrested scholars for alleged links to Western institutions. Executions have surged. A sweeping new law permits the death penalty for a broad range of contacts with foreign governments or media. Iran's digital restrictions are increasingly sophisticated, reserving unfiltered internet for insiders while ordinary citizens face deepening layers of control. The result is stark: Social life is opening as political repression intensifies wherever the state senses vulnerability.
Social life is opening as political repression intensifies wherever the state senses vulnerability.
- Sina Toossi
Against this backdrop emerges a striking openness in debate over Iran's foreign policy orientation. This debate now extends beyond the United States to include Russia and China, with remarkably candid and direct arguments about the country's direction.
The recent public dispute between former Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, exemplifies this dynamic. In October, Lavrov attributed the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) "snapback" clause—which governed the restoration of U.N. sanctions within the Iran nuclear deal—to a late-stage agreement between Zarif and former U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry. Critics in Iran seized on Lavrov's description of the clause as a "legal trap" that surprised Moscow, arguing Zarif foolishly negotiated a fundamentally flawed deal.
Zarif publicly rejected this account, reiterating his previous accusations of Russian obstruction given Moscow's past support for U.N. sanctions, resistance to Iran's admission to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and what he claimed were proposals meant to keep Iran dependent on Russian nuclear fuel. Russia, he argued, viewed normalization between Iran and the West as a threat to its interests.
The exchange sparked a broader debate inside Iran about the country's long-term geopolitical footing, including long-standing concerns that Russia prefers an Iran neither fully isolated nor fully reintegrated globally. However, what matters most is not the factual accuracy of each claim but the fact that such debates occur more openly. They reveal a genuine divide within the establishment as relations with the West remain frozen and as many Iranians recall the brief post-nuclear deal opening as evidence that strategic rebalancing was possible.
This debate is emerging alongside Iran's transforming media landscape. For decades, domestic discourse flowed through a narrow funnel dominated by state television, while alternative voices came mostly from foreign Persian-language broadcasters. That world is fading. Smartphones, social media and platforms like YouTube have created a new arena for direct, unscripted debate about foreign policy, religion, social norms and even the decisions of senior officials.
Rasaneh Azad, a YouTube-based debate program produced by a team of young academics and media professionals in Iran, personifies this shift. It hosts structured arguments on subjects once considered untouchable, from relations with Russia and China to corruption and mandatory hijab. That it even operates reflects the state's uneven but deliberate experimentation with digital spaces: Repression remains pervasive, with bounded debate tolerated within certain limits.
The result is a fragile but genuine public sphere alongside formal politics. As Iran reassesses its direction after the June war, these platforms have become places where the country is thinking out loud, testing arguments, exposing contradictions and revealing a society far more dynamic than many outsiders assume.
For U.S.–Iran relations, these developments point to a basic strategic reality. Iran's leadership, for all its internal contradictions, is operating from a survival mindset. If Washington approaches negotiations by demanding that Iran abandon the very behaviors it views as essential to survival—its deterrence posture, regional relationships and aspects of its political structure—while refusing to consider necessary American policy shifts, cooperation becomes impossible.
Successful diplomacy requires mutual movement. Agreements endure when neither side walks away exactly as it entered. Recognizing this symmetry is essential for any U.S. policy seeking not simply to pressure Iran, but to genuinely influence its strategic choices and escape recurring confrontation.
The views and positions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of DAWN.
