Where’s the Opposition in Iran to Oust Regime?
David Asman and Jonathan Schanzer analyze the continuing US navy marketing campaign in Iran, Operation Epic Fury, the place CENTCOM reviews over 10,000 targets struck. They talk about the decimation of Iranian regime management and the stunning reluctance of European allies to completely assist President Trump’s aggressive technique, citing previous diplomatic disputes and potential financial strain. The phase additionally explores the challenges of an inside opposition motion amid extreme human rights abuses.
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EXCLUSIVE: As Iran’s opposition struggles to discover a unifying determine amid conflict, repression and near-total web blackouts, the husband of jailed Nobel Peace Prize laureate and Iranian human rights activist Narges Mohammadi says his spouse stays bodily battered however politically unbroken, whilst she sits in jail after what he describes as a brutal arrest and beating.
“Narges is a human rights activist and an advocate for civil society,” her husband, Taghi Rahmani, advised Fox Information Digital in an unique interview from Europe in exile. “In mobilizing society, and in organizing and shaping civil establishments, she is an energetic and brave girl.”
At a second when Iran’s ruling institution is reeling from the aftermath of U.S. and Israeli strikes, a fragile ceasefire, financial collapse and intensified crackdowns, Mohammadi’s identify is rising in a brand new mild: Not solely as a worldwide image of resistance, however probably as one of many few opposition figures whose legitimacy comes from struggling contained in the system moderately than exile, dynasty or factional politics.
Mohammadi, awarded the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize whereas imprisoned, has spent a long time as considered one of Iran’s most outstanding ladies’s rights and human rights activists.
Skilled as an engineer and later a journalist, she served as vp of the Defenders of Human Rights Heart, based by fellow Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi and have become internationally identified for campaigning in opposition to obligatory hijab legal guidelines, solitary confinement, prisoner abuse and the dying penalty.
Narges Mohammadi, Iranian human rights activist and vp of the Defenders of Human Rights Heart, poses for a portrait in an undated photograph. (Reuters)
Now, in response to her husband, her situation has worsened dramatically.
“Narges is presently detained in Zanjan jail,” he stated. “She was arrested in Mashhad through the month of Dey (round January) and was severely overwhelmed. Throughout her arrest, she obtained quite a few blows, leading to extreme accidents to her chest, head, physique and lungs.”
Rahmani stated jail medical authorities decided she needs to be transferred for therapy beneath her personal doctor’s supervision in Iran, however that Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence is refusing the switch and insisting she stay in Zanjan.
“Spiritually and mentally, Narges stays steadfast,” he stated. “She believes the Islamic Republic will not be fascinating for the Iranian folks, and advocates for a system primarily based on freedom, human rights and open relations with the world. Bodily, nonetheless, she has sustained extreme trauma and urgently requires medical consideration.”
Rahmani stated the final time he spoke together with his spouse was the night time earlier than she left for Mashhad, Iran, the place she was later arrested.
The Nobel banquet on the Grand Lodge in Oslo on Sunday, in reference to the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize 2023. Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi is imprisoned in Iran and is due to this fact represented by her kids Ali and Kiana Rahmani and her partner Taghi Rahmani, in Oslo, Norway Dec. 10, 2023. (NTB/Rodrigo Freitas through Reuters)
His account gives a uncommon inside look into the lifetime of considered one of Iran’s most internationally acknowledged dissidents at a second when questions over who could realistically lead opposition to the regime are intensifying.
“We hear an ideal deal in regards to the Iranian opposition, but media within the free world usually lack a exact definition and a full understanding of what the Iranian opposition truly is,” Iranian anti-regime activist Maryam Shariatmadari advised Fox Information Digital.
Shariatmadari, one of the recognizable faces of Iran’s “Women of Revolution Road” motion, a wave of anti-regime protests that started in 2017 when Iranian ladies publicly eliminated their hijabs and stood in defiance of the nation’s necessary veiling legal guidelines, was sentenced to jail in 2018 after publicly eradicating her hijab in protest.
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Ali Rahmani, son of imprisoned Iranian human rights activist Narges Mohammadi, speaks after receiving the Nobel Peace Prize 2023 on her behalf at Oslo Metropolis Corridor in Norway. (Fredrik Varfjell/NTB)
In keeping with Shariatmadari, one camp consists of Iranians who view the 1979 Islamic Revolution itself because the foundational nationwide catastrophe, believing Iran’s trajectory was derailed when the Shah fell. The second contains former revolutionaries, reformists, communist factions and teams such because the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), a lot of whom emerged from or as soon as supported the revolutionary system earlier than later opposing it.
“The primary group considers the 1979 revolution a catastrophe and seeks a return to Iran’s earlier path,” she stated, whereas the second contains “those that participated within the revolution however later turned opposition figures after being excluded from energy.”
That distinction, she argues, helps clarify why Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of Iran’s final shah, stays uniquely recognizable amongst many anti-regime Iranians regardless of spending a long time exterior the nation.
Lisa Daftari, overseas coverage analyst and editor-in-chief of The International Desk information platform, advised Fox Information Digital, “Inside Iran, Pahlavi stays one of many solely opposition figures with broad identify recognition, and his message clearly resonated through the January protests, which is why his name still carries weight for a lot of Iranians each contained in the nation and within the diaspora.”
Pahlavi himself sharpened that message Friday after a sequence of European appearances, accusing each European politicians and journalists of ignoring the size of Iranian struggling.
“I spent the previous a number of weeks touring throughout Europe, chatting with members of parliaments, governments, and the press,” Pahlavi said in a video assertion on his official X account. “My go to had one goal: to present a voice to the hundreds of thousands of Iranians held hostage by the Islamic Republic … However I can now say with confidence that silencing, that censorship is not only occurring by the hands of the regime in Iran, however by the worldwide and significantly the European media.”
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Iran’s Reza Pahlavi, exiled son of Shah Reza Pahlavi, is protected by safety after he was attacked with a purple fluid, following a information convention in Berlin, Germany, April 23, 2026. (Markus Schreiber/The Related Press )
He went on to sentence what he described as European indifference to the mass killing of protesters and political executions, saying that throughout two press conferences in Stockholm and Berlin attended by greater than 150 journalists, “not a single one” requested in regards to the tens of thousands he says had been killed throughout January’s crackdown or the political prisoners dealing with execution.
“Whether or not or not Europe stands with us … I’ll struggle for my folks and my nation,” Pahlavi stated. “We are going to struggle till Iran is free.”
Nonetheless, even some supporters acknowledge why the administration has hesitated to brazenly embrace him as a transitional determine.
Daftari warned that overt Western backing might backfire by making him seem externally imposed moderately than domestically legitimized.
“The Trump administration’s resolution to not extra brazenly embrace him as a transitional determine seemingly displays a number of components: a deep wariness of constructing regime change the specific finish aim or showing to engineer it after Iraq and Afghanistan, concern that overt U.S. backing might put an excellent larger goal on his again and a technique that’s presently centered much less on anointing a successor and extra on degrading the regime’s capability to threaten its personal folks, the area and the US,” she stated.
If Pahlavi represents dynastic reminiscence and explicit regime-change politics, Mohammadi represents one thing profoundly completely different.
AS AIRSTRIKES RAIN DOWN ON THE IRANIAN REGIME, CAN A FRACTURED OPPOSITION UNITE TO LEAD IF IT FALLS?
Reza Pahlavi, son of Iran’s former Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, speaks throughout a press convention in Paris June 23, 2025. (Thomas Padilla/AP)
Mohammadi’s place inside that panorama is distinct because of her distinctive form of legitimacy at a time when many Iranians are looking out not just for opposition to the regime, however for a determine who embodies endurance beneath it.
For now, nonetheless, Rahmani warns that Iran’s home circumstances might make any mass uprising extraordinarily difficult.
“As , conflict serves as an excuse to suppress home forces inside a rustic,” he stated. “This conflict has now elevated the depth of the regime’s actions in opposition to the opposition.”
He argued that regardless of inside divisions, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has successfully consolidated energy, militarized the streets and severely weakened civil society.
“The Islamic Republic has virtually taken management of the streets throughout wartime and has severely weakened Iran’s civil society, which is the guarantor of democracy. In our opinion, this conflict, beneath these circumstances, is to not the good thing about Iran, nor to the good thing about the Iranian folks.”
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An image of Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi on the wall of the Grand Lodge in central Oslo earlier than the Nobel banquet, in reference to the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize 2023, in Oslo, Norway, Dec. 10, 2023. (NTB/Javad Parsa through Reuters)
Which may be the defining problem for Iran’s opposition immediately: not merely discovering a frontrunner, however surviving lengthy sufficient beneath extraordinary repression for one to emerge.
Whether or not Mohammadi can change into that determine stays unsure. However from jail, her husband says, she has not stopped believing Iran’s future will be completely different.
The Iranian mission to the United Nations didn’t reply to a request for remark in time for publication.
