By Mohammed Miah Senior Investigative Correspondent
Dateline: TEHRAN/DUBAI – In the tumultuous landscape of Middle Eastern geopolitics, narratives often shift faster than the frontlines. Over the past 72 hours, a peculiar and powerful counter-narrative has emerged from the fog of the recent escalation between Iran, Israel, and the United States.
Contrary to the expectations set by former President Donald Trump’s earlier overtures to the Iranian people—urging them to “take back their country” from the “Khamenei regime”—sources on the ground and regional analysts suggest a dramatic reversal in public sentiment is underway.
Following the reported death of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the transitional installation of a new government led by his son, Mojtaba Khamenei, a significant portion of the Iranian populace appears to be coalescing around the state. This feature investigates the “why” behind this shift, examining the accusations of an “illegal war” and the economic devastation gripping the region.
For years, the Western policy of “maximum pressure” was predicated on a belief: that economic strain would spark a popular uprising against the Islamic Republic. When President Trump (in his previous term and in recent statements) directly addressed the Iranian people, promising solidarity if they dismantled the regime of “Khamenei and his cronies,” it was seen by many in Washington as a catalyst for change.
However, our investigation indicates that the overture backfired.
“We have been tracking social media sentiment across Farsi-language platforms and conducting interviews with displaced persons and families inside Iran,” explains Dr. Leila Hosseini, a geopolitical risk analyst based in Dubai. “In the immediate aftermath of the succession, there was confusion. But as the bombing campaigns intensified, the rhetoric shifted from ‘death to the dictator’ to ‘death to the aggressor.'”
According to sources familiar with the internal dynamics of the Iranian power structure, Mojtaba Khamenei—long rumored to be a potential successor—has navigated the transition with a strategy of “defensive nationalism.”
“The new leadership immediately framed the Israeli and American strikes not as an attack on the regime, but as an attack on Iran,” says a former European diplomat who maintained backchannel communications with Tehran until last month. “They disseminated footage of civilian casualties—hospitals hit in Tabriz, a school in Isfahan—and attributed them directly to unplanned, structureless bombing campaigns.”
This messaging appears to have resonated. In interviews with Iranian expats who still have family in Tehran and Qom, a common theme emerges: fear of disintegration.
“My brother in Tehran used to despise the government for the corruption and the hijab laws,” says Parisa, an Iranian national living in London who asked to use a pseudonym. “But last week, he said, ‘If the Americans and Israelis are just going to bomb us because we are Iranian, then the government is our shield. We saw what happened in Gaza.'”
This comparison to Gaza, repeatedly amplified by state media, has been pivotal. The new leadership in Tehran has successfully branded the U.S. and Israel as aggressors waging a “war on Islam and Iranians,” rather than a war on the regime.
The legality of the current conflict is under fierce debate in international law circles. While Israel cites self-defense against Iranian proxies and the need to prevent a nuclear threshold state, international legal experts are questioning the jus ad bellum (the right to war) of the sustained bombing campaign.
“We are witnessing strikes on infrastructure far removed from known nuclear or military sites,” says Mahmoud Al-Jafari, a professor of international law at a university in the region (who requested anonymity for safety). “If there is no explicit UN Security Council resolution authorizing force, and if the actions are not a direct response to an armed attack from Iranian soil but rather a pre-emptive war, many signatories to the UN charter would consider this illegal.”
The narrative of illegality is gaining traction globally, particularly in the Global South. The conflict has spiked global oil prices past $120 a barrel, disrupted shipping lanes in the Strait of Hormuz, and sent inflation soaring across Europe and Asia. “The entire world is paying the price for a conflict that has no defined exit strategy,” Al-Jafari adds. “It looks to many like a self-perpetuating war machine.”
Military analysts express bewilderment at the reported strategy of the coalition forces.
“This doesn’t look like the methodical, surgical campaigns we saw in the past,” says retired U.S. Air Force Colonel Mark Reynolds. “The intelligence on the ground in a country as vast and fortified as Iran requires a massive, structured, multi-domain approach. What we are seeing appears to be opportunistic strikes rather than a coherent plan to degrade the new government’s military capabilities.”
This “unstructured” approach has led to a humanitarian toll. Hospitals in western Iran are reportedly overwhelmed not just with military casualties, but with civilians caught in the crossfire of what some diplomats are calling a “war by miscalculation.”
The ultimate irony, analysts suggest, is that the external pressure designed to oust the Iranian regime has instead solidified it.
“Donald Trump invited the Iranian people to take over their country,” Dr. Hosseini notes. “But when you combine foreign bombs falling on cities with the rise of a new, untested leader who waves the flag rather than the turban, the people often choose the flag. They see the alternative—total state collapse—as a fate worse than the status quo.”
As the conflict enters its fourth week, the people of Iran appear to have made their choice. Whether that choice leads to a new era of regional stability or a prolonged and devastating war remains the most pressing question for the Middle East and the global economy.