Iran: Beware the Western propaganda

There’s lots of disinformation being pushed out about the protests in Iran, and while the crisis is probably as great as it was in 1979, there is not yet any done deal. The fact that a former prince — no, not that one — in exile in the US is being pushed as the next leader in Tehran illustrates the complexities and uncertainties of the situation.

Reza Pahlavi, 65, is said to be backed by the US and Israel to take over in Tehran. The “current unrest” is reported by Aljazeera as the “Plan B” of Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu “following the conclusion of the 12-day war between Israel and Iran in May last year.” Indeed, Israel has been backing Pahlavi’s return to Iran for some time, as reported by Haaretz last October.

Like it or not, though, there are still many millions of working-class people who support the government in Iran. More than 13 million voters backed the ultra-conservative candidate Saeed Jalili in the last election. He is a prominent, hard-line Iranian politician, academic and former chief nuclear negotiator known for his deep loyalty to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, serving as his representative on the Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) and running for president multiple times, most recently in 2024. Such support cannot be discounted.

That will be an inconvenient truth for the English-speaking intellectuals in north Tehran, but it is a fact that nobody — apart from the BBC, it seems — chooses to ignore. These voters support the regime and the powerful Basij voluntary militia branch of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), as well as the Corps itself. And these groups are not going anywhere.

Nevertheless, there are struggles within the government and subtle signs of change being considered. If this happens it will be down to the heroic revolutionaries on the ground who love their country and could show their own leadership capabilities without any need to import a would-be shah who represents the past and not the future. Iran’s future lies among the street protestors, but I doubt if even they expect the regime to collapse overnight. This is an intelligent population said to have a higher IQ than the MAGA movement and most Americans. That’s probably not too great an achievement these days, however, when we look at who was elected to sit in the Oval Office.

President Masoud Pezeshkian in Tehran won the snap presidential election following the death of Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash in May 2024. He is open to change. The greatest positive influence inside Iran comes from veteran politician Ali Larijani, a prominent figure within the Iranian power structure, who in August 2025 was appointed Secretary of the SNSC and the Supreme Leader’s personal representative to that body. The Iranians are not certainly not politically naïve; they know what they want: far-reaching changes in the regime’s policies, especially if the IRGC takes control.

Unlike other countries and other revolutions, there is no real opposition either within Iran or beyond its borders. Exiled opposition groups are splintered and weak, despite support from the US and UK. Calls for the return of the monarchy are almost laughable. Memories of the last Shah’s brutality and Savak secret police torture chambers are still raw in Iran.

A massive amount of disinformation is being spread thanks to right-wing Western media with Islamophobic agendas fuelled by Zionism. What the drivers of this propaganda campaign fail to understand is that a significant number of Iranians who want the regime gone also realise that its collapse would create a vacuum leading to serious instability, with the probable result that Iran would be broken up into a number of mini-states.

The real pressure is thus on the government to offer protesters positive changes, including fresh policies. Angry as they are at the regime, they are equally afraid of what will follow in the event of it collapsing. It might not trouble agitators in Washington and Tel Aviv about where this is all leading, but they are not paying the blood price. Furthermore, the Zionist state already has agents operating on the ground in Iran, according to one Israeli minister, although its security agencies are advising against “intervening in Iran events”. Either way, Israel is no friend of Iran and its people and can’t be trusted.

The US is neither a force for good nor a nation builder, unless the president of the day in the White House or his family and cronies stand to make lots of money out of it. There is plenty of evidence of what can and usually does result from US foreign policy — which is basically back Israel no matter what, and if there is oil to be had, so much the better — not least by analysing what has happened in Iraq, Syria, Libya and Gaza after revolutionary uprisings.

There is far more to what is taking place in Iran than meets the eye. Beware the Western propaganda. It is up to no good.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.