Iran: The future of 'Reform' in the shadow of war

As the bombardment campaign conducted by the US and Israel enters its 14th day, Tehran is no longer just the administrative center of a state; it has become a strategic arena of reckoning where global power balances are being reshuffled. This intense military pressure from the air has pushed Iran beyond being a local regional actor and placed it at the most vulnerable, yet most decisive, critical threshold of structural transformation in the global imperial/colonial system.

Civilian casualties in Iran and the region indicate that the war will produce deep and lasting traumas on the social fabric. The fact that the number of dead and wounded in Iran and Lebanon has surpassed thousands reveals that the crisis has gained not only a military dimension but also a serious humanitarian catastrophe dimension. The airstrike on a school in Minab on the very first day of the war, which resulted in the deaths of many female students, is a shocking manifestation of sacrificing humanitarian values for strategic interests. Such attacks violate international law and make the normative and moral legitimacy of the war highly questionable.

Today, Iran is facing not only a military attack but a multidimensional siege that paralyzes its economic and social structure. The physical destruction caused by the war, combined with the deep wounds inflicted by economic sanctions on the daily lives of the people, has effectively trapped the country in a constant spiral of "state of emergency."

These extraordinary conditions, on one hand, consolidate the state's security-oriented reflexes and shift the agenda of political debates, while on the other hand, systematically narrowing the space for social opposition. As has been the case before—first in Afghanistan and Iraq, then in closed societies governed by autocratic regimes such as Tunisia, Egypt, Syria, and Libya—democratic demands and the search for freedom rising from the grassroots were turned into strategic levers for imperial-colonial interventions. As a result of these external interventions, these movements were diverted from their original course; ultimately, contrary to the promised democratic transformation, a political climate emerged where even state authority could not be established, and chronic chaos and institutional disintegration prevailed.

A similar spiral is manifesting today in the Iranian field, where the imperial and Zionist siege is sowing seeds as a systematic strategy. Iran is evolving into a phase of structural stagnation created by a double pincer that can be defined as 'repression inside, siege outside.' External military threats and economic sanctions fortify the security-oriented reflexes of the state apparatus and expand its ground for legitimacy in this direction; this situation restricts the space for social opposition. The demands for change and reformist pursuits that sprouted last December and January are being pushed to the background in the climate of the state of emergency created by the war and are condemned to deep uncertainty. This perception of existential threat created by the war suspends social demands; as a result, the country is buried in a historical silence and unpredictable uncertainty between internal tensions triggered by deepening class divisions and the reality of being a geopolitical target of global powers.

This uncertainty created by war and external threats actually brings to light a deep structural problem within social movements. The success of demands for change depends not only on public dissatisfaction but also on having organizational power and a clear strategy. In addition to examples such as the 'Arab Spring' and the 'Gezi Park Movement,' the 'Green Movement' and 'Mahsa Amini' protests in Iran, despite the initial massive mobilization, could not transcend existing political boundaries due to a lack of strong organization and strategy.

It is an incomplete approach to read the reform movement in Iran, which can be considered within the scope of new social movements, solely through the lens of economy or politics. What is truly important is how these processes transform social culture. In situations where reform channels are blocked and demands are postponed, society shows its reaction by turning daily life habits into areas of resistance. Thus, instead of being buried in silence, the masses continue the struggle by spreading it to every area of life.

In this direction, the symbolic and bodily resistance of women in the public sphere in Iran, the new forms of solidarity established by the younger generation through digital networks, and the civil participation methods of the urban middle class constitute the engine of the reform movement. Today, the path to political change no longer passes solely through negotiations between leaders or election results. On the contrary, change is shaped through the collective struggle capacity that society exhibits through these alternative channels and the effort to be visible in the public sphere. Therefore, at the point where institutional politics is blocked, this creative and civil resistance of society becomes the most realistic dynamic of future transformation.

In conclusion, in this new process where security-oriented reflexes will become even more entrenched due to the impact of war and external threats, it is obvious that Iran will experience not only a political deadlock but also a tension that spreads to all social strata. Although the state of emergency created by the war narrows institutional reform channels, the future of change will be determined by the organizational capacity of social actors and the new forms of solidarity they will establish through digital networks. The historical and chronic tension between the state's conservative-repressive apparatuses and the pluralistic demands of society will turn the public sphere into a new field of struggle. Viewed from this perspective, Iran's political future will continue to depend not only on intra-state power balances or the course of the war, but on society's ability to maintain its own collective capacity and sustain its public resistance.