The generational struggle for freedom continues for the Iranian people

Natalie Gonnella Platts: I’m joined by Holly Dagres, who is a Libitsky Family Senior Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, to discuss what’s going on in Iran at the moment. Holly, thank you so much for joining me.

Holly Dagres: Thank you so much for having me, Natalie. It’s really a pleasure to be here discussing this topic that’s near and dear to my heart.

Natalie Gonnella Platts: Well, obviously, it’s part of your professional work, but also you have a very personal connection to the region. To set things up – what are the most important things Americans should keep in mind right now amid the current situation in Iran, which is obviously ever-changing?

Holly Dagres: I think there are a couple of key points that sometimes get missed. The first is that the Islamic Republic does not represent its people. An overwhelming majority of the population wants the Islamic Republic gone. We’ve seen this play out in countless cyclical anti-regime protests over the years. Most famously, one came to a head in 2022, known as the Woman, Life, Freedom uprising, prompted by the murder of a 22-year-old Kurdish-Iranian woman, Mahsa Jina Amini, at the hands of the so-called morality police.

Then, of course, we had another anti-regime uprising in late December into January, which unfortunately resulted in an unprecedented massacre of thousands, if not tens of thousands, of Iranians. I’m happy to break down the numbers if you would like.

Natalie Gonnella Platts: Absolutely. I think that’s a really important point, because what happened in late December into early January has been described as essentially the single largest massacre by gunfire of a civilian population since World War II. Let’s talk more about what played out and why that moment was so significant, especially within the resistance movement.

Holly Dagres: On December 28, the Iranian rial collapsed against the U.S. dollar, prompting merchants and bazaar workers to take to the streets. This quickly spread nationwide, with protests across all 31 provinces. It became clear a crackdown would ensue.

To understand the significance of the two-day massacre on January 8 and 9, we should note that on January 6, Kurdish Iranian groups called for a strike, and former Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi encouraged people to go out at 8 p.m. on January 8 and 9 to express their opposition. That night, unprecedented numbers of Iranians participated. BBC Verify noted they hadn’t seen anything like it in decades.

What followed was a communications blackout—not just internet shutdowns, but also landlines, which was unprecedented. Under that cover, mass atrocities were committed. Human Rights Activists in Iran documented at least 7,000 killed civilians and were reviewing another 10,000 cases. But then the war broke out and they had to focus on the war. A UN Special Rapporteur suggested the number could be around 20,000, while other estimates have gone as high as 30,000 or more. The President himself said that number is probably 32,000.

For historical context, Iranians would have to go back to the 1790s to find violence on this scale committed by the state. It really shook Iranians in a way I hadn’t seen before. We had seen mass atrocities committed by the Islamic Republic. Women Life Freedom and the UN Fact Finding Misson found that crimes against humanity had been committed at that time. And of course this recent event is on the level on crimes against humanity. Just the horrors that were described at that time. There were so many bodies that they would just dump them like lumps of meat from ice cream trucks from meat freezers and people would have to rummage through these bodies to look for their loved ones. Sorry to be so graphic. But the stories that came out and were shared amongst Iranians. For example, security forces going into hospitals and shooting protesters point blank in the head. All of this started being shared within the country and then when the internet went back online with the diaspora.

This led to calls for Responsibility to Protect (R2P), from figures like human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh inside Iran and Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi on the outside. There was a strong sense that the regime must go. These crimes are horrific.  It’s also important to remember that this uprising and massacre prompted the president to move military assets to the region, which is often gets lost in discussions about the current war.

Natalie Gonnella Platts: This has really been a generational struggle for decades, since the regime came to power nearly five decades ago. I appreciate you being so graphic in describing what transpired in January. I think it’s important to remind people too that so many of those killed were Iran’s best and brightest. These are mothers, and sisters, and daughters, and husbands, and sons and colleagues. Can you talk more about that generational struggle and what has been lost? What have they risked in getting to the point that we are?

Holly Dagres: Iranians from all walks of life have pushed back of all religious and ethic backgrounds have being pushing back against the Islamic Republic for 47 years. What we’ve seen in recent uprisings the 2022 Women Life Freedom uprising and the December/January uprising is that they are youth-led, they’re led by Iranian by Gen Z. This generation is different. They are born with the internet and social media at their finger tips. granted about 35% of popular websites are blocked, but they are tuned in to illegal satellite dishes to access the outside world. They understand how others live and want what they call a “normal life.” They try to create that behind close doors or with their fashion sense. Gen Z is a globalized generation. The Gen Z fashion you might see in DC or London, also translates to Tehran. Some of the movies that also captivates Gen Z also translates in Iran.

English slang has been woven into Persian and it is Gen Z lingo. It is because of that interconnectivity. But that interconnectivity that has pushed young Iranians to aspire for more and that is why you’ve been seeing them to anti regime protests knowing full well that they’ll be met with bullets and batons, risking their lives for freedom. They want to have a normal life like much of the youth of their generation.

Natalie Gonnella Platts: I think this comes back to the point you made earlier – the significance of the internet and telecommunications blackouts. Why are these such a threat to the regime, and where are the opportunities for the global community to better support the Iranian people amid this catastrophic blackout?

Holly Dagres: Since the 2009 Green Movement, the Islamic Republic has viewed the internet and social media as a national security threat. Over the years, they’ve found ways to control it. They’ve come up with their own cyber police that policies the people and their posts. Whether its political or a woman not abiding by hijab rules. They’ve also, as I mentioned earlier, censored 35% of the most popular websites. Every social media platform that we use is blocked for the most part and they have to use  VPNs to get online. but funding for internet freedom tools was cut, by the Trump Administration. I think before the cut about 30% of VPNs were provided by government funding. Granted in an internet shutdown, VPNs don’t work. But, when the internet does come back online it is useful for Iranians to use these VPNs. But the thing we’ve seen more and more of since the uprising.

Iranians have also smuggled in Starlink terminals, with an estimated 50,000 to 60,000 users. These are illegal. And during the war, the regime has been cracking down and saying these are tools for spying on behalf of the United States and Israel. There is a coalition of the people leading something called Direct to Sell. Not just people but organizations. The next generation of cell phones are going to be able to connect directly to a satellite dish. You won’t need starlink or a VPN, your phone in your hand could use the internet via starlink like you would on an Airplane. That is something people are paying attention to now. But the issue is that there are all these conferences coming up and they dictate the regulations with telecoms. If the United States is not present at these conference there is a change that China, Russia, or Iran will dominate the space and push back on some of that legislation that would determine if those cell phones could connect to. So that’s something that I know organizations, like witness, led by Masa Ali Maradoni. This is her main project that are actually pushing this forward as much as they can, at least behind the scenes.

Natalie Gonnella Platts:

Your last point, I think, is really important as well in highlighting the relationship that exists between the Islamic Republic in Iran and Putin’s government in Russia along with the Chinese. I think this is evident in the surveillance technology that has been used by the Islamic Republic against the Iranian people. This is just another example of how these authoritarian regimes are working together to undermine advocates and the pursuit of democratic reforms in these very restrictive states.

Diving into that a little bit more, I think one thing that doesn’t get enough attention is just how deeply entrenched the IRGC is in all facets of society today — and how intentional that has been on the part of the regime. So, can you talk a little bit about that — what it means — and why, for those Iranians who have risked their lives calling for a free and fair future, it has been so tremendously difficult to see that realized over the years? And in terms of all the protest movements — the continuity of those is absolutely incredible in its own right. It persists, which I think is a testament to the pursuit, the quest for change that so many in Iran seek for their country and their future.

Holly Dagres: The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps or the IRGC was created by Ayatollah Khomeini in the 1980s. His idea to protect the Islamic Republic from inside and outside threats.  Inside, that means the Iranian people. Outside being outside being, we think about, like, their foreign arm, which is the IRGC Quds Force, and some of the espionage and intelligence operations that they conduct, outside the country.

Domestically, they’ve obviously since come to include the ballistic missiles program, having an intelligence arm that takes, foreign and dual nationals hostage. Of course, they are in control of the besiege, or the people’s militia. That is really key in the brutal crackdown on the Iranian people over the decades. And so, they’ve really found themselves having their hands in everything, but not just on a security front, but also on an economic front. They control officially 30% of the Iranian economy, but some say that number is as high as 50%.

They are deeply entrenched in society, and they are hard to ignore. You think of them as men in fatigues, but they’re also men in suits, it’s interesting because there, in recent decades, there’s been this concept of Ahazadeh, or the children of the elite, and it can refer to the child of a prominent cleric, a prominent Iranian official, or some IRGC-affiliated businessman. And some of these individuals live their best lives in Tehran, they live in penthouses, they drive luxury cars, they do their shopping in Europe and Dubai. They really, stand out to Iranians, and, I would say, a source of, hate and tension, because it’s so hypocritical and goes against everything the Islamic Republic stands for. But, the IRGC, I would say in some ways functions like a Praetorian Guard, but when I think about who can we compare it to best for people to understand, I think it would be like the Egyptian army, and how deeply entrenched they are in Egyptian society. And so, this has been more of a newer concept, I would say, in the past two and a half decades.

They’ve really, I would say, grown into their relevance in Iranian society, and it’s also why it’s so hard to overthrow the Islamic Republic. It’s one of the reasons, and it’s because there’s two types of militaries in Iran. There’s the IRGC, and then there’s the army, or Artesh, and historically, when people have thought about uprisings and the military, there was always this assumption that the army would side with the Iranian people. And we just haven’t really seen that happen at this juncture. I know that defections are something that is really key in this moment, but defections also mean different things. They could mean feigning illness, not showing up to work. not pulling on the trigger when there’s an uprising. And, so just anecdotally, from what I’ve been hearing and from reports, there’s been people that have been not showing up to man the anti-air defense capabilities, and then there’s been reports that there’s not enough people staffing, security checkpoints, so they’re actually relying on children, children as young as 12 years old, to man security checkpoints, which in its own is a violation of international law and the rights of children, but that should just give you a sense about the complexities of this.

Natalie Gonnella Platts: We’ve covered a lot, which I think would be part of your answer to the next question, but, obviously there’s so much in the current situation and over…Iran’s history and the last 47 years. From your point of view, what isn’t being talked about enough right now that you hope that Americans and others in the global community remember?

Holly Dagres: Well, I think the complexities of this war and the sentiments Iranians feel… I obviously can’t speak for 90 million people, there’s 90 million people with 90 million feelings. And sometimes, like myself, in these moments, they feel them all at once, and I think that those trend lines, I can unpack them a little bit more, just for people to understand the complexities of those sentiments, and why it’s not black and white, but why they’re so much gray.

So, when the war broke out, and even till this moment, there’s some hope in Iran that the Islamic Republic will go, and it’s because Iranians have found themselves in a situation that no matter how many times they go out to protest, to oust the Islamic Republic, they’re not successful, and only end up with more, deaths, more people that they have to bury. And it’s because they don’t have the capabilities to push back against an authoritarian regime that has all the guns.

And so that’s why you saw, on February 28th, for instance, the day the war began. that people had actually gone out to celebrate when Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed. And granted, the internet shutdown had happened, we probably would have seen even more footage. But through Starlink videos and pictures, we saw that in various parts of the country, people were… these are real acts of bravery, by the way, were dancing, they were waving. I would say, like, white napkins, and they were even honking their horns in various parts of the country. But unfortunately, of course, security forces did crack down, and there was one instance where a father was honking his horn in celebration, and his two boys under the age of 18 were killed in the, I believe, the backseat of his car.

And so, I think that even during this war, more than a month into it, there’s still this hope that there will be a democratic Iran that many aspire to. But there’s also fear. There is fear because this is wartime, there are civilian casualties, there are damages incurred on even historical UNESCO sites in Iran. According to the group Human Rights Activists in Iran, there’s been at least 1,500 civilian casualties, and at least 200 of those were children. So, people are also experiencing the fear of wartime. And what that might look like. And, you know, but despite that fear, Iranians are also living. I see Iranians are still going to the parks, they’re jogging, they’re going to cafes and restaurants and trying to live. They’re not letting a war stop them from living, and I think that’s really important.

But there’s also a different kind of fear, and it’s a fear that the Islamic Republic will survive, and what it will do to the Iranian people, especially after this unprecedented massacre. In January, there’s already been 1,500 arrests inside the country of ordinary Iranians, of families of slain protesters, of ethnic and religious minorities, and so there’s a real fear about the Islamic Republic taking revenge on its own people, because many of them have expressed opposition to the Islamic Republic. They’ve celebrated the war in some instances. And they’ve shown that there’s a real gap, as they have in the past, between the regime that’s ruling them for 47 years and the people. And so there’s a real concern about what that will look like, because we know that they’re capable of mass atrocities like January.

Natalie Gonnella Platts: Your earlier point that you made in terms of, you know, the IRGC and external threats, internal threats, I mean, this is a regime that truly views its own people as a significant security threat, and that’s abhorrent…how not to lead, right? We’ve talked about so much of fear and brutality and the bad. You’ve also talked a lot about the hope and aspirations of the Iranian people in this moment and over, you know, the struggle of the last 47 years. For you, ow do you stay hopeful? You know, what do you think about? What really stands out to you? What do you want, the average American to know in terms of why they should be hopeful alongside the Iranian people in the pursuit of, you know, a future that is free, that is fair, that is peaceful?

Holly Dagres: Well, for me, I am an Iran analyst, I’m Iranian-American, but I’ve also spent my formative years in Iran, and so I still have family and friends that are living in Iran during this moment. And… you know… my analyst hat wants me not to be hopeful, because I see some of the forest between the trees about this not ending well, this war, and what could come out of it.

But what keeps me hopeful is a couple of things. One is that human beings, it’s just our nature to be hopeful. And so I have that. I want to believe that there’ll be a free and democratic Iran, which is what many Iranians aspire for, and why they’re out in the streets.

But also, I’m hopeful because I have Iranians telling me they’re hopeful. Like, who am I to have these feelings when I have people inside this country during wartime? And even before it, communicating hope.

I was talking to a prominent. civil society activist, who unfortunately has been arrested since, in the fall, not related, of course, and I remember…how much hope she spoke for of… in that moment, and how much she believed that the Islamic Republic was going to go. And that was in the fall, before the uprising in January, before the war. And I kept hearing that trendline a lot, even amongst my family and friends in Iran, my other contacts. And now we’re in war, wartime, and the little messages that still peter out, when the internet does momentarily come online, and it does occasionally, is still oftentimes one of hope. And so that’s what keeps me going in this moment, is that if people are feeling that, I should maybe continue feeling that, too, and not be a negative in this moment, and stop wearing my analyst hat all the time.

And so… I mean, it’s an extraordinary thing, hope. And so, I think we have to keep that in mind, that even if the regime doesn’t go now, I think that the conditions this war has created, and it was to survive, and it is at this juncture, I just don’t see it being able to hold on for power for so long, for many years. Because of the systemic mismanagement, corruption, and repression, and because of the environmental crisis on the ground, where they’re literally running out of water due to… much of it due to their own mismanagement because of climate change.

But, yeah, I just, I think that we have to lean into that more, and lean into what the Iranian people believe, and stop thinking about what us here in America and the West feel and see in this moment.

Natalie Gonnella Platts: Thank you so much, Holly. This was tremendous. Thank you for the work that you do. For those interested in learning more, you can find Holly’s work at The Washington Institute.

Holly Dagres: Thank you so much. This was a real pleasure, and I hope we can do this again — maybe in Tehran.

Natalie Gonnella Platts: We’ll hold that hope.