Geopolitics and Social Movements in Post-2023 Iran

The Islamic Republic built a tool and named it the “Axis of Resistance.” For three decades, it used this label to present itself as a force against Israel and in support of Palestinian liberation. This construction was not accidental. It served a strategic purpose: to expand the regime’s regional influence under the cover of anti-imperialism. Today, little remains of that so-called Axis. One can partly explain this collapse through Israel’s brutal military campaigns. However, that explanation is insufficient. The collapse cannot be fully understood without examining the Islamic regime’s own official statements and internal decisions.

The Axis of Resistance was never designed as an end in itself. It was a means to an end: securing the strategic interests of the Islamic Republic. These interests include maintaining internal control and expanding regional power—not entering into conflicts that could threaten the regime’s survival. This is crucial. What has happened in Gaza, and what is happening to Hezbollah, the Houthis, and the Hashd al-Shaabi in Iraq, cannot be reduced to the effectiveness or brutality of Israeli military power. These developments reflect a strategic reorientation within the Islamic Republic.

To maintain its grip on power in Iran and simultaneously develop as a regional power, the regime needed to reach comprehensive agreements with the West. This goal is not separate from its management of relations with China and Russia. All are part of the same geopolitical shift. The ideological claim of eliminating Israel and permanently resisting the West became incompatible with these strategic objectives.

In the 1980s, and even after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Islamic Republic could present itself as a resistance force in the Islamic world. It used the global vacuum left by the end of the Cold War to project influence. It invested in ideological propaganda, regional alliances, and even interventions in Africa and Latin America. Yet despite enormous financial and political costs, it failed to build a sustainable hegemony in the Global South.

Now, in a world no longer dominated by a single pole, where China and Russia are emerging as major players, confrontation with Israel and the West is no longer viable for the regime. Iranian society itself has moved far away from such ideological constructions. More importantly, the regime has recognized the necessity of opening its economy to Western trade and investment. Its survival now depends on political and economic normalization with the West.

But this raises a fundamental question: Can the Islamic regime pursue this new strategy without internal transformation? The truth is that even before the threat of U.S. war under Trump, it was Iranian society that pushed the regime into crisis. It was not pressure from foreign states, but the deep contradictions within the country—social unrest, mass protests, demands for basic rights—that forced the regime to reconsider its course.

Repression of the Left as a Class Strategy in the Islamic Republic

Under these conditions, the growing repression of leftist voices in Iran by both the IRGC and monarchist factions reveals a shared strategic interest. Here, “the Left” does not refer to a Western leftist model or Marxist tradition. It refers to a broad social tendency: a hopeful, popular force committed to the fight against tyranny and injustice. It may lack formal organization or a unified ideological program, but it expresses a clear mass consciousness.

This mass consciousness has become one of the regime’s main obstacles. Despite its lack of centralized leadership, it has imposed limits on the Islamic Republic’s strategic options. It has created pressures that the regime can no longer ignore. As a result, we now see a parallel process: not only the IRGC’s direct repression of activists, but also a coordinated effort to discredit and delegitimize the ideas of the Left. This campaign includes character assassination, attacks on the concept of social justice, and rejection of resistance as a political principle. What is significant is that this campaign is not limited to state actors. Monarchists and some of the oppositional elites—many of them positioned as external critics of the regime—are participating in the same ideological operation.

This convergence is not accidental. Both camps recognize that any future democratic and egalitarian project in Iran would have to draw its strength from the very social layers that these forces fear the most: the working classes, women, students, and marginalized communities. In other words, both the Islamic regime and parts of the exiled opposition understand that a real transformative politics in Iran cannot be built without confronting deep class divisions, economic injustice, and authoritarian structures—issues the Left insists must be central.

This is a key point for understanding Iran’s political future. The civil resistance movement, though fragmented and leaderless, has already demonstrated its capacity to force historical shifts. It has pushed the regime into a crisis it cannot resolve by repression alone. That is why both internal and external reactionary forces—whether in uniform or in exile—are intensifying their attacks on the very idea of left-wing politics. They recognize that what they face is not merely ideological. It is a political current rooted in popular frustration, built from decades of broken promises and material deprivation.

The danger for the regime is not that this current already controls political institutions. It does not. The danger is that it reflects a potential for mass mobilization, one that could merge social discontent with political consciousness. That is the real threat—and the real possibility.

Normalization Without Stability?

The Islamic Republic is not a regime that would willingly risk its political survival by engaging in an uncontrollable foreign crisis. Its leadership, particularly at the highest level, is deeply pragmatic when it comes to foreign policy. As long as it concerns external relations, the regime will always search for negotiation channels, tactical compromises, and mechanisms to reduce tension. But the central crisis confronting the regime today is not external. It is internal. This is not a crisis imposed by foreign powers, and it cannot be resolved through diplomacy.

While sanctions have worsened the economic collapse, they are not its root cause. The real source lies in the internal contradictions of a rentier-capitalist system governed by authoritarian rule, widespread corruption, and deep social inequality. The regime’s top leadership, especially Khamenei, continuously emphasizes that it will not accept Western demands related to human rights. This is not merely ideological rigidity—it is a calculated defense of a political order that cannot survive under conditions of transparency, pluralism, and public accountability.

China and Russia do not raise human rights issues. For them, strategic partnership is based on mutual authoritarian interest. But Iran is not Saudi Arabia or Qatar. Those states maintain internal stability largely because their societies lack large-scale organized social movements. Iran is different. It is home to a powerful and persistent social movement landscape. From labor strikes and student protests to women’s uprisings and regional demands for autonomy, these forces challenge the regime’s authority from within.

This is what makes Iran’s case unique. The West, despite its geopolitical interests, cannot fully ignore this internal unrest, at least not in the same way China or Russia do. This is not due to moral concerns, but because the regime’s internal repression generates instability that affects the broader region and undermines the kind of economic and political “normalization” the regime seeks. The Islamic Republic is therefore caught in a double bind. To maintain power, it must repress. But to achieve international normalization, it must restrain repression—at least at the level visible to global observers. This contradiction will continue to deepen, especially as the domestic crisis grows more acute and social movements regain momentum.

Any future integration into the global economy will not be possible without facing these internal contradictions. The regime must now choose between continued repression and meaningful reform. That choice will determine its future—not slogans, not propaganda, and not the ghosts of a broken axis.