To understand why Iranians are not rising up in the streets following Khamenei’s death, it is necessary to go back to 2009 and the suppression of the Green Movement. That episode was a defining moment for the Islamic Republic — the moment when Khamenei demonstrated, beyond any remaining doubt, that he would use whatever force was necessary to protect his power and the system he led.
The Green Movement emerged in response to what many believed was the fraudulent reelection of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Millions of Iranians took to the streets in the largest protests since the 1979 revolution, carrying green banners and chanting slogans including “where is my vote?” and “death to the dictator.” The movement was creative, broad-based, and peaceful in its initial manifestations.
The response was brutal. Protests were dispersed with live ammunition and mass arrests. Leading opposition figures including Mousavi and Karroubi were placed under house arrest where they remained for years. Hundreds of activists were imprisoned. The message was clear: the system would not accommodate fundamental political challenge, regardless of the number of people demanding it.
The lesson was absorbed widely and deeply. Subsequent protest movements — in 2019, in 2022, and in January — occurred with full awareness that the regime would respond with lethal force. The January crackdown, in which more than 7,000 people were killed according to human rights estimates, was not a surprise to anyone who had been paying attention. It was the logical endpoint of a trajectory that began in 2009.
This history of violent suppression is the backdrop against which Trump’s calls for Iranians to rise up must be evaluated. The absence of visible mass uprising is not a sign of popular contentment with the regime. It is the rational response of a population that has learned, through enormous suffering, what political resistance costs in the Islamic Republic.