Introduction: Adopting Flexibility
During the war with the United States and Israel, the Iranian regime acted systematically and aggressively to identify, map, and neutralize the full range of threats to its stability and survival. Since the ceasefire entered into effect on April 8, 2026, it has stepped up those efforts.Tehran did not see the crisis as merely an external military confrontation. It saw a real possibility that a broader campaign could emerge, one designed to destabilize and even topple the Islamic Republic through military pressure, cognitive warfare, internal subversion, and the exploitation of social and ethnic vulnerabilities inside Iran. That threat perception led the regime to significantly expand both the arenas of repression and the tools it was prepared to use. It carried out wide-scale arrests of suspects accused of cooperating with foreign actors, toughened punitive measures against political activists and persons detained during protests, expanded internet restrictions and the campaign against Starlink systems, and continued security activity beyond Iran’s borders, including strikes on Kurdish targets in Iraq. At the same time, the regime staged public displays of support and worked to reinforce national cohesion around external threats.
Yet the regime’s harsher repressive posture has coincided with a seemingly contradictory trend: unusual tactical flexibility on ideological issues once treated as inviolable red lines. In recent months, the regime has conspicuously refrained from fully enforcing the hijab laws; women have appeared without hijab in public spaces and even in media identified with the establishment; and phenomena once cast as signs of unacceptable “Western influence”—including rap music, Western dress, and tattoos—have gained a degree of official or semi-official legitimacy. These developments do not necessarily signal a deep ideological shift by the regime. They point above all to a change in priorities. The longer the threat to the Islamic Republic’s stability persists, the more willing decision-makers in Tehran appear to be to set aside ideological commitments they once enforced rigidly, in order to preserve political stability, reduce friction with the public, and focus repression on threats they regard as more critical to the regime’s survival.
The Iranian regime is no longer treating emergency conditions as temporary. It is operating as if a prolonged internal emergency now defines the political environment, even during the ceasefire and in the absence of direct military attacks against it. In response, the regime has adopted a dual approach: it applies hard, aggressive repression where it believes its survival is at stake, while showing selective flexibility in areas it no longer considers to pose an immediate danger. This approach reflects the leadership’s mounting sense of vulnerability. Israeli and American pressure, deep economic damage, social instability, the weakening of ideological enforcement mechanisms, uncertainty over succession, and the fear that renewed fighting, or further attempts to exploit internal tensions, could destabilize the regime all feed that perception.
From Hijab Enforcement to “Regime Survival”: The Blurring of Iran’s Ideological Lines
In April 2023, Mehr News Agency interviewed the Iranian lawyer and lecturer Jafar Sadeq about the hijab, then one of the most explosive issues in Iranian public debate. Sadeq gave voice to the Islamic Republic’s traditional hard-line position. Citing Article 638 of the Islamic Penal Code, he stated unequivocally that removing the hijab constitutes a clear criminal offense and a violation of Islamic principles.[1]
Nearly three years later, Tabnak, a website identified with Iran’s conservative establishment, published a video that sent almost the opposite message. It showed a woman without a hijab at a rally in support of the Islamic Republic, holding an Iranian flag and voicing full support for the state’s struggle against its enemies. She spoke about her husband’s service in the security forces and the pride she felt in his contribution to the country’s defense—even though appearing in public without a head covering still ostensibly violates the law. Yet she faced no criticism. On the contrary, she was presented as an integral part of the national-Iranian camp that supports the regime.[2]
The episode was not unique. Shortly afterward, the cleric Hojjat al-Islam Alireza Panahian issued an unusually sharp criticism of the Friday prayer leader in the town of Rasht, who had called women without hijab “enemies.” Panahian argued that such an approach was unwise under current conditions. He cited a saying attributed to Imam Ali, according to which religious deviations should not always be corrected in full if doing so risks losing public support. “Imam Ali said he did not correct mistaken practices, including the incorrect manner of prayer, because if I had changed them, my soldiers would have scattered around me,” Panahian noted.[3] Referring directly to wartime conditions, he stressed that tactical concessions on such issues are a practical necessity driven by the need to preserve stability and internal cohesion.[4]
The contrast between the regime’s approach four years ago and the one now emerging points to a deeper shift in how the Islamic Republic manages ideological enforcement. That shift began with the “Woman, Life, Freedom” protests, which erupted in September 2022 after Mahsa Amini died in the custody of the security forces following her arrest for allegedly failing to wear the hijab properly. The protests exposed the limits of coercion as a tool for enforcing social and religious norms, and revealed the depth of alienation between large parts of the public and the state’s ideological enforcement mechanisms.
Since those protests, Iran has seen a growing internal debate over hijab enforcement. Conservative elements continued to demand tighter supervision and harsher punishment, while voices in the moderate camp have increasingly called for reduced friction with the public and reduced enforcement to prevent further domestic escalation. This trend gained strength after President Masoud Pezeshkian took office in 2024. In practice, the tightening of hijab regulations was halted, and a more tolerant policy emerged toward the widespread violations visible on Iranian streets.[5]
The shift is not limited to the hijab. Recent months have also brought growing signs of loosened enforcement in other cultural and symbolic areas that were once treated as clear ideological taboos. For example, videos have circulated on social media showing rap singers expressing support for the Islamic Republic—a phenomenon that would once have been almost unthinkable, given rap’s association with anti-establishment protest and Western cultural influence.[6] Iranian television has also begun giving airtime to people whose appearance would once have been banned outright, including Western dress and tattoos, and presenting them as part of legitimate public discourse.[7]
These developments should not be mistaken for deep ideological liberalization. They point mainly to a shift in priorities. As the threat of internal and external instability grows, Iran’s leadership appears more willing to ease enforcement on cultural and social issues it once treated as central to the Islamic Republic’s identity. Repression, however, has not receded where the regime sees a direct threat to its survival. It has continued, and in some areas expanded, against political opposition, public protest, media activity, and suspected cooperation with foreign actors.
A dual method of rule is taking shape in Iran. The regime is using focused, aggressive repression against threats to its stability while allowing tactical flexibility in ideological spaces it once controlled rigidly. Under the “persistent emergency” created by the war and the fear of internal destabilization, the preservation of the regime’s political and security power centers now appears to override other considerations—even if that means gradually eroding some of the Islamic Republic’s core ideological symbols.
The Combined Threat to the Regime: External War and Internal Destabilization
Operation Roaring Lion confronted the Iranian regime with a threat that Tehran regarded as exceptional in both scope and strategic significance. Previous attacks against Iran were aimed primarily at causing military damage. This time, Iran’s leadership saw something broader: an attempt to destabilize the Islamic Republic itself and even bring it down. Israeli and American strikes targeted the leadership, the regime’s security pillars, and its strategic assets. They were accompanied by sharp public statements from Washington and Jerusalem, as well as from Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, that directly raised the possibility of regime change in Iran and the start of a new political process in the country.[8]
The Iranian regime saw more than external military pressure. It saw a multidimensional campaign that sought both to strike its security power centers and to create the conditions for internal destabilization. Intensive attacks on domestic security targets and state institutions were accompanied by calls for the Iranian public to take to the streets and rise up against the regime. Tehran also grew increasingly concerned that armed Kurdish forces operating from Iraqi territory could be used to open another front along Iran’s western border.
The threat that emerged was distinctive because it combined external pressure with the possibility of internal breakdown. In recent years, the regime had dealt mainly with civil protests, economic crises, and domestic challenges to its legitimacy. During the Twelve-Day War in 2025, Tehran viewed the external threat as relatively focused and limited. During Operation Roaring Lion in 2026, however, it came to see the threat as aimed at ending the rule of the Islamic Republic.
That threat perception intensified because the regime was already fragile on the eve of the war. The U.S.-Israeli attack began shortly after the broadest and most violent wave of protests Iran had seen in recent years. During those protests, the regime used unprecedented force against demonstrators, killing tens of thousands; some estimates put the toll at more than 40,000.[9] The scale of the killings and the exceptional repression showed that the authorities already viewed their stability as endangered before the fighting began. Their willingness to use such extreme domestic violence points to the depth of the regime’s fear that it could lose control.
Uncertainty over the new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, added to this sense of vulnerability. He replaced his father after the assassination, but unlike Ali Khamenei—whose public persona served as a symbolic anchor of stability and unity—Mojtaba has almost no public presence. His messages are disseminated as text, with no public appearances, voice recordings, or visual documentation. This has fueled rumors and speculation about his health and even about his ability to function.
Mojtaba Khamenei’s absence from public view, and the unresolved questions surrounding his appointment, have deepened uncertainty within Iran’s political system. With the regime already contending with external pressure, a severe economic crisis, and eroding public legitimacy, weakness or ambiguity at the top can become a perceived threat to regime stability. This is the setting in which Tehran’s concept of “persistent emergency” has taken shape and in which the security and repression apparatuses are expected to act more broadly and aggressively to prevent internal deterioration.
The Iranian Regime’s New Mode of Operation: “Persistent Emergency”
Operation Roaring Lion differed from earlier crises the Islamic Republic had faced in one central respect: it lasted longer, and its endpoint remained unclear. Operation Rising Lion ended after only twelve days, and the main phase of repression during the January 2026 protests lasted only a few days. The current confrontation, by contrast, continued for weeks. Even after the ceasefire entered into effect, Iran’s leadership still regarded renewed fighting as a real possibility.
That reality has pushed the regime into unfamiliar territory. The line between routine and emergency has become blurred and open-ended. Tehran no longer sees the war as confined to the military arena; it also views it as a struggle playing out across the civilian, cognitive, economic, and political spheres. In such conditions, the regime can no longer rely on a familiar pattern of short, intensive repression followed by a relative return to normal. It needs a longer-term operating mechanism that can manage sustained instability.
A model of “persistent emergency” is now taking shape in Iran. The regime is tightening control over arenas it considers essential to its survival, while easing enforcement and showing flexibility in areas it regards as less critical to its immediate stability. This reflects a new hierarchy of priorities: preserving political and security stability now takes precedence over fully maintaining the ideological rigidity that has defined the Islamic Republic for decades.
The easing of hijab enforcement and the new flexibility on cultural issues should be understood in this context. These are not marginal or incidental developments, but part of a broader effort to manage internal risk. Issues once treated as ideological “red lines” are gradually becoming areas where the regime is prepared to show relative tolerance, provided this reduces friction with the public and allows it to concentrate on threats it regards as posing a greater danger to its survival.
- Reclassifying Internet Access
The regime’s internet policy is one of the clearest expressions of this new operating pattern. Iran continued to impose significant restrictions on internet access even after the ceasefire.[10] It also intensified its campaign against Starlink systems and other tools for bypassing censorship. As the crisis dragged on, however, Iranian authorities also came to recognize the heavy social and economic cost of prolonged internet disruption,[11] which has hurt not only the general public but also research institutions, the business sector, and the state’s overall capacity to function.
Iranian authorities tried to justify the restrictions by citing the risk of cyberattacks and the need to manage communications overload during wartime.[12] Given the cyberattacks Iran has experienced in recent years, those arguments are not entirely baseless. In practice, however, Tehran sees the internet above all as a political and cognitive arena where protests can be organized, uncontrolled information can spread, and opposition messages can circulate.
The regime has therefore begun moving away from a total, prolonged blackout toward a more selective model of online control with targeted restrictions, partial access for certain sectors, and limited connectivity based on economic and operational needs. In effect, this is a forced compromise between two conflicting imperatives: preserving full control over the information space, while preventing economic and functional breakdown. The pattern shows how, under “persistent emergency,” the regime is prepared to make tactical adjustments in areas it once managed far more rigidly. - Punishment and Expanded Deterrence
The regime’s relative flexibility in some areas has been matched by a marked hardening of enforcement and punishment against those it views as a direct threat. During the fighting, the security authorities continued to carry out large-scale arrests of suspects accused of cooperating with Israel, the United States, and opposition elements, while also seizing communications equipment and weapons.
The more important shift, however, lay in how the regime used punishment as a tool of deterrence. The regime no longer confined itself to arrests and targeted repression. It began sending the public a harsher message about the price of political resistance or of crossing lines defined as threats to state security.
The case of Narges Mohammadi illustrates this trend. During the war, Mohammadi, one of Iran’s most prominent human rights figures and a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, came to symbolize the regime’s increasingly harsh repression. Reports on her severe medical condition, physical deterioration, and harsh prison conditions suggest that the regime is prepared to absorb international reputational costs if that is what it takes to prevent prominent figures from becoming focal points of public resistance.[13]
Iran also continued executions, including of detainees linked to the January 2026 protests.[14] The regime was signaling that it viewed wartime as an opportunity to settle accounts with focal points of protest and resistance that had emerged in the months before the confrontation. The executions, together with expanded punitive measures, were meant to create a powerful deterrent effect and make clear to the public that any attempt to undermine regime stability would be responded to with harsh punishment.
The head of the judiciary went further, announcing that the state would confiscate the property of those accused of cooperating with the enemy, including Iranians living abroad. The measure extends punishment beyond the criminal case itself, reaching suspects’ families, property, and economic assets. It reflects the regime’s readiness to use broader and more aggressive tools of deterrence than it employed in previous crises.[15]
The regime’s approach under “persistent emergency” rests on a sharper distinction between areas where it can show flexibility and areas where it sees no room for compromise. It may adapt tactically on social and cultural issues, but it is taking a far harder line against political, security, and cognitive threats. In those arenas, it is expanding deterrence and signaling that regime survival comes before every other consideration, even if the price is further erosion of public legitimacy. - The Border Campaign and the Fear of Internal Fragmentation
Iran’s border regions have become another arena of “persistent emergency,” especially the Kurdish majority areas. During the war, Tehran became increasingly concerned that armed Kurdish forces might enter from Iraq and try to undermine regime control in provinces in northwestern Iranthat have a significant Kurdish minority.
Whether that threat was realistic remains unclear. What mattered was that Tehran treated it as real. Throughout the fighting, Iran kept its western borders on high alert and carried out strikes against Kurdish targets inside Iraq.[16] It continued to do so after the ceasefire, suggesting that the regime did not regard the threat as over once direct fighting with Israel and the United States had stopped.[17]
Tehran is not worried only about isolated military activity. Its deeper concern is that ethnic and regional tensions could become a vehicle for internal fragmentation. This has pushed minorities and separatism higher on Iran’s security agenda in recent months. Alongside reports of captured separatist cells, the regime has emphasized the loyalty of some minority representatives to the state, seeking to project a united domestic front against external threats.[18]
Tehran sees the possibility of an ethnic-separatist front opening alongside an external war as one of the gravest threats to regime stability. It remains unclear whether the Kurds in Iraq, or the United States, would be willing to advance such a move. Nevertheless, the fear deepens the leadership’s sense of siege and further reinforces its shift toward control, repression, and sustained readiness.
Conclusion: Regime Survival over Ideology
The Iranian regime’s domestic policy during Operation Roaring Lion and following the ceasefire show that it has transitioned to a “persistent emergency” mode. The regime now acts on the assumption that its stability remains under continuous threat, even when direct fighting subsides. Its response has been to adopt a dynamic model of control that constantly weighs and prioritizes different sources of risk.
Tehran is tightening repression, deterrence, and control most sharply in areas it considers essential to regime survival. It has imposed stricter controls on the flow of information, intensified its campaign against communications tools that bypass censorship, expanded punitive measures and executions, and maintained security readiness against separatist and ethnic threats. Iran’s leadership treats these arenas as direct and immediate threats to regime stability, and therefore allows little meaningful flexibility on these issues.
At the same time, the regime has become increasingly willing to adjust and make concessions in ideological and social areas it once enforced more rigidly. Broad nonenforcement of the hijab laws, partial legitimization of cultural phenomena once labeled “Western deviation,” and a more selective approach to internet use all point to a shift in the regime’s priorities. This is not full ideological retreat. It is a recognition that, under current conditions, reducing friction with the public is more important than fully enforcing religious and cultural norms.
In this sense, the war did not create the regime’s new operating pattern from scratch. It accelerated and deepened processes already under way. Throughout its history, the Islamic Republic has made ideological compromises when it judged them necessary for preserving stability. It did so during the Iran–Iraq War, in the 2015 nuclear agreement with the United States, and in the de facto blocking of stricter hijab laws in recent years. What makes the current moment different is that the state of emergency is no longer treated as a temporary, short-term exception. It is becoming an extended condition that may redefine how the regime operates for the foreseeable future.
As long as Iran’s leadership continues to believe that Israel, the United States, and domestic opposition forces pose a real threat to the Islamic Republic’s existence, this pattern is likely to continue. The regime can be expected to combine aggressive repression of political and security threats with tactical flexibility in social and ideological domains that, from its perspective, can be temporarily softened or sacrificed.
Recent developments in Iran point to a basic shift in the leadership’s perspective. Tehran is now less concerned with preserving the ideological purity of the Islamic Republic than with ensuring its survival. As economic, political, and security pressures deepen at home and abroad, the regime is becoming more willing to give up some of its ideological symbols—provided that doing so helps it preserve the core centers of power on which its rule depends.
* This paper is based on information current as of May 10, 2026. I would like to thank Daniel Hirschfeld for his comprehensive research assistance.
[1] “Failure to Wear the Hijab and Removing the Hijab Are a Flagrant Crime” [Persian original: بی حجابی و کشف حجاب، جرم مشهود است], Mehr News Agency, April 19, 2023, https://www.mehrnews.com/news/5759079.
[2] “Woman Without Hijab at Rally: My Husband Is a Member of the Security Forces, and I Have Not Seen Him for Months” [Persian original: زنی بی حجاب در تجمعات: شوهرم نظامی است و ماههاست ندیدمش], Tabnak, April 30, 2026, https://www.tabnak.ir/fa/news/1370067.
[3] “Panahian’s Response to the Friday Prayer Leader of Rasht’s Attack on Women Who Do Not Wear the Hijab: It Is Not Wise to Act This Way” [Persian original: واکنش پناهیان به حمله امام جمعه رشت به بیحجابها: اگر چنین نکنیم عاقل نیستیم], Tabnak, May 6, 2026, https://www.tabnak.ir/fa/news/1371226.
[4] Ibid
[5] Avi Davidi, “Are Iran’s Moderates on the Up after the War with Israel” Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security, August 12, 2025, https://jiss.org.il/en/davidi-are-irans-moderates-on-the-up-after-the-war-with-israel/.
[6] “The Situation Has Become Strange . . .” [Persian original: وضعیت عجیبی شده . . .], Telegram post by Tel Dr, May 7, 2026, https://t.me/drtel/58263.
[7] “The Presence of a Young Man with a Different Style and Appearance and with Tattoos on #Mahfel Drew Considerable Attention!” [Persian original: حضور جوانی با تیپ و ظاهر متفاوت و با خالکوبی در برنامه #محفل توجه زیادی را جلب کرد!], Instagram post by ftdigital, May 10, 2026, https://www.instagram.com/reels/DVDrLyGjJYj/; “An Interesting Tattoo by Beiranvand [a famous Iranian footballer] of ‘Azadi’ Square; He Moves to Tehran, across from Azadi Square,” Tabnak, May 2, 2026, https://www.tabnak.ir/fa/news/1370395.
[8] Avi Davidi, “Between Internal Stability and External Pressure,” Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security, March 30, 2025, https://jiss.org.il/en/davidi-iran-between-internal-stability-and-external-pressure/
[9] “Trump, Criticizing Pope, Says Iran Killed at Least 42,000 Protesters,” The Wall Street Journal, April 15, 2026, https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/iran-us-strait-of-hormuz-blockade-updates/card/trump-criticizing-pope-says-iran-killed-at-least-42-000-protesters-gtRzVnxAMEMeQ8b5ygR2
[10] “Iran’s Internet Blackout Is Entering Its 68th Day . . .,” post on NetBlocks’ Mastodon account, May 6, 2026, https://mastodon.social/@netblocks/116526459192643368.
[11] “Nearly 1,500 Hours Without Internet Access; Back to the Stone Age” [Persian original: نزدیک به ۱۵۰۰ ساعت عدم دسترسی به اینترنت؛ بازگشت به عصر حجر], IranWire, April 30, 2026, https://iranwire.com/fa/news-1/151826.
[12] “Nearly 1,500 Hours Without Internet Access; Back to the Stone Age” [Persian original: نزدیک به ۱۵۰۰ ساعت عدم دسترسی به اینترنت؛ بازگشت به عصر حجر], IranWire, April 30, 2026, https://iranwire.com/fa/news-1/151826.
[13] “Jailed Iranian Nobel Prize Winner Narges Mohammadi ‘Between Life and Death,’” The Guardian, May 5, 2026, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/may/05/jailed-iranian-nobel-prize-winner-narges-mohammadi-between-life-and-death.
[14] “Iran Executed 21, Arrested over 4,000 since Start of War, UN Says,” Iran International, April 21, 2026, https://www.iranintl.com/en/202604291260.
[15] “Confiscation of the Property of Iranians Cooperating with the Enemy inside and outside the Country” [Persian original: مصادره اموال ایرانیان همکار با دشمن در داخل و خارج کشور], Tasnim News Agency, March 16, 2026, https://www.tasnimnews.ir/fa/news/1404/12/25/3541790.
[16] Avi Davidi, “Between Internal Stability and External Pressure,” Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security, March 30, 2026, https://jiss.org.il/davidi/iran-between-internal-stability-and-external-pressure/
[17] “Drone Attacks against Anti-Iranian Separatist Targets in Iraq” [Persian original: حملات پهپادی به تجزیهطلبهای ضدایرانی در عراق], Tabnak, May 6, 2026, https://www.tabnak.ir/fa/news/1371055.
[18] “Presentation of the Intelligence Ministry’s Programs in Recent Months” [Persian original: تشریح برنامههای وزارت اطلاعات در ماههای اخیر], Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting, May 5, 2026, https://www.iribnews.ir/fa/news/5784462.
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