Raphael Machado
The Iranian lesson must be heeded by all counter-hegemonic countries in a scenario where color revolutions are once again becoming a common tool for imposing the will of the unipolar hegemon.
We are practically accustomed to it by now. Despite the many protests in recent times falsely categorized as color revolutions, when we see particularly violent and organized protests in Iran, we generally know we are dealing with a color revolution.
Western reactions are so predictable and automatic they seem mechanical. Regardless of the concrete circumstances behind the events, the West always frames protests in Iran as something related to "oppressed women," even when there is no connection. It's as if the West hasn't truly gotten over the failure of the last large-scale color revolution attempt in 2022-2023, following the death of Mahsa Amini.
That's why, although the protest waves that began on December 28 were led by unions and shopkeepers and were related to concrete recent problems-such as the water crisis caused by years of mismanagement of Iranian aquifers and the economic instability caused by the unthoughtful economic policies of President Masoud Pezeshkian-images more likely to resonate with the distorted Western imagination and with its scarcely disguised perverse yearnings for sexual tourism and pornographic profanation of Iranian women's bodies quickly spread on social media.
Now, however, it is quite clear that when we refer to the disturbances in Iran over the past two weeks, we are necessarily talking about two different "waves." The first days saw mostly small, peaceful demonstrations. Starting on December 31, however, some small groups began trying to invade police stations or occupy government buildings, as well as attempting to turn peaceful protests into violent actions. For about a week, these efforts seemed isolated, were repelled by peaceful protesters, and quickly suppressed-although cases of police or security personnel being lynched had already begun to appear.
Suddenly, in a manner that can only be considered coordinated, masked elements began setting fire to mosques, shops, public buildings, and cars, as well as using firearms and bladed weapons against public officials, including firefighters. Reports indicate that 250 mosques, over 800 shops, 182 ambulances, 265 schools, 3 libraries, and 4 cinemas were damaged or destroyed. Worse than that, hundreds of police officers, firefighters, Revolutionary Guards, and even simple bystanders were murdered, some beheaded.
Now, videos are beginning to appear showing the coordinated and far from spontaneous actions of masked elements retrieving weapons from backpacks and orchestrating the destruction of buildings and violence against others. The coordination for these actions, obviously, was done via the internet.
And this is where we can witness how the color revolution was suppressed. Because as soon as the Iranian government realized the protests had been co-opted by insurgents acting in a coordinated manner, the internet was deactivated at the national level. What a surprise it was when, suddenly, some "points of light" began to appear in the Iranian "virtual darkness." It turns out "someone" was distributing Starlink devices to the color revolution leaders.
From then on, the government only needed to track these few internet users and reach them, even in their homes. Having identified the Starlink users, the government then simply jammed the Starlink signal, and within just 2 days, the acts of vandalism and destruction ended. What is "revolutionary" here, fundamentally, besides the strategy used, is how Iran managed to jam Starlink.
Some say Iran used the Russian Murmansk electronic warfare system, others mention the Russian Tobol system, and others claim the use of Chinese technology. What is known for sure, however, is that it was brilliant for the Iranian government to simply let the terrorists act and even connect to Starlink to identify them more easily.
Immediately afterwards, moreover, the government called on the Iranian population to take to the streets to protest against the terrorist attacks and in defense of the country. And indeed, millions of people went out. And it's important to highlight this to talk about the Western media coverage of this entire process.
The world has rarely seen so much absolutely fallacious propaganda produced simultaneously about events. The lies ranged from the number of rioters (Western media spoke of millions, when in Tehran there were never more than 40,000 protesters in total, both peaceful and violent), to reports that Khamenei had fled the country or that the government had lost control of several cities. And when it became clear that the subversives were being suppressed, "black propaganda" began, accusing Iran of killing up to 20,000 protesters, without presenting any evidence.
In parallel, the US brandished military threats against Iran. Until they suddenly stopped and backtracked, even emphasizing that the Iranian government had only executed dangerous criminals who were shooting at the police.
What explains the change in behavior?
Everything indicates that the US expected the color revolution process to last longer. The idea was to keep Tehran in constant tension, forced to use violence without effectively managing to suppress the enemies. This would build the casus belli for military action. But Iran simply liquidated the armed insurgencies in a matter of few days, before allowing "momentum" to be generated that would enable a significant military attack on Iran, facilitating a regime change.
The fact that today the Iranian police seized 60,000 weapons on a ship, which had entered the country clandestinely, shows that a scenario similar to Libya or Syria was projected for Iran. We recall here, by the way, that in Libya, the US embassy itself acted as a hub for the international arms trafficking to Wahhabi rebels.
These weapons would probably have been distributed to the "protesters" in an "ideal" context of a stalemate between the government's repressive efforts and the intensification of anti-government forces, potentially radicalized by the police repression itself, in a dialectical movement.
Without assets on the ground, it would make no sense to undertake military action against Iran. And the tragedy seems total for Israel and the US regarding the regime change objectives. It's as if they have lost all local assets. Without looking back at the war between Iran and Israel in 2025, we will remember that the initial moves involved infiltrators using drones to destroy air defense systems and radars up close, the same tactic used in a terrorist attack carried out on Russian territory.
With the rapid and efficient Iranian action, there was no one left to deactivate Iranian defenses, no one to receive the trafficked weapons to try to turn vandalism into armed revolt, no one to take advantage of the chaos caused by a massive airstrike by the US Air Force.
The Iranian lesson must be heeded by all counter-hegemonic countries in a scenario where color revolutions are once again becoming a common tool for imposing the will of the unipolar hegemon.