When the city refused to be quiet
Tehran at dusk is a city of layered sounds: the call to prayer, the rattle of buses, the constant churn of conversation in teahouses. But in recent nights an edge has crept into that familiar soundtrack — the low thrum of chanting, the thud of boots, the sudden crackle of silence where, for stretches of time, the internet simply stops.
Walk through Enghelab — Revolution — Square and you can still see the banners, the carpets of flowers laid where funerals were held, the faces in the crowd alternating between anger and exhaustion. “We are tired of being told our lives are less important than a slogan,” said Leyla, a 34-year-old schoolteacher who asked that only her first name be used. “But we are not going away.”
That determination sits at the center of a geopolitical storm that this week has found new and jolting expression: an unprecedented U.S. proclamation of sweeping trade penalties aimed not only at Iran but, critically, at any nation that keeps doing business with Tehran. The result is a dangerous confluence — a domestic uprising met by a government’s iron hand, and a world that suddenly has more incentives to pick a side.
The tariff that landed without a map
On social media, the message was blunt: a 25% tariff, immediately applied to imports from any country that trades with Iran. The announcement — issued by the U.S. presidency on its own platform — left more questions than answers.
Tariffs are meant to be blunt instruments: a tax at the point of import, paid by the business bringing the goods into the United States. But who would shoulder the cost this time? Would these levies target all of Iran’s trading partners or only a shortlist? On paper, Iran’s biggest economic ties include China, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and Iraq. In practice, trade webs are messy, indirect and often shielded by intermediaries.
An administration official who spoke on the condition of anonymity summarized the legal blank space: “We’ve issued a policy posture — but the mechanism to enforce it is not yet public. The message is as much political as it is economic.”
That ambiguity matters. If implemented, a 25% levy could ripple across supply chains, hitting American importers and consumers as much as the foreign firms nominally targeted. For countries that maintain fragile economic ties with both Tehran and Washington, the choice to continue business with Iran will suddenly be squeezed by tariffs and geopolitics alike.
What the number could mean in practice
- 25% tariff: an immediate added cost to goods arriving in the U.S., levied against importers.
- Primary trade links: China, Turkey, UAE, Iraq (major partners identified by economic trackers).
- Distributional effect: higher consumer prices in the U.S.; firms in friendly countries forced to reassess deals with Tehran.
On the ground: a crackdown and a blackout
The protests themselves began, as so many do, with a single spark — economic distress and a long-simmering discontent over rights and daily hardship. But they have swelled into something more: a nationwide challenge to a system that has governed Iran since 1979.
Human rights monitors, trying to piece together a picture in the dark, paint a bleak portrait. The Norway-based Iran Human Rights group (IHR) says it has so far been able to confirm the deaths of at least 648 people during the unrest, including children. But the group warns that the true toll could be far higher, with some estimates suggesting casualty figures into the thousands and thousands of arrests — figures that are impossible to validate under an almost total internet blackout.
“When they pull the plug on communications, they also pull the plug on accountability,” said Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, director of IHR, in a recent statement. “The international community has a duty to protect civilian protesters against mass killing by the Islamic republic.”
Families like Leyla’s know the human face of those numbers. “My cousin disappeared after a protest,” she said, fingers trembling over a cup of tea. “The phone goes dead. The next day you hear a rumor. Then someone posts a photo and the phone goes dead again.”
Silence as strategy
Information blackouts have become a playbook: when governments fear liability, they choke off the flow of data. “Net shutdowns are an effective way to limit the spread of images and eyewitness testimony,” said Dr. Sara Bellamy, an academic who studies digital repression. “They also create deliberate fog, making it much harder for humanitarian groups and journalists to verify what is happening.”
In that fog, both sides fashion narratives. State media has been broadcasting images of large pro-government rallies and smooth traffic flows. The supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei — who has led Iran since 1989 — hailed the pro-government turnout as proof the protest movement had been defeated and warned foreign powers against interference.
Rallies, rhetoric and the building of a siege mentality
In official speeches and public demonstrations, Tehran’s leadership has framed the unrest as part of a multi-front assault: economic pressure, psychological campaigns, military threats, and, increasingly, domestic insurrection described as “terrorism.” Parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf spoke of a “four-front war,” listing the economic, psychological and military pressures, plus the domestic upheaval.
“They want to break our will,” a middle-aged man at a government-organized rally told a state broadcaster. “We will not allow outsiders to tell us what to do.”
The rhetoric is elastic — designed to rally supporters and to justify hard measures. The government has declared a period of national mourning for members of the security forces killed in clashes, and funerals themselves have become sites of state-led messaging.
Diplomacy at the margins and reactions around the world
Amid the internal tumult, the international response has been uneven. European leaders signaled sympathy with protesters and warned of possible sanctions. The European Parliament banned Iranian diplomats from its premises. Ireland’s Taoiseach said he favored additional punitive measures; France’s president condemned what he called indiscriminate violence against demonstrators.
On the other side, Tehran’s allies framed the unrest as foreign meddling. The Kremlin warned against outside interference, arguing that such comments only validated the government’s narrative.
All of this unfolds under the shadow of increasingly personal pressure from the United States — which has not ruled out the use of force while simultaneously saying it prefers diplomacy first. That dual posture is exactly the tension that terrifies many inside Iran: a fear of being both abandoned by the world and crushed by it.
So what now — and what can the world do?
Here are the questions that keep returning: Can the international community protect civilians without fueling further violence? Will sanctions pressure the leadership or further punish ordinary Iranians? How does a global trading order respond to unilateral tariffs that reach beyond target states to ensnare neutral partners?
For people in Tehran, the calculus is immediate and intimate. “We are not asking for anything grand,” said Reza, a delivery driver who lost friends in the protests. “We want to be safe. We want to work without fear.”
For the rest of the world, the moment asks for moral clarity and strategic thought. The tools available — sanctions, diplomacy, public condemnation, civil society support — can be used to defend rights or to deepen isolations that harden regimes. Which path will be chosen? Which lives will be weighed in that decision?
As night falls again over Enghelab Square, the lights come up on flags and faces. The chants — measured, defiant — rise and fall like waves. Somewhere beyond the square an official returns a call. Somewhere else a parent searches for a phone that won’t ring. It is in that interplay of human need and geopolitical design that the story of this moment is being written. Will we read it properly?
