Cartoon by Hiva Rash

Iran's Unity Claim: How Officials Cover Deep Cracks

ATA MAHAMAD

IranWire: The Islamic Republic found its "miracle" before anyone else could see it.

As Israeli missiles struck Iranian targets in June, triggering a 12-day military confrontation, officials across Iran immediately proclaimed a nationwide surge of unity and solidarity.

Parliament speakers declared victory through popular cohesion. State media announced unprecedented national harmony. Religious leaders proclaimed divine intervention.

But Iran's streets told a different story, or rather, they didn’t tell much of a story at all.

“The Iranian people dealt the biggest blow to the enemy in the 12-day war,” Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf told lawmakers on July 20. “The most important deterrent against repeated aggression is the national cohesion that the world witnessed.”

Much of the world didn’t witness widespread popular unity. What it saw was a government desperate to project an image of solidarity - one that existed more in official statements than in public squares.

The war began on June 13, the start of what Iranian officials branded their "12-day Sacred Defense" against Israel.

Within hours, government news agencies published reports of "ongoing popular gatherings" - many of which had not actually begun.

Early coverage of crowds at the Jamkaran shrine outside Tehran described what were essentially small groups of pilgrims, not mass demonstrations.

State media headlines proclaimed “The Cry of Justice in the Heart of Iran” over modest gatherings.

The Islamic Development Coordination Council issued formal calls for post-Friday prayer demonstrations, announcing that Iranians owed “decisive revenge” to “martyred commanders.”

When small crowds did gather, their chants revealed the gap between the official narrative and the reality on the ground.

“We are all your soldiers, Khamenei,” they shouted - slogans that reflected political loyalty to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei rather than spontaneous national solidarity.

Peyman Jebeli, head of Iran’s state broadcasting network, later said the conflict had produced “miracles like cohesion and unity” that should be turned into films and television series for global audiences.

His comments reflected how quickly the government moved to package and export an image that remained largely theoretical.

Senior officials amplified the unity narrative with remarkable coordination. Around 10 a.m. on the morning of June 13, Ali Larijani, adviser to Khamenei, appeared on state television, expressing confidence in Iranians’ “strategic outlook” during wartime.

He predicted the crisis would “end in a great achievement.”

An hour later, Hassan Khomeini, grandson of the Islamic Republic’s founder, issued his own statement. He said, “Today, unity around the axis of Islamic Iran is the way to protect the country from aggressions and threats. Differences must be set aside, and various political and intellectual groupings must be sacrificed before the greatness of Iran’s name.”

Citizens were portrayed not as active participants in a democracy, but as props in a legitimacy campaign.

One month after the war ended, Iranian officials continue to invoke national unity daily, despite offering no evidence of its existence.

The concept has evolved from a claimed wartime reality into an active policy tool.

A group of Islamic humanities professors issued a statement framing the war as an opportunity for “reconstructing social cohesion” and strengthening Iran’s “social value.”

Without citing polling data or social research, they credited unity to “the system’s power and wise leadership,” now said to exist in “stability.”

The statement labeled diplomatic negotiations as divisive and declared resistance the only path to preserving cohesion against the West’s “civilizational threat.”

Khamenei himself embraced the narrative, describing an “extraordinary unity and agreement of the Iranian nation.”

“No one believed it could happen, but it did,” he said. “These individuals - all with different, sometimes opposing political orientations and varying religious weight - stood together and created this great unity.”

The clerical establishment promoted two distinct versions of unity.

Conservative religious figures tied national cohesion to absolute obedience to Khamenei. Friday prayer leaders in Tehran called unity the decisive factor in Iran’s “hybrid war” victory and warned that any deviation from loyalty to the Supreme Leader would lead to defeat.

Abdullah Haji Sadeghi, Khamenei’s representative in the Revolutionary Guards, described wartime unity as “unprecedented in the past 46 years” and warned that anyone undermining it “is in the enemy’s camp.”

However, other officials suggested that unity required systematic change, not just loyalty.

Ali Akbar Velayati, another Khamenei adviser, wrote on social media: “The people proved themselves - now it's the officials' turn.” He called for a review of government policies and a focus on “people’s tangible satisfaction.”

Former Vice President Massoumeh Ebtekar argued that sustainable unity demands “recognizing social pluralism.”

She added that even government critics and opposition figures “played a role in defending the country” and urged an end to “divisive policies.”

These competing visions of unity reflect deeper challenges facing Iran’s leadership.

Public opinion surveys conducted before the Israel conflict showed widespread dissatisfaction with economic conditions, social restrictions, and political representation.

The government’s unity narrative seems designed to paper over these fundamental grievances, rather than address them.

State media continues to treat national cohesion as an established fact in need of protection rather than a national goal requiring achievement.

Friday sermons and official statements refer to unity as an “undeniable asset,” while acknowledging that preserving it demands constant vigilance against “internal enemies.”

Some government figures privately warn that without genuine reform and restored public trust, the proclaimed unity will prove “nothing but an empty shell.”

Their concerns suggest an awareness that manufactured consensus cannot indefinitely substitute for authentic popular support.

Iran’s unity discourse functions more as crisis management than as a social reality.

Officials use the rhetoric of cohesion to deflect attention from domestic problems and project strength to international audiences.

It’s an approach that treats national solidarity as something that can be manufactured through messaging rather than earned through meaningful governance.