War Handed Public Space Back to Iran’s Regime

Since the beginning of the war, the Islamic Republic has actively mobilized its supporters, including the Basij and networks close to the Guards, into the streets of Tehran and other major cities. They gather in groups, even small ones, and move across neighborhoods, chanting Islamic and anti-American slogans, reciting the Quran, and organizing mobile rallies. Using loudspeakers mounted on cars, they often shout, “Heydar, Heydar,” referring to the first Shiite Imam, Imam Ali.

These activities are not limited to one area. They are spreading across public squares, main roads, and residential districts in large cities. Nor are they merely public displays. In these rallies, more akin to festivals, the IRGC showcases missiles described as ready for launch while large crowds gather around waving flags and, in some cases, even performing collective prayers near the missiles.

The events are a symbolic show of strength and defiance, but they also connect directly to a broader shift on the ground. Alongside these rallies, the Basij and police have set up checkpoints across cities, searching cars and—in many cases—people’s cellphones to identify any anti-regime messages or posts. In some cases, the security forces beat and detain individuals based on content found on their phones.

In this newly visible security environment, routine public movement has become controlled and uncertain, especially for regime critics. As a result, many ordinary Iranians prefer not to be outside, especially at night when many of the IRGC rallies take place. Frustrated by these shows and the disruptions they create, and scared of the Basij patrols and checkpoints, Iranians are retreating to their homes as a safe space.

Together with Israeli and U.S. messaging that urges civilians to avoid the outdoors, the result is a clear shift in public behavior. As Iranians have withdrawn from the streets, pro-regime groups have moved in and filled the space. This is a reversal of a long-term social trend before the war in which Iranians were reclaiming public space they had lost since the revolution.

Since 1979, the Islamic Republic has tried to regulate public life by enforcing Islamic regulations. In the first decade after the revolution, even wearing jeans and short-sleeved shirts was challenging because of the regime’s moral policing on the streets.

But despite dominating the state, the Islamic Republic gradually lost control over public space in the ensuing decades. While the regime preserved its coercive capacity—to regulate behavior, punish violations, and impose rules—it could not fully dominate social life, especially in urban areas. Without organization, leadership, or direct confrontation, Iranians began to reshape public space from below. This is where Asef Bayat’s concept of “quiet encroachment” becomes central. According to Bayat, social change can emerge through small, dispersed, and everyday actions, rather than dramatic political acts. Such actions do not have to be coordinated to prove effective. And in Iran, the public shifted socially and culturally, becoming less ideological and more attuned to daily life rather than to revolutionary ideals.

Iranian women, for example, adjusted the boundaries of compulsory hijab in subtle but visible ways. Despite the regime’s pressure to enforce the hijab in public, Iranian women defied the imposed dress code—first by wearing loose hijabs and, later, especially after the 2022 Woman, Life, Freedom protests, by not wearing hijabs in public at all.

Other examples of visible social shifts in urban Iran included more mixed-gender gatherings in cafes, parks, and other public spaces, as well as young men and women interacting more openly despite formal restrictions. At the same time, the presence of pets, particularly dogs, became more visible in public. (Pets were heavily restricted and socially discouraged by the regime.) The change was gradual but real. Public space was no longer fully shaped by the Islamic Republic’s social vision as public defiance of the regime and its ideology grew.

Regime supporters and traditional religious people retreated and concentrated in more controlled environments, either in central Tehran neighborhoods such as Khayaban-e Iran and Hedayat or in new townships created by the regime. Across Iran, the Islamic Republic and its institutions developed these semi-closed townships and residential zones for loyalists, including Basij members, IRGC families, and conservative religious groups. Areas such as Shahrak-e Mahallati became safe spaces where ideological conformity was preserved. In addition to these townships, pro-regime groups created their own social environments, including schools, cafes, restaurants, hotels, and other gathering places shaped by strict norms of dress and behavior. Most Iranians have not been welcomed in these places, either because of legal constraints—as with the schools and townships—or because they feared the strict Islamic dress and conduct codes, as with the cafes and restaurants. Outside these zones, however, the broader urban space was more contested and, in many cases, increasingly shaped by ordinary Iranians defying regime norms.

Since the war started, with much of the population staying indoors, regime supporters have returned to the very spaces they had gradually lost over the past years. Their chants, gatherings, public shows, and movement across neighborhoods are meant to signal presence, control, and a sense of domination over public space. By bringing its supporters back into the streets in a visible and organized way, the state is trying to reimpose a social order that had been gradually weakened.

In this sense, the war has created an unintended consequence. It has, at least temporarily, reversed years of quiet encroachment by ordinary Iranians and opened space for pro-regime forces to reclaim the urban landscape. This matters because control over the street is not only symbolic. Who occupies public spaces, who can gather, and who can project visibility all shape perceptions of authority and legitimacy.

Iran’s street-level shift is occurring alongside a deeper structural transformation within the state as the regime moves toward a more security-dominated order with the IRGC at the center of power. The transformation of the state and the transformation of the street are connected. A regime that relies more on coercion, loyalty, and ideological discipline also needs a visible social presence.

For ordinary Iranians, this has clear implications as the already limited public space may shrink further. What was once a form of everyday resistance—occupying public spaces—is now constrained by war and has been replaced by organized displays of regime loyalty.

On the political level, this also complicates the idea of regime change. The regime’s social base, although limited, is not disappearing. Under the current conditions, it is becoming more visible. What we are seeing is not the collapse of the Islamic Republic but rather the regime becoming more centralized, more insulated, and more dependent on a smaller but more active core of supporters. At the same time, it is trying to reassert control over society not only through institutions but also through space itself.

The war, in this sense, is not only being fought in the air or through missiles. It is also being fought in the streets of Tehran and other Iranian cities. And—for now—those streets are changing hands.