Tehran's mass rallies are a shield for the Islamic Republic
By Maya Ellison · Reporting from Detroit ·
When a government starts asking its citizens to "sacrifice their lives," you don't look at the flags; you look at the ledger.
# The Ledger of Sacrifice
When a government asks its citizens to sacrifice their lives, you don't look at the flags; you look at the ledger.
On September 18, 2026, nearly 300,000 people filled the streets of Tehran. According to Al Jazeera, the state organized the rally as a display of defiance, filling the air with the hum of drones and the silhouette of anti-aircraft batteries to signal strength to the West. For anyone who grew up in a town like Flint, where officials claim to protect the city while lead seeps into the pipes, this spectacle does not look like patriotism. It looks like a regime consolidating power.
The Islamic Republic is now deploying a strategy of fear. They have launched the "Janfada-ye-Iran" campaign—the "ones who sacrifice their lives for Iran." The state claims a staggering number of volunteers, though the actual registration tells a different story.
| Category | Figure | | :--- | :--- | | Registered for military training | 600,000 | | State-claimed volunteers | 30 million |
President Masoud Pezeshkian said this surge sends a message to the US and Israel. Basij head Hossein Taeb said these volunteers would be a "nightmare" for Iran’s enemies.
A Blueprint from 1940
The regime is applying tactics from World War II. During that conflict, states used the fear that the nation might vanish to mobilize every civilian. They turned factories into barracks and offices into recruitment centers, erasing the line between the soldier and the worker. The goal was not just to win a war, but to ensure the state had access to every body and every mind.
The Iranian regime uses the same logic. Esmaeil Baghaei, a spokesman for the Foreign Ministry, described a stifling economic war—specifically the US naval blockade and strikes on digital currency networks. By framing these crises as existential threats, the government turns a geopolitical clash into a domestic leash. When the state convinces a father that only the IRGC and the Basij stand between his children and an invader, it becomes easy to justify why the currency is worthless and why "volunteer" forces are actually patrolling the neighborhoods.
Is this unity organic?
A regime advocate would call this a genuine surge of nationalism. They would point to Marzieh Afaghi, a 24-year-old attendee who told NBC News that no invader could hold Iranian soil. According to NBC News, the state argues that US sanctions and the February attacks pushed students and laborers into a necessary alliance against an external aggressor.
That argument collapses when you look at the record. This is not organic unity; it is a forced march. In January, just before the war began, this same population filled the streets to protest a crashing economy. Activists report that the state killed seven thousand people during the crackdown. A regime cannot claim the people are ready to give everything for the country when it spent the previous month killing them for demanding affordable flour.
The state has played this hand before. In 2009, the government used mass rallies to project unity after the presidential election. In 2020, when fuel price hikes sparked riots, the state blamed the US for the sting of inflation while using that same pain to put more boots on the ground. By 2022, during the Mahsa Amini protests, the Basij militias mobilized to crush dissent under the guise of maintaining order.
The State Builds a Fortress
The regime bets that the fear of a US-led invasion will outweigh the memory of the January massacres. They are doubling down on hit-and-run tactics perfected during the 2000s Iraq War, using drones to harass shipping in the Strait of Hormuz and attacking tankers like the Trend to prove they can still bite.
But the ledger is unbalanced for the people. While the IRGC transitions "Janfada-ye-Iran" volunteers from training to active paramilitary policing, shopkeepers and factory hands pay the actual cost. As the US expands its digital warfare—triggering server crashes and blocked accounts to isolate the economy—the regime will respond by tightening its grip on the population.
The "nightmare" Hossein Taeb promised is not for the enemies of Iran; it is for the Iranians. The state is building a fortress, but it is using its own people as the bricks. When a regime spends more energy mobilizing a sacrifice force than it does feeding its citizens, it is not defending a homeland. It is defending a throne.