Part III: The Narratives That Replace Iran
If the second question raised by the event concerned who gets to speak for Iran, the third concerned something equally important. Why do discussions about Iran so often become discussions about everyone except Iranians?
By this stage of the afternoon, a pattern had become impossible to ignore. The event had begun with the promise of understanding Iran, yet the center of gravity of the discussion appeared increasingly fixed elsewhere. The further the conversation progressed, the less it seemed to concern the lived realities of Iranian society and the more it became an examination of Israel, Palestine, regional conflict and Western foreign policy. Iran remained present as a backdrop, but increasingly absent as a subject.
For many Iranians, this pattern feels deeply familiar. We have watched variations of it unfold for decades. Whenever attention begins to focus on the suffering of ordinary Iranians, the conversation somehow drifts elsewhere. The subject becomes sanctions. The subject becomes American foreign policy. The subject becomes Israel. The subject becomes Palestine. The subject becomes regional instability. The subject becomes everything except the relationship between the Islamic Republic and the people it governs.
It was in this context that Avi Shlaim's contribution struck me most forcefully. Much of his analysis focused upon Israel and Israeli actions within the region. Again and again the discussion returned to Israeli policy, Israeli military operations and Israeli ambitions. The audience was invited to consider Israel as a principal source of instability and conflict. Whether one agrees or disagrees with that assessment is ultimately not the point. The point is that by the end of the discussion, one could have been forgiven for wondering whether the event had been organized to understand Iran or to discuss Israel through the lens of Iran.
What made this particularly striking was the contrast between the attention devoted to Palestinian suffering and the relative absence of sustained discussion about Iranian suffering. Human suffering deserves recognition wherever it occurs. The suffering of Palestinians is real. The suffering of Israelis is real. The suffering of Lebanese civilians is real. No honest observer should deny any of these realities. Yet there was something deeply troubling about a discussion conducted under the banner of understanding Iran that repeatedly found room for every tragedy except the one unfolding inside Iran itself.
The imbalance became even more apparent when comparisons were drawn between Israel and the Islamic Republic, at times suggesting a moral equivalence between the two. For many Iranians such comparisons feel profoundly disconnected from reality. Whatever criticisms one may make of Israel, the Islamic Republic's first, most consistent and most numerous victims have been Iranians themselves. The prisons are filled overwhelmingly with Iranians. The executed are overwhelmingly Iranians. The women beaten by morality police are Iranians. The students imprisoned for dissent are Iranians. The workers punished for protest are Iranians. The journalists silenced by censorship are Iranians. The families shattered by political repression are Iranian families.
Perhaps the moment that most clearly illustrated this disconnect came when Avi Shlaim argued that Iran had not attacked its neighbors. Listening from the audience, I found myself reflecting upon how differently many Iranians would understand such a claim. While Iran may not have pursued large-scale conventional invasions comparable to those of previous centuries, the Islamic Republic has spent decades projecting influence through proxy organisations and armed networks across the region. Any serious discussion of the regime's regional role must acknowledge Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, the Houthis in Yemen, the Fatemiyoun brigades recruited from Afghan communities and the Zainabiyoun brigades recruited from Pakistani communities. Whether one supports or opposes these organizations is not the point. Their existence demonstrates that Iranian influence has often been exercised far beyond its borders.
What is often absent from these conversations is the question of who pays for these ambitions. One of the most striking omissions from the discussion was the economic reality facing ordinary Iranians. While much attention was devoted to regional politics, very little was said about how the Islamic Republic's own economic structure has contributed to the hardship experienced by millions of citizens. For many Iranians, the debate is not only about geopolitics. It is about jobs, inflation, housing, water shortages, economic opportunity and the future of their children.
Over the past three decades, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has expanded far beyond its original military role to become one of the most powerful economic actors in Iran. Through a network of construction companies, banks, telecommunications firms, energy projects and state-backed monopolies, it has accumulated extraordinary influence over key sectors of the economy. Critics argue that this concentration of power has weakened private enterprise, reduced competition and contributed to widespread corruption and inefficiency.
The consequences are visible throughout Iranian society. Independent businesses struggle to compete with politically connected conglomerates. Manufacturing has declined. Young professionals increasingly leave the country in search of opportunities abroad. Controversial infrastructure projects, environmental mismanagement and regional inequalities have fueled repeated waves of public frustration and protest. Many Iranians believe that resources which could have been invested in industry, employment, education and public services have instead been directed towards maintaining a system that prioritizes political control and regional influence over economic development.
This reality rarely appears in international discussions about Iran. Conversations often focus on sanctions, nuclear negotiations and regional conflicts while paying far less attention to the structural problems that many Iranians identify as the primary causes of their daily struggles. The result is a peculiar inversion in which the world debates Iran's role in the Middle East while paying remarkably little attention to the conditions inside Iran itself.
As the discussion unfolded, one voice increasingly stood apart from the others. What struck me about Alan Shatter was not that he disagreed with the panel. Disagreement is healthy and necessary. What struck me was that he repeatedly attempted to return the discussion to the nature of the regime itself, to questions of political repression, proxy organizations, executions and the treatment of ordinary citizens. While others frequently returned to broader regional narratives, he repeatedly redirected attention towards realities experienced by Iranians themselves.
The response was revealing. Rather than engaging primarily with the substance of many of his concerns, he was accused of repeating Israeli narratives. Listening from the audience, I found myself wondering whether anyone had considered the possibility that propaganda can travel in more than one direction. Throughout much of the afternoon, the audience had been encouraged to scrutinize Israeli narratives, American narratives and Western narratives. Yet there seemed remarkably little appetite for scrutinizing the narratives of the Islamic Republic itself.
This observation stayed with me because it touched upon what I increasingly felt was the central issue of the entire event. One of the greatest achievements of the Islamic Republic has been its ability to position itself simultaneously as both participant and victim. It has cultivated an image of resistance abroad while exercising repression at home. It has persuaded many observers to discuss its enemies more frequently than its victims. It has encouraged conversations in which criticism of the regime is often treated with greater suspicion than the regime's own claims about itself.
By the end of the afternoon, I found myself returning once again to the question posed by the festival program: Who are the Iranians? The answer seemed increasingly obvious. They were not the people occupying the center of the discussion. They were the people who had gradually disappeared from it.
And that disappearance pointed towards a larger question that extended far beyond the event itself. If narratives that marginalize the voices of ordinary Iranians continue to dominate international conversations about the country, then who benefits from that arrangement? More importantly, who pays the price?
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Part IV: Who Speaks For Iran?
The deeper question raised by this series is not whether Iran is misunderstood. The deeper question is who benefits from that misunderstanding. As ordinary Iranians struggle to make their voices heard above the noise of geopolitics, ideology and competing narratives, a simple question remains unanswered: who has the right to speak for a nation they do not have to live in?
Part II: Was Iran Invited Only to Discuss Israel?
The event was called Understanding Iran, yet as the discussion unfolded, Iran increasingly became the backdrop rather than the subject. Israel was analysed. Palestine was analysed. Regional conflicts were analysed. Meanwhile, the voices of ordinary Iranians faded into the background. This chapter asks a simple question: was Iran invited to the conversation, or merely used as a stage for other narratives?
Part I: The Country That Disappeared From the Conversation
Some countries disappear long before they cease to exist. Their cities remain crowded, their people remain alive and their history remains intact, yet somewhere between politics, ideology and international narratives, the nation itself begins to fade from view. This chapter explores how Iran, one of the world's most discussed countries, has become a place spoken about endlessly while its people are heard less and less.