Terror in Iran is not chaos, nor the result of a regime losing control. It follows a deliberate playbook. From communication blackouts to arbitrary enforcement, repression is applied systematically to fragment society, isolate citizens, and maintain power after legitimacy has collapsed.
Terror as governance in Iran
From the outside, repression in Iran is often described as brutal, unpredictable, or panicked. Violence appears sudden, erupting without warning. Internet shutdowns are framed as improvised reactions to unrest. Arrests look random, as if driven by impulse rather than intent. The prevailing narrative suggests a regime constantly on the verge of losing control, flailing in response to events it no longer understands or can manage.
That interpretation is comforting, especially for observers far removed from the consequences. It implies irrationality. It implies incompetence. It implies weakness. A regime that lashes out emotionally feels easier to dismiss, easier to imagine collapsing under the weight of its own excesses.
It is also profoundly misleading.
What looks like chaos from the outside is often coherence on the inside. What appears impulsive is frequently rehearsed. The timing, the methods, the sequencing of repression are not accidental. They follow a logic that prioritizes fragmentation over confrontation, uncertainty over spectacle, and fear over brute force alone.
The regime does not need to control everything. It only needs to control enough to make resistance costly, coordination fragile, and trust dangerous. That is not panic. That is strategy.
Misreading repression as emotional overreaction obscures its true function. It allows outsiders to underestimate its durability and misunderstand its effects on daily life. It turns a system of governance into a series of headlines, disconnected from the routines that actually keep it in place.
And as long as repression is framed as irrational, it becomes harder to recognize how deliberately it is designed, how carefully it is maintained, and why it remains so difficult to dismantle.
Control begins with communication
The most misunderstood weapon in the regime’s arsenal is not the gun or the prison, but the network. Internet throttling, selective shutdowns, blocked messaging apps, monitored platforms, and forced returns to SMS are not technical accidents. They are deliberate interventions. When communication breaks, coordination collapses. When coordination collapses, collective action becomes risky. When risk rises, people retreat into isolation.
Silence is not neutral. Silence is power.
By fragmenting digital space, the regime ensures that people never quite know how many others are thinking the same thing, feeling the same anger, or preparing the same response. A protest that cannot be seen may still exist, but it feels solitary. Solitary resistance is easier to suppress.
The goal is not total silence. The goal is uncertainty.
Isolation as a weapon
Repression in Iran does not only disconnect people from the outside world. It disconnects them from each other. Cities are isolated. Regions are cut off. Universities are targeted. Travel becomes risky. Families lose information about detained relatives. Legal processes disappear into opacity. This isolation produces fear more efficiently than constant violence. People stop knowing where the boundaries are. They stop knowing who is safe. They stop knowing whether resistance is shared or alone. A population that cannot see itself cannot act as one.
Arbitrary enforcement creates obedience
Authoritarian systems do not need laws to be enforced consistently. They need them enforced unpredictably. In Iran, rules can suddenly matter retroactively. Behavior tolerated yesterday becomes criminal today. Punishment does not require explanation, nor consistency, nor even evidence. Anyone can be next. That knowledge spreads faster than any official announcement. Arbitrariness forces self censorship. People begin to police themselves, not because they believe the rules are just, but because unpredictability makes caution rational. Fear does not need to be constant. It only needs to be plausible.
Terror without visibility
From outside Iran, people often ask why protests appear to vanish. Why the streets look calm. Why resistance seems to stall. This question misunderstands how terror functions. Terror works best when it removes the stage. When protest becomes invisible, not absent. When resistance moves into coded language, trusted networks, offline coordination, and delayed action. Visibility is dangerous. Silence is strategic. The absence of images does not mean the absence of opposition. It means the cost of being seen has become too high.
External pressure strengthens the playbook
There is an uncomfortable truth that rarely fits Western narratives. External threats often strengthen internal repression. Sanctions, military rhetoric, regime change fantasies, and exile driven power struggles allow the regime to frame control as defense. Surveillance becomes patriotism. Suppression becomes security. Dissent becomes foreign collaboration. This does not justify the regime’s actions. It explains their effectiveness. When fear can be externalized, internal repression becomes easier to sell. This does not mean that external pressure causes repression, but that authoritarian regimes deliberately instrumentalize it to justify and normalize control that already exists.
Fear is not submission
It is crucial to say this clearly. Fear does not equal passivity. People adapt. They learn. They develop parallel systems of communication. They protect each other quietly. They wait. What looks like silence from afar is often endurance. What looks like compliance is often calculation. History shows that systems built on terror can survive for a long time. It also shows that they rarely collapse in the way outsiders expect.
Why understanding the playbook matters
As long as Iran is discussed only through isolated events, arrests, explosions, protests, executions, nothing truly changes. Events distract. Behind them, enforcement routines continue: summons delivered at dawn, trials without defense, digital traces logged and archived, careers ended by a signature. Terror in Iran persists not because it is spectacular, but because it is boringly effective. It is procedural. It is repeatable. It is designed. Understanding that does not make the situation less tragic. It makes it intelligible. And without understanding the system, there is no serious conversation about how it might one day be dismantled.