Protest, Pressure, and the Risk of Misreading Iran  

Photograph Source: راننده از تهران – CC0

Reza Pahlavi, the crown prince of Iran, released a video in Farsi last week calling on Iranians to go outside on Thursday and Friday evenings at 8pm. He urged them to chant from wherever they were, be it streets, rooftops, windows, inside homes, as a collective act of protest against the Islamic Republic’s leadership. Was this part of a plan?

For what it was worth, I had already begun thinking about Iran a few days into the new year, as my...