Farzan Seyedi reflects on his January 2026 IAC Summit remarks about Iranian protests, the decline of fear, the cost of repression, and why international attention matters to people inside Iran.
When I joined the panel at the Israeli-American Council National Summit in January 2026, I wanted to make one point clear from the beginning: the Iranian struggle for freedom did not start that month, that year, or with one military confrontation. Iranians have resisted the Islamic Republic for decades. Different generations have paid for that resistance with prison, exile, beatings, executions, lost careers, broken families, and, in too many cases, their lives.
The international community often sees Iran only when a dramatic event forces it onto the front page. Iranians do not experience their country that way. They live with the consequences of the system every day. That is why, during the panel, I spoke about the long history of demonstrations and the way the security apparatus repeatedly used overwhelming force to stop people from building momentum. My argument was not that one event suddenly created opposition to the regime. The opposition was already there. What changed was the level of fear and the growing belief that the system was not invulnerable.
Moderator Marjan Keypour Greenblatt asked me about the effect of the 12-day war on both the Iranian government and Iranian society. I explained that many people inside Iran watched Israel target senior regime and military structures while distinguishing those targets from ordinary Iranian citizens. From my perspective and from the conversations and material I was following, that distinction mattered. It contributed to a belief among many anti-regime Iranians that the outside world was finally beginning to understand the difference between Iran as a civilization and the Islamic Republic as a governing system.
I also spoke about fear because fear has always been one of the regime's most powerful weapons. A dictatorship does not need every citizen to support it. It needs enough people to believe that resistance is hopeless, that no one will stand with them, and that the price of participating is too high. Once that calculation changes, even slightly, the political environment changes with it. That was the message I wanted the audience in Florida to understand.
At the same time, I stressed the human cost. During the blackout and crackdown, precise casualty numbers were difficult to verify, and I cited figures that were circulating among opposition networks and activists at the time. Those numbers should always be presented as reported or estimated claims unless independently confirmed. But the central issue was not dependent on one precise total: people were being killed while the country was cut off from the world, and the blackout made documentation and accountability much harder.
That is why I challenged media organizations and international institutions to decide how they wanted to be remembered. When a government restricts internet access and information is fragmented, responsible journalism becomes more difficult, not less important. The correct answer is not to abandon the story. It is to report carefully, identify what is verified and what is still uncertain, and keep attention on the people who are risking their lives.
I left the panel with the same belief I brought into it: Iranians will ultimately determine Iran's future. Outside support can affect the cost, speed, and conditions of that struggle, but no foreign government can manufacture legitimacy for the Iranian people. The most important contribution the international community can make is to stop treating the Islamic Republic as if it represents the aspirations of an ancient nation that has repeatedly shown it wants something different.