Where is the opposition in Iran to ousting the regime?
David Asman and Jonathan Schanzer analyze the ongoing US military campaign in Iran, Operation Epic Fury, with CENTCOM reporting that more than 10,000 targets have been hit. They discuss the decimation of the Iranian regime’s leadership and the surprising reluctance of European allies to fully support President Trump’s aggressive strategy, citing past diplomatic disputes and potential economic pressure. The segment also explores the challenges of an internal opposition movement amid serious human rights violations.
EXCLUSIVEAs Iran’s opposition struggles to find a unifying figure amid war, repression and near-total internet blackout, the husband of imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize laureate and Iranian human rights activist Narges Mohammadi says his wife remains physically abused but politically unbroken, even while in prison after what he describes as a brutal arrest and beating.
At a moment when Iran’s ruling establishment is reeling from the aftermath of American and Israeli attacks, a fragile ceasefire, an economic collapse and intensifying repression, Mohammadi’s name is emerging in a new light: not just as a global symbol of resistance, but potentially as one of the few opposition figures whose legitimacy comes from suffering within the system and not from exile, dynasties or factional politics.
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Mohammadi, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in prison in 2023, has been one of Iran’s most prominent women’s and human rights activists for decades.
Trained as an engineer and later a journalist, she was vice president of the Defenders of Human Rights Center, founded by fellow Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi and became internationally known for her campaign against mandatory hijab laws, solitary confinement, prisoner abuse and the death penalty.
Narges Mohammadi, Iranian human rights activist and vice president of the Defenders of Human Rights Center, poses for a portrait in an undated photo. (Reuters)
According to her husband, her condition has now deteriorated dramatically.
“Narges is currently being held in Zanjan prison,” he said. “She was arrested in Mashhad in the month of Dey (around January) and was severely beaten. During her arrest, she received numerous blows, causing serious injuries to her chest, head, body and lungs.”
Rahmani said the prison’s medical authorities had decided that she should be transferred to Iran for treatment under the supervision of her own doctor, but the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence is refusing the transfer and insisting that she remain in Zanjan.
“Spiritually and mentally, Narges remains steadfast,” he said. “She believes that the Islamic Republic is not desirable for the Iranian people, and advocates a system based on freedom, human rights and open relations with the world. However, physically she has suffered severe trauma and is in urgent need of medical attention.”
Rahmani said the last time he spoke to his wife was the night before she left for Mashhad, Iran, where she was later arrested.
The Nobel Banquet at the Grand Hotel in Oslo on Sunday, in connection with the presentation of the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize. Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi is imprisoned in Iran and is therefore represented by her children Ali and Kiana Rahmani and her husband Taghi Rahmani, in Oslo, Norway, December 10, 2023. (NTB/Rodrigo Freitas via Reuters)
His account offers a rare glimpse into the life of one of Iran’s most internationally recognized dissidents at a time when questions about who could realistically lead the opposition to the regime are mounting.
Shariatmadari, one of the most recognizable faces of Iran’s “Girls of Revolution Street” movement, a wave of anti-regime protests that began in 2017 when Iranian women publicly removed their headscarves in violation of the country’s mandatory veil laws, was sentenced to prison in 2018 after publicly removing her headscarf in protest.
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Ali Rahmani, son of imprisoned Iranian human rights activist Narges Mohammadi, speaks on her behalf at Oslo City Hall in Norway after receiving the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize. (Fredrik Varfjell/NTB)
According to Shariatmadari, one camp consists of Iranians who view the 1979 Islamic Revolution itself as the fundamental national disaster, believing that Iran’s trajectory was derailed when the Shah fell. The second includes former revolutionaries, reformists, communist factions, and groups such as the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), many of whom emerged from the revolutionary system or once supported it before later opposing it.
“The first group views the 1979 revolution as a disaster and seeks a return to Iran’s previous path,” she said, while the second group “includes those who participated in the revolution but later became opposition figures after being excluded from power.”
That distinction, she argues, helps explain why Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of Iran’s last shah, remains uniquely recognizable among many anti-regime Iranians despite spending decades abroad.
Pahlavi himself sharpened that message on Friday after a series of European appearances, accusing both European politicians and journalists of ignoring the scale of Iranian suffering.
“I have been traveling around Europe in recent weeks, speaking to parliamentarians, governments and the press,” Pahlavi said in a video statement on his official X account. “My visit had one purpose: to give a voice to the millions of Iranians held hostage by the Islamic Republic… But I can now say with confidence that the silence and censorship is not only at the hands of the regime in Iran, but also at the hands of the international and especially the European media.”
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Iranian Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of Shah Reza Pahlavi, is protected by security after he was attacked with a red liquid, following a press conference in Berlin, Germany, April 23, 2026. (Markus Schreiber/The Associated Press)
He then condemned what he described as European indifference to the mass murder of protesters and political executions, saying that during two press conferences in Stockholm and Berlin attended by more than 150 journalists, “not a single one” asked about the tens of thousands he said were killed in the January crackdown or about the political prisoners being executed.
“Whether Europe supports us or not… I will fight for my people and my country,” Pahlavi said. “We will fight until Iran is free.”
Yet even some supporters recognize why the government has hesitated to openly embrace him as a transitional figure.
Daftari warned that overt Western support could backfire by giving him the impression of being imposed from outside rather than legitimized at home.
“The Trump administration’s decision not to embrace him more openly as a transition figure likely reflects several factors: a deep wariness of making the regime an explicit end goal or appearing to do so after Iraq and Afghanistan, concerns that overt U.S. support could impose an even bigger target on him, and a strategy that is currently less focused on anointing a successor and more on degrading the regime’s ability to threaten its own people, the region, and the United States,” she said.
While Pahlavi represents dynastic memory and the explicit politics of regime change, Mohammadi represents something very different.
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Reza Pahlavi, son of former Iranian Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, speaks during a press conference in Paris on June 23, 2025. (Thomas Padilla/AP)
Mohammadi’s place within that landscape is distinguished by her unique brand of legitimacy at a time when many Iranians are looking not only for opposition to the regime, but also for a figure who embodies its endurance.
For now, however, Rahmani warns that Iran’s domestic conditions could make any mass uprising extremely difficult.
“As you know, war serves as an excuse to suppress domestic forces in a country,” he said. “This war has now increased the intensity of the regime’s actions against the opposition.”
He argued that despite internal divisions, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has effectively consolidated power, militarized the streets and severely weakened civil society.
“The Islamic Republic has practically taken control of the streets in times of war and has seriously weakened Iranian civil society, which is the guarantor of democracy. In our opinion, under these circumstances, this war is neither in the favor of Iran nor in the benefit of the Iranian people.”
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A photo of Nobel Prize winner Narges Mohammadi on the wall of the Grand Hotel in central Oslo, before the Nobel Banquet, in connection with the awarding of the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize, in Oslo, Norway, December 10, 2023. (NTB/Javad Parsa via Reuters)
That may be the defining challenge for Iran’s opposition today: not simply finding a leader, but surviving under extraordinary repression long enough for one to emerge.
Whether Mohammadi can become that figure remains uncertain. But from prison, her husband says, she hasn’t stopped believing that Iran’s future could be different.
Iran’s mission to the United Nations did not respond to a request for comment in time for publication.
