The US-Israeli war on Iran has kept the world on edge for nearly seven weeks, with a fragile ceasefire offering a tense pause over the past 10 days.<\/p>\n
US and Israeli attacks on the 90-million-strong, oil-rich nation have killed more than 2,000 people, displaced millions and damaged vital infrastructure, including areas near Iran\u2019s nuclear sites. US President Donald Trump also threatened to wipe out Iran\u2019s \u201cwhole civilisation\u201d if it did not accede to Washington\u2019s demands.<\/p>\n list of 3 items<\/span>end of list<\/span><\/section>\n In retaliation, Iran has attacked Israeli targets and fired missiles at Gulf countries and the wider region.<\/p>\n The ongoing Pakistan-brokered ceasefire between Washington and Tehran is threatened because of Israel\u2019s air strikes on Lebanon, which have killed more than 1,300 people, and its invasion of southern Lebanon.<\/p>\n Opinion polls in the US and Europe say the war is deeply unpopular.<\/p>\n But widespread anger against the Iran war has failed to turn into mass street protests, such as during Israel\u2019s genocidal war on Gaza and Russia\u2019s war on Ukraine.<\/p>\n Though the reverberations from the war on Iran have been felt globally \u2013 with oil and gas price increases, fertiliser shortages and stock market volatility \u2013 the effects have been felt faster\u00a0than in most previous conflicts.<\/p>\n Why? There are few clear answers \u2014 but analysts say several factors might help explain why this war has triggered fewer protests than other recent conflicts in its early days.<\/p>\n According to Armed Conflict Location and Event Data, a US-based nonprofit organisation that tracks violent events, armed conflict and protests, there were around 3,200 Iran war-related demonstrations worldwide in the first month since the US-Israeli attacks began on February 28.<\/p>\n By contrast, 3,700 demonstrations were in the first month after Russia\u2019s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, and as many as 6,100 demonstrations in the first month against Israel\u2019s war on Gaza.<\/p>\n \u201cThe absence of major anti-war protests in the US is somewhat puzzling, especially given that the US entered the [Iran] war with only 21 percent of the public supporting it,\u201d Shibley Telhami, a professor at Maryland University, told Al Jazeera, citing a pre-war poll conducted by his team.<\/p>\n By mid-April, almost two-thirds of Americans polled continued to oppose the war, according to various surveys.<\/p>\n \u201cUnlike in other wars, there was no \u201crally round the flag effect,\u201d Telhami added.<\/p>\n The war has also triggered an unprecedented energy crisis, with Iran effectively shutting down the Strait of Hormuz soon after the war started, except for ships belonging to countries that negotiated separate deals. On Monday the US began a naval blockade of all Iran-linked ships trying to pass through the strait, further compounding the traffic jam around the waterway through which a fifth of global oil and gas passes during peacetime.<\/p>\n Still, some analysts point out, US casualties have been minimal so far. Since the war began, 14 US troops have been killed in the conflict.<\/p>\n Trita Parsi, an Iran expert and founder of the Quincy Institute, said there hasn\u2019t been a \u201cmass mobilisation of ground troops, a ground invasion or measures of much higher risk\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cTrump has engaged in this war in a manner that minimises the American casualties,\u201d he told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n US academic Jeremy Varon, whose research area includes social movements, said people often turn out when their \u201cconscience is shocked\u201d or they perceive some grave injustice.<\/p>\n In the war on Iran, Varon observed that the Trump White House was waging what he called a \u201cvideogame war\u201d by means of drones and missiles, rather than ground troops.<\/p>\n \u201cAll we see from the Pentagon are \u2018smart bombs\u2019 obliterating physical targets,\u201d said the professor at The New School. \u201cThe human cost of war is almost invisible. This goes for Iranian suffering as well\u201d.<\/p>\n In contrast, Israel\u2019s genocide in Gaza saw major protests in the West, as Israel reduced the Palestinian territory to rubble.<\/p>\n The sight of mass casualties, displacement and visible starvation mobilised protesters for weeks and months until a so-called \u201cceasefire\u201d was announced last October, which Israel has repeatedly breached.<\/p>\n While the solidarity movement undoubtedly succeeded in shifting public opinion, most notably in the US, its inability to stop the genocide has left many activists \u201cdisillusioned, others exhausted,\u201d Salar Mohandesi, a professor of history at Bowdoin College, told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n The US-based academic said Trump has been able to fire up political storms on a range of issues \u2013 from immigration to the impact of tariffs \u2013 thereby fragmenting opposition against him.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople have limited time and bandwidth, so they are probably making decisions about which cause to support. In their calculus, other outrages \u2013 such as ICE \u2013 may be taking precedence over the war,\u201d Mohandesi added, referring to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the Department of Homeland Security arm that has been leading Trump\u2019s crackdown on immigrant communities in US cities.<\/p>\n The New School\u2019s Varon said that while there are undoubtedly protests against the US-Israeli war on Iran, there is no distinct movement, much of it incorporated into a larger protest movement against the US president, citing the anti-Trump No Kings protests, where many also denounced the war.<\/p>\n \u201cAny anti-Trump dissent is, to a degree, anti-war,\u201d Varon said.<\/p>\n He also pointed to a growing sense of powerlessness, as Trump remained seemingly \u201cunconstrained\u201d by domestic or international law.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople generally turn out in the streets when they think their protest will make a difference,\u201d he observed, adding that many Americans are \u201closing that faith, while quietly hoping that Trump\u2019s policies self-destruct.\u201d<\/p>\n Another key reason, say analysts, lies in Iran\u2019s global image \u2013 created by the West and its narratives.<\/p>\n Unlike Gaza, where protests are driven by a clearer sense that Palestinians are an occupied people, Iran presents a more complicated case for many in the West.<\/p>\n \u201cWith Palestine, you are dealing with a colonised people\u2026 With Iran, you are dealing with a sovereign state that has also repressed its own population,\u201d said Salar Mohandesi.<\/p>\n That distinction, he argued, has made some opponents of the war wary of appearing to defend the Islamic Republic.<\/p>\n Moreover, the Iranian diaspora plays a key role in framing the country\u2019s image abroad and is deeply divided.<\/p>\n A Zogby Analytics survey conducted in the first week of the war, and commissioned by the National Iranian American Council, found Iranian Americans almost evenly split, with almost 50 percent expressing support for the war. However, a second poll by Zogby Analytics showed support for the war plummeting, with nearly two-thirds opposing the war as civilian casualties increased.<\/p>\n \u201cSome of the most visible Iranian protests in the United States are for the war,\u201d Mohandesi said.<\/p>\n The diaspora in the UK has also been divided.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Iranian community in the UK is quite split\u2026 there is no single Iranian solidarity organisation leading the anti-war movement,\u201d said Jennie Walsh, spokeswoman for Stop the War UK.<\/p>\n It is often accused of being \u201cpro-regime\u201d simply for opposing the US-Israeli war on Iran, a charge she strongly rejected.<\/p>\n \u201cBut I think that sort of messaging may result in ordinary people being reluctant to join demonstrations against the bombing,\u201d Walsh added.<\/p>\n University campuses, historically central to anti-war protests, have also seen a muted response.<\/p>\n In the case of Gaza, the outpouring of support in Western colleges contributed massively in pushing the Palestinian issue to the forefront of the global political landscape, but also prompted a strong backlash from authorities.<\/p>\n Analysts and activists argue that sit-ins coming under attack from local police, student expulsions, the firing of department staff and threats of lawsuits have contributed to unease on campuses.<\/p>\n Under the Trump administration, hundreds of student visas were revoked, student protesters were abducted by ICE, and universities threatened with funding cuts if they did not crack down on demonstrations.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s simply not possible to organise in the same way that one did just a few years ago,\u201d said US-based academic Mohandesi, noting that administrators have passed \u201cdraconian\u201d rules limiting political activities on campus.<\/p>\n \u201cThey have de-chartered student groups, banned students from booking rooms, cancelled events at the last minute, and restricted the right to free speech,\u201d he added. In addition to a \u201cfear of retaliation\u201d, individuals and groups who would be in a position to lead the effort to resist the war are still trying to \u201cfind their footing in this radically changed terrain\u201d.<\/p>\n Anti-war campaigners say they have seen a similar pattern in the UK.<\/p>\n \u201cAuthorities in most UK\u00a0universities\u00a0have effectively\u00a0intimidated students into silence with expulsions, etc,\u201d STW\u2019s Walsh said.<\/p>\n A report in August by activist group Social Innovators for Justice (SI4J) accused the leading universities in the country, including Oxford and Cambridge, of \u201cwidespread systemic repression\u201d against Gaza-related sit-ins and protests.<\/p>\n For now, the fragile truce between Iran, Israel and the US has lowered tensions, dampening urgency on the streets.<\/p>\n But without a lasting political resolution, any renewed escalation could quickly test whether public opposition remains subdued or spills into a sustained protest movement, especially if the costs are more directly felt, analysts say.<\/p>\n \u201cIf [the US] goes in with ground troops and hundreds of Americans get killed, then things can change very quickly,\u201d said the Quincy Institute\u2019s Parsi. The US has deployed thousands of marines near Iran, and reports suggest it is planning to move more soldiers to the region \u2013 suggesting that it is keeping the option of a ground assault open even amid peace negotiations.<\/p>\n New School\u2019s Varon said \u201cimages of death and sorrow\u201d could raise the American people\u2019s \u201cmoral concern\u201d.<\/p>\n Economic pressure, however, may be the most immediate catalyst for a burgeoning anti-war movement, especially in the US.<\/p>\n \u201cThe pain\u2026 is not high enough yet,\u201d Iran expert Parsi said. \u201cIf rising fuel costs and inflation begin to hit households more sharply, opposition to the war may no longer remain abstract.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The US-Israeli war on Iran has kept the world on edge for nearly seven weeks, with a fragile ceasefire offering a tense pause over the past 10 days. US and Israeli attacks on the 90-million-strong, oil-rich nation have killed more than 2,000 people, displaced millions and damaged vital infrastructure, including areas near Iran\u2019s nuclear sites. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19267,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19266","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-explained"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19266"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19266\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/19267"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Recommended Stories <\/h2>\n
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