Analysis of: ‘Emotionally devastating’: Iranians in US on regime’s deadly protest crackdown
The Guardian | January 25, 2026
TL;DR
Iranian diaspora, torn between opposing intervention and watching mass slaughter, reveals how US imperialism manufactures consent for war through humanitarian framing. The real contradiction: decades of sanctions created the crisis now used to justify further intervention.
This Guardian piece, while documenting genuine human suffering, functions primarily as ideological preparation for potential US intervention in Iran. By centering diaspora voices—predominantly professionals in the imperial core—who express support for 'meaningful action,' the article constructs consent for escalation while obscuring the material conditions that created the current crisis. The fundamental contradiction lies in how decades of US sanctions, which have devastated Iran's economy and working class, created the very desperation now cited as justification for further intervention. The respondents' class position is notable: software engineers, lab scientists, civil engineers—members of the professional-managerial class who emigrated and are now integrated into the US economy. Their perspectives, while valid as personal experience, cannot represent the Iranian working class who bear the brunt of both regime repression AND imperial sanctions. The framing erases this distinction entirely. Most revealing is how the article naturalizes US intervention as humanitarian concern while omitting the 1953 CIA coup that installed the Shah, the US backing of Iraq during the devastating 1980-88 war, and the ongoing economic warfare through sanctions. The quote about Trump 'promising to save' Iranians inverts the actual relationship: the US has been a primary agent of Iranian suffering for seven decades. This ideological inversion—positioning the aggressor as potential savior—represents a textbook case of manufacturing consent for imperial action dressed in humanitarian language.
Class Dynamics
Actors: Iranian professional-class diaspora in the US, Iranian working class and urban poor (absent voices), Iranian theocratic ruling class, US state and military apparatus, US capitalist class with regional interests
Beneficiaries: US defense contractors and military-industrial complex, Regional allies (Israel, Saudi Arabia) seeking Iranian containment, US energy corporations seeking market access, Iranian exile bourgeoisie seeking regime change
Harmed Parties: Iranian working class facing both regime repression and sanctions, Iranian civilians who would bear intervention's costs, Regional populations destabilized by potential conflict, US working class paying for military adventures
The article amplifies voices of the professional diaspora class while the Iranian working class—those actually facing bullets and economic devastation—remain voiceless objects of concern rather than political subjects. This erasure allows intervention to be framed as liberation rather than imperial competition for regional hegemony.
Material Conditions
Economic Factors: Decades of US sanctions devastating Iranian economy, Iran's strategic oil and gas reserves, Control of Strait of Hormuz shipping lanes, Dollar hegemony enforcement through financial exclusion, Regional economic competition with Gulf states
Iran's economy has been systematically strangled by sanctions that prevent normal trade relations, access to global financial systems, and technology transfer. This has devastated industrial capacity, created hyperinflation, and destroyed working-class living standards—conditions that fuel protests but are attributed solely to regime mismanagement rather than imperial economic warfare.
Resources at Stake: Iranian oil and natural gas reserves (4th largest globally), Strategic control of Persian Gulf shipping, Regional geopolitical influence, Dollar system enforcement against alternative trade arrangements
Historical Context
Precedents: 1953 CIA coup overthrowing Mosaddegh, US support for Shah's brutal SAVAK regime, US backing of Iraq in 1980-88 war killing 500,000+ Iranians, Iraq 2003: humanitarian justification for catastrophic invasion, Libya 2011: 'responsibility to protect' leading to state collapse
This fits the recurring pattern of imperial powers creating crises through economic warfare, then using the resulting humanitarian catastrophe to justify military intervention. The manufactured urgency obscures how sanctions—not regime character alone—produce civilian suffering. Each intervention (Iraq, Libya, Syria) follows similar ideological preparation through media emphasis on diaspora voices and humanitarian framing.
Contradictions
Primary: The US, whose sanctions have devastated Iranian living standards and whose historical interventions created the current regime, is positioned as potential humanitarian savior—an inversion that requires erasing seventy years of imperial aggression.
Secondary: Diaspora professionals speak for working masses whose conditions they don't share, Respondents acknowledge intervention risks yet still support it out of desperation created by sanctions, Human rights rhetoric serves geopolitical competition, not humanitarianism, Internet blackouts are condemned while US sanctions cutting off technology access go unmentioned
The contradiction between humanitarian rhetoric and imperial interests typically resolves through intervention that serves capital while devastating populations (Iraq model) or through continued economic warfare that punishes civilians while strengthening regime hardliners. Neither path serves Iranian workers. Revolutionary transformation would require solidarity between US and Iranian working classes against both the theocratic regime AND imperial aggression—a possibility this framing actively forecloses.
Global Interconnections
This article exemplifies how imperial media manufactures consent for intervention by centering voices of emigrants integrated into core-economy professional classes. The pattern repeats: Cuban exiles in Miami, Venezuelan opposition figures, Libyan diaspora in 2011—each mobilized to provide domestic legitimacy for policies serving US capital's interests in accessing markets and disciplining non-compliant states. Iran's significance lies in its resistance to dollar hegemony (trading oil outside dollar system), its alliance with China and Russia, and its opposition to Israeli regional dominance. The humanitarian framing obscures these material interests. The article's publication timing—amid great power competition and US efforts to maintain Middle East hegemony—reveals its function in ideological preparation rather than genuine concern for Iranian workers, who suffer under both regime repression and imperial sanctions alike.
Conclusion
For workers in the imperial core, the task is rejecting false choices between supporting brutal regimes or supporting brutal interventions. Both options serve ruling classes. Genuine solidarity means opposing sanctions that punish Iranian workers, opposing military intervention that would kill them, and supporting autonomous working-class movements in Iran without colonial rescue fantasies. The Iranian diaspora's anguish is real, but their professional-class position and integration into US society shapes perspectives that align with imperial interests. Revolutionary change in Iran must come from Iranian workers themselves—not from the same imperial powers whose interventions created the current regime and whose sanctions perpetuate its worst tendencies.
Suggested Reading
- Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism by V.I. Lenin (1917) Lenin's analysis of how great powers compete for spheres of influence through finance capital and territorial control directly illuminates US policy toward Iran as inter-imperial rivalry dressed in humanitarian rhetoric.
- The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon (1961) Fanon's examination of how colonized intellectuals adopt colonizer frameworks helps explain how diaspora voices can be mobilized for imperial projects while believing themselves advocates for their homeland.
- The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein (2007) Klein documents how crises—whether manufactured through sanctions or military intervention—create opportunities for imposing neoliberal restructuring, revealing the economic logic behind 'humanitarian' interventions.
- Blackshirts and Reds by Michael Parenti (1997) Parenti's analysis of how Western media manufactures consent for intervention by demonizing official enemies while ignoring comparable or worse allied atrocities directly applies to selective Iran coverage.