Despite a wildly unpopular war with Iran, a mass protest movement for peace hasn’t materialized — at least in the ways we’ve been taught to recognize.
Despite a wildly unpopular war with Iran, a mass protest movement for peace hasn’t materialized — at least in the ways we’ve been taught to recognize.
Probably because despite the fact that the war is unnecessary and annoying, ultimately no one actually likes Iran. With Palestine, everyone wants to defend them; they’ve done nothing wrong and are the victims of oppression. Iran is actually awful and has been for a while. No one wants to be confused between being anti-war and pro-Iran.
Also, the people who tend to go to protests have already been using their protest time/energy/priorities for protesting authoritarianism inside the US.
Iran has been fucked over by the US/UK since the 50s. They are what they are now because of the US. They’re absolutely the victims of oppression. The argument about people not wanting to be perceived as pro-iran is real, but doesn’t fully explain it because zionists and US media have painted Palestinians and “hamas” with that same brush and fear of being perceived as being pro “terrorist” has also played a role there for decades.
In both cases, they’re simply defending themselves. They’re not doing anything the US wouldn’t do if it was being attacked and invaded. One man’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter.
As far as why Americans suddenly care about ethnic cleansing and genocide in Palestine and are willing to be identified as supporting that struggle, despite it having been ongoing even longer than US meddling in Iran, is mostly due to decades of independent media strategies employed to force Americans to look at it. Famous mainstream people are finally behind it. It’s hip now.
Also Gaza is tiny so the concentration of crimes against humanity is denser. Iran being able to defend itself presents a real cost to attacking them, leading to this mostly being a stand-off, and 150 school girls getting blown up is a far cry from 20000 children in Gaza.
No one liked Sadda Hussein’s Iraq but that war had quite a few protests.
The difference I see is that we weren’t lied into justifying this war. It isn’t popular even among Republicans. Hell, the Republicans ran the last election in significant part saying that Kamala Harris would start wars and vote for Trump because he would not.
There are no Iran war protests because in 2026 America has a widespread feeling like nothing people can do fucking matters at all.