Weaponized language, forced polarization, and the strategy of isolating the regime’s most persistent challengers
In a healthy political environment, identifying someone as a supporter of a political movement is simple: people define themselves. If an individual publicly says, “I support this movement,” that statement is the basis for judgment. Political identity, in principle, is rooted in self-declaration.
But authoritarian systems do not operate on principle. They operate on control.
When a ruling structure fears that society might gravitate toward a political alternative capable of overturning the existing order, it often changes the rules of the game. Instead of allowing individuals to define their own positions, it manipulates public discourse to redefine what “support” means. The result is confusion, fear, and forced distancing.
Redefining Who Is a “Supporter”
For 47 years, both remnants of the former monarchy and the current clerical regime have waged sustained smear campaigns against the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK). These campaigns have not been random outbursts of anger. They have followed a clear pattern: repetition of labels, mass accusations, and systematic character assassination.
The strategy is simple.
The more irrational the accusation, the more aggressive the insult, the more effective the intimidation.
Over time, repeated labeling—using words such as “cult,” “terrorist,” or other derogatory terms—becomes normalized. When these words are echoed constantly across media channels, social networks, and political debates, they begin to shape perception regardless of factual basis.
This is not organic public debate. It is engineered messaging.
Turning Silence into a Crime
When such verbal violence continues long enough, it produces a dangerous shift: merely mentioning the targeted group becomes taboo. Political activists, journalists, and public figures may hesitate even to engage critically or neutrally with the subject.
In this manipulated environment, silence itself is reinterpreted as support.
Refusing to insult becomes suspicious.
Declining to participate in verbal attacks is treated as ideological alignment.
As a result, individuals feel compelled to publicly distance themselves—sometimes preemptively—just to protect their professional standing or personal safety. Neutrality loses legitimacy. Measured criticism is drowned out by emotional hostility.
This is how discourse becomes weaponized.
Forced Polarization
Another consequence of this strategy is the artificial polarization of society. The middle ground disappears. Public debate is reduced to binary slogans.
Supporters of Reza Pahlavi, for example, have at times used slogans suggesting that anyone who does not explicitly endorse their position must belong to either the clerical regime or its ideological enemies. This framing narrows political space and pressures citizens into rigid camps.
But polarization is not the ultimate goal.
The deeper objective of discourse engineering is not necessarily to elevate its authors to power. Rather, it is to exhaust and isolate the one movement that has consistently dedicated itself to overthrowing the clerical regime: the organized resistance.
Smear campaigns may succeed in intimidating bystanders.
They may silence hesitant voices.
But they do not automatically strengthen those who deploy them.
The Power of Endurance
The outcome of such campaigns ultimately depends on resilience. If the targeted movement maintains internal coherence and continues its political activity despite sustained defamation, the strategy of isolation begins to lose force.
The French philosopher Alain Badiou argued that fidelity to an event—the refusal to abandon a political commitment even when continuation seems impossible—is the essence of transformative change. Perseverance, in this sense, becomes a political act.
For Iran’s organized resistance, survival through decades of censorship, demonization, and repression is not merely symbolic. It is strategic. Continuity disrupts the logic of engineered silence.
After nearly half a century of systematic defamation, the central question is no longer whether smear campaigns exist—they clearly do. The real question is whether they can indefinitely suppress a movement rooted in long-term organization and persistence.
History suggests that verbal violence can distort perception.
It cannot permanently erase political conviction.
