The Iranian public's celebratory response to foreign strikes on their own country is the sharpest empirical refutation of the rally-round-the-flag prediction. That prediction rested on the assumption that Iranian nationalism — even among regime opponents — would override domestic grievances in the face of external attack. The events of 28 February demonstrate that assumption was wrong.
The response makes sense only against the backdrop of the protest cycle that began in December 2025. By February 2026, the Islamic Republic had conducted mass arrests, lethal suppression of demonstrations, and — according to reporting on the January 2026 massacre — killed dozens of protesters in a single incident. A population that had already concluded the regime was its primary adversary would not reframe an external attack as aggression against themselves. They would experience it as an attack on the institution they already wished to see destroyed.
The 1980 analogy that underpinned the rally-round-the-flag prediction assumed the regime had a reservoir of nationalist goodwill to draw on when attacked from outside — as it did when Saddam Hussein's invasion generated genuine popular mobilisation. That reservoir had been drained over forty-five years of mismanagement, corruption, and repression. In 2026, Iran's government was not a beloved national institution facing external threat; it was a coercive apparatus facing a population already in revolt.
Public celebration of foreign strikes also carries a secondary strategic effect: it removes domestic political cost from the regime accepting a ceasefire or negotiating terms that acknowledge defeat. A government drawing legitimacy from nationalist sentiment cannot negotiate from weakness. A government already seen as an enemy by its own population has less to lose from a settlement that concedes ground.
