Iran International
Pink missiles, pink drones and pink firearms. Women with uncovered hair—braids, ponytails, short bobs—stood beside weapons, waved flags and smiled for cameras in scenes broadcast across Iranian media. Tehran appears willing to try almost anything to preserve power.
Critics say the imagery forms part of a new Islamic Republic campaign that pairs missiles with fashion, war with pop culture and force with softness.
Liora Hendelman-Baavur, author of Creating the Modern Iranian Woman, told Iran International the visuals resemble Japan’s “kawaii” culture — imagery built around cuteness — but applied here to rockets and war.
“I think it is trying to make violence look cute,” Hendelman-Baavur said. “It is trying to appeal to the youth, to Gen Z.”
She said the campaign appears aimed at a generation that has filled streets, campuses and online spaces during years of unrest.
“We hear a lot of very aggressive and violent language coming from officials,” she said.
“And we also see it in many of the posters and murals being displayed in Iran. Violence and missiles — with red as the central color — are meant to show they are invincible and victorious. And on the other hand, we have this very light, pinkish, idyllic way of presenting a different reality … to demonstrate a whole different picture of what is really going on.”
The result, she said, is two messages at once: murals, rockets and threats for one audience; pink colors, uncovered hair and festival scenes for another — a duality.
The campaign comes just over 100 days after one of the deadliest crackdowns in modern history, when at least 36,500 people were killed during the bloodiest days of the uprising on January 8 and 9 alone. The Islamic Republic continues to execute political dissidents linked to the January protests.
Any publicity — even negative — is good
For Iranian pop culture expert Siavash Rokni, the scenes are less about change than circulation.
He called the imagery a public relations stunt meant to fill feeds, group chats, broadcasts and headlines with new pictures after months of funeral processions, executions, arrests and mourning.
“With PR stunts, it doesn’t matter if it’s good or bad — what matters is that it circulates,” Rokni said.
He said many Iranians know the difference between staged images and daily life, but viewers abroad may not.
“What worries me isn’t Iranians — it’s people outside Iran who might see this and think everything is normal. That’s where it becomes dangerous.”
Others say the campaign also keeps state control over women at the center of public life. Even without hijab, women’s faces, hair and bodies remain tools in official messaging.
Retreat — for now — on Islamist ideology
It may also point to pressure inside the system itself.
Arash Azizi, author of What Iranians Want: Women, Life, Freedom, told Iran International the Islamic Republic was founded on the goal of building a uniformly Islamist society. If it now loosens one of its core social codes, he said, that carries meaning beyond style.
“They understand that they have to give up on this Islamist ideology,” Azizi said.
He also rejected claims that the war has produced a broad wave of new support for the state.
“There’s no evidence that tons of people were anti-regime before the war and are pro-regime now,” he said.
For now, the pink paint may soften the image, but it does not erase the prisons, the executions, the graves or the anger that still runs beneath the surface of Iran.
Tehran’s unveiling of a towering statue depicting the Roman Emperor Valerian kneeling before pre-Islamic Persian King Shapur I has renewed criticism of the Islamic Republic’s appeal to nationalist sentiment following the June war with Israel.
For over forty years, the theocracy purged ancient Persian history from schoolbooks, replacing it with post-Islamic narratives. But after the 12-day conflict with Israel, officials have turned to the distant pre-Islamic past to rally a divided society.
From murals of ancient kings and soldiers to patriotic songs added to Shi’ite mourning ceremonies performed before Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, Tehran now embraces imagery once deemed heretical by its own revolutionary ethos.
'Kneel before Iran' campaign
Tehran’s Revolution (Enghelab) Square was the scene of an unusual spectacle on Friday as officials unveiled a massive bronze statue depicting Roman Emperor Valerian kneeling in submission before Sassanid King Shapur I, commemorating Iran’s victory at the Battle of Edessa (260 AD).
The event was held under the slogan “Kneel before Iran,” part of what authorities describe as a campaign to project “national unity and historical pride” following the June war with Israel.
Tehran Mayor Alireza Zakani, a staunch ultraconservative, said on X: “Enmity with Great Iran can only end in kneeling before this historic nation.”
Municipal official Davood Goodarzi said the installation would be accompanied by visual displays depicting “other victories of Iranians over foreign aggressors,” including the defeat of British forces by local commander Rais-Ali Delvari, Mirza Kuchak Khan’s resistance against Russian troops, and Surena’s triumph over Rome at the Battle of Carrhae in 53 BCE.
The goal, Goodarzi said, is “strengthening concepts such as national dignity, social unity, and Iranian identity.”
The statue, he said, would remain temporarily at Revolution Square before being moved to a city gateway “where it will stand as the first emblem of Iran before diplomats and foreign visitors.”
Unveiled women were allowed to attend the unveiling ceremony—an uncommon scene at events organized by Tehran’s ultra-hardline municipality.
The turn to the pre-Islamic past
The sharp reversal also recalls remarks once made by Khamenei. In a 2011 speech, he asserted that “all the great military victories of this nation came after Islam,” dismissing pre-Islamic accounts as “things that are not documented.”
In 1987, he had said that prophets triumphed over kings such as Cyrus and that “nothing remains of these monarchs in history but names remembered with derision.”
Nevertheless, pro-government social media accounts have now gone so far as to circulate posters equating Khamenei himself with Shapur, showing him standing with a staff as Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump kneel before him. The caption reads: “You will kneel before Iran.”
'Hypocrisy'
Pro-government figures have hailed the move as a patriotic success. Conservative political reporter Hossein Saremi posted: “Today’s grand Iranian gathering showed that people and the state share one essence: Iran itself. Nothing can take our homeland away.”
Others, however, called the spectacle “hypocrisy.” Journalist Gholamhossein Pashaei wrote on X: “Every year you close Pasargadae to stop people from celebrating Cyrus Day, yet you unveil Shapur’s statue in Enghelab Square with drums and fireworks during Fatimiyya (mourning period)!”
Dissident commentator Hamid Asafi called the ceremony “a perfect snapshot of the Islamic Republic’s contradictions.”
On Telegram he wrote: “A week ago they closed Cyrus’s tomb out of fear of the crowds, and now they glorify Shapur in the same breath. The Islamic Republic fears living history but poses for selfies with its corpse.”
He added: “They know people no longer respond to rosaries and sermons. That’s why they’ve brought history back to the stage—in a controlled costume. If they can’t erase the past, they’ll try to own it.”
The irony deepened as UNESCO formally recognized Cyrus’s Charter as one of the earliest human-rights documents.
President Masoud Pezeshkian wrote on X: “Iran, the cradle of dialogue, justice, and coexistence, can still inspire peace today.”
Users swiftly replied, questioning how such pride could coexist with a government that blocks access to Cyrus’s tomb each year to those wishing to visit it on his birthday.