As the Iranian regime grapples with its own illegitimacy and a defiant populace, it is resorting to a desperate new strategy: turning Iran’s neighborhoods into militarized garrisons. A recently announced “Neighborhood-Based Management” plan, ostensibly for social welfare, is nothing more than a thinly veiled security project designed to crush dissent and counter the growing influence of the organized opposition. This move reveals not the strength of a confident government, but the deep-seated fear of a collapsing dictatorship.
A military plan in civilian disguise
On June 3, 2025, state media announced a “meeting to review the neighborhood-based management model,” aimed at “reducing inequality” and “increasing societal resilience.” However, the attendees reveal the plan’s true security-focused nature: President Masoud Pezeshkian, the IRGC Commander, the Interior Minister, and Basij commanders. Economic and social ministers, who would be essential for any genuine public service initiative, were conspicuously absent.
The plan is explicitly designed to consolidate control “around the Basij,” with the IRGC Commander pledging the force’s 64,000 bases to the effort. For decades, Iranians have suffered under similar programs, from the “neighborhood-based Basij” used to spy on and arrest dissidents to the oppressive “ideological-political circles” in schools and universities. This new initiative is a clear attempt to transform cities into “cell-based” control zones, under the absolute authority of the regime’s security forces, with the primary goal of confronting the defiant generation embodied by the PMOI Resistance Units.
A direct response to the resistance
But the regime’s own media and officials admit this crackdown is a direct reaction to the effectiveness of the PMOI’s Resistance Units. On July 2, the Ministry of Intelligence’s Mehr News Agency lamented the activities of Resistance Units broadcasting anti-regime slogans, revealing that the opposition’s new mission is to use small loudspeakers to broadcast protest chants and “drown out the voice of great national unity.”
This fear is echoed by the cronies of regime supreme leader Ali Khamenei. The Friday prayer leader in Bojnurd recently expressed panic over the opposition’s activities, demanding that the judiciary “deal with the hypocrites (a pejorative term for the PMOI) in the strongest possible way,” and insisting that “all of them must be arrested.” This is a clear admission that the regime sees the organized resistance as an existential threat that must be stamped out at all costs.
The panic of a failing state
The regime’s desperation is palpable in its contradictory and panicked rhetoric. On June 28, the regime’s Attorney General, Mohammad Movahedi, absurdly claimed that “the Islamic system stands against its enemies more powerful than ever,” while in the same breath warning that “the enemies today… are seeking the destruction of this system.”
This bizarre messaging culminated in a bizarre and desperate plea. The Attorney General called on those who have “fallen into the trap of the Mojahedin” to “voluntarily turn themselves in to benefit from legal leniency.” This is not the language of a powerful, stable government. It is the plea of a terrified clique that has lost control. It is the people of Iran and their Resistance who will grant leniency, not the other way around. The call for criminals of the regime to turn themselves in to the Resistance Units is the only logical recourse. This new wave of suppression is the final, failing gambit of a dictatorship staring into the abyss of its own demise.