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A deathly silence looms over the Arab street, unmoved by the wave of dramatic events in the region. We have not seen demonstrations, protests, or sit-ins in the Arab countries, and in my view, this is the first time in seven decades or more that such displays have vanished.

What has befallen Iran is no small matter; its military losses and nuclear facilities are immense — facilities that cost billions of dollars, and much blood and sweat to build. To its ballistic and nuclear losses, we can add the loss of the popular current it had cultivated across the region, from Iraq to Morocco.

When the Lebanese government took its bold decision to confiscate Hezbollah’s weapons, the response was limited to just a few dozen motorcycles roaming Beirut’s streets in protest. So, what happened to the human waves, the millions who once flooded the streets at a mere gesture from the party’s leader or from Tehran?

The collapse of Iranian influence is clear within Arab regions, like the collapse of Nasserism after its defeat in the 1967 war. It lost the ability to mobilize the street and resorted to relying on its socialist party members and labor unions to attend events after the masses — who once filled the squares with passion and spontaneity in response to radio appeals that dominated people’s awareness and emotions for nearly two decades — dwindled. In the wake of that defeat, a sense of shock and betrayal spread across the region, which had been waiting for the liberation of Palestine.

People do not admire the defeated

Abdulrahman Al-Rashed

Iran, too, once enjoyed dominance and popular support in the region, defying attempts to block its ideas and curb its activities. It managed to raise generations of Arabs on its ideas. Tehran opened its doors and arms to extremist Sunnis, including leaders of Al-Qaeda, overlooking their anti-Shiite ideology, and supported most Sunni opposition groups and movements against their governments. It built an organic, deeply coordinated relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood. It organized nearly annual conferences and seminars for Arab nationalists and communists.

It spent heavily to woo Arab politicians and intellectuals; books were published, and odes of praise were written in support of the imam’s regime and in its defense. Tehran gathered Shiites, Sunnis, and Arab Christians alike — thinkers from the Gulf, Egypt, the Levant, the Maghreb, Sudan, Yemen, and Arab diaspora communities. It climbed onto many Arab media outlets to promote Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s line. At times, we could hardly understand how it managed to reconcile all these contradictions.

In Tripoli — a city with tensions against the Shiites of Beirut — there were Sunni groups that, since the 1980s, continued to pledge allegiance to Tehran. In Jordan, among the Muslim Brotherhood, some openly declared their affection for Tehran’s leaders. Numerous works emerged in its defense: in Egypt, for example, “Iran and Political Islam”; in Kuwait, “Iran and the West: Conflict of Interests”; in the Gulf, conferences were held under the banner of “rapprochement” between sects, celebrating the history of Abbasid Caliph Al-Nasir Li-Din Allah.

All these activities might have been laudable, were it not for the fact that the intentions behind them were not out of love for ending or easing sectarian strife, but rather as part of a political project of domination.

Tehran was managing elite and grassroots movements in dozens of Arab cities; protests against novels, films, negotiations, and regimes.

But in the recent wars, following the October 2023 attack, the kind of mobilization we were used to in every confrontation faded. The first reason: People do not admire the defeated. The second: The apparatuses that used to orchestrate these gatherings have lost their connections and their resources have dried up. The Arab street venerates the victorious hero until he falls, then replaces him with another hero.

Its believers have been shaken by successive defeats, just as Nasserists were shattered by the setbacks of the 1960s. The remaining challenge is to hold on to its supporters within its Shiite popular base; they are the ones most harmed and who still live the trauma of shock.

With time, the Shiites of Lebanon will come to realize the truth — that they are victims of Hezbollah and Iran; that it is a burden on them, rather than a support. For four decades they have borne the confrontation with Israel and the consequences of ties with Iran: economic and personal sanctions, the destruction of their areas and neighborhoods, the targeting of their remittances from Africa and the Americas, and more.

• Abdulrahman Al-Rashed is a Saudi journalist and intellectual. He is the former general manager of Al-Arabiya news channel and former editor-in-chief of Asharq Al-Awsat, where this article was originally published. X: @aalrashed