Friends in Tehran tell me they’ve never seen anything like it, writes DAVID PATRIKARAKOS. This revolt is momentous. Yet from Starmer and the BBC, near silence…

The videos don’t stop. They come in waves from minute to minute. Iranians march first in hundreds, then in thousands, then in tens of thousands. The streets were filled with people. Woman and man side by side. Faces revealed. Voices rose. Fearless and with little to lose.

This is not 2023. No matter how noble a rebellion it is, it is not ‘Women, Life, Freedom’. Then the anger was still focused on the problems. Scarf. Police brutality. Daily humiliation. Before that, the economy was rigged, the elections were rigged. The protests centered on the faint hope that the system could be at least slightly relaxed, if not reformed.

This illusion is dead.

This rebellion is different. This is not about reform, it is about rupture. It’s about the end of the Islamic Republic after almost 50 years.

‘Death to Khamenei!’ the crowds roar: The aging ayatollah leading Iran. Expression is important. For decades, the regime had its people chant “Death to America” and “Death to England.”

Now the curse is aimed at the man who sits at the center of the introverted, diseased situation.

The regime’s language has been weaponized against it.

What makes this moment stand out is the scale. Footage verified by open source analysts shows unrest in dozens of cities: Tehran, Mashhad, Isfahan, Shiraz, Tabriz, Ahvaz.

Protesters crowd around cars blocking a main road in Mashhad, 360 miles from Tehran

The protests cut across regions, classes and ethnic lines. Kurdish towns. Arab states. Azeri cities. Heart of Persians.

In many places, crowds went beyond slogans and directly targeted regime symbols, including Basij bases and Revolutionary Guard areas.

And then there’s another hymn. The person the clergy fear most. ‘Zendeh bad Pahlavi!’ Long live Pahlavi. Long live the late Shah’s son, 65-year-old Reza Pahlavi, who lives in exile in Washington DC and is the king of the sea for many Iranians.

This is not sentimentality. This is a statement of intent. Not accepting the lie that Iranian history began in 1979.

Weapons are still in the hands of the state. But fear is changing sides.

More than fifty years ago, my maternal family fled Iran as Islamic fascism took hold. Now perhaps he is finally losing his grip.

Friends in the field were skeptical at first. They have been betrayed too often to believe easily. But now they are starting to believe.

‘Maybe this time dear David…’ writes a friend in Tehran. ‘I’ve never seen anything like this.’

An old woman with a split face and blood flowing down her cheeks was seen walking in Tehran: ‘I’m not afraid of dying,’ she says. ‘I’ve been dead for forty-seven years.’ He tells us that life under the Islamic Republic has already killed him.

I saw unarmed protesters marching towards the Revolutionary Guard headquarters. There are no weapons. There is no cover. No panic.

It’s just Iranians fed up, moving forward, taking back what’s theirs.

The Guards are the lethal arm of the regime. Sadistic. Degenerate. From Tehran to Damascus, it was covered in blood. Walking towards him empty-handed is an expression of contempt.

The regime’s response smacks of panic. It shut down the internet and restricted mobile and messaging apps. Revolutionary Guard units were recalled from regional deployments and rushed to major cities.

Ayatollah makes first comments on Iranian state television since unrest began

Awnings depicting Iranian leadership on a road engulfed in flames during protests in Ahvaz

State television blares about ‘foreign agents’ and dark conspiracies while refusing to acknowledge the size of the crowd.

This model is very old.

Tehran first shuts down the information. Then he goes after people. In November 2019, the same process ended with the deaths of hundreds of people within a few days.

But there is still near silence in Britain.

Turn on the BBC and, apart from a few short clips, you would hardly know that a historic riot was under way for most of yesterday. There is no urgency. No continuous coverage. There is no moral clarity.

The Iranian people are desperately trying to break free from the shackles of their Islamist oppressors and the British national broadcaster is looking away.

Keir Starmer is just as bad. Awkward and hesitant. It’s reduced to loose, half-hearted expressions that everyone ignores.

I suspect our Prime Minister is most concerned about whether protesters are violating some obscure article of international law as they lie bleeding and twitching on the ground.

And perhaps Labor is equally wary of alienating sections of its broad Muslim base by welcoming the overthrow of an openly Islamist regime.

But despite Starmer’s silence, these protests are important. And if you think these don’t concern you, you’re wrong.

Iran is the hinge of the Middle East. It is located between the Caspian Basin and the Persian Gulf, on the world’s two largest energy reserves.

About one-fifth of global oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz. When Iran takes action, the world is shaken.

It is a country of approximately 90 million people. And they are educated and skilled. Scientists have built a nuclear program that will crush weaker countries under sanctions. Its engineers, doctors and technologists are world class.

And let me tell you something old-fashioned but true. The overwhelming majority of Iranians are pro-Western to the core. I’ve never been anywhere else where foreigners asked me to teach them English with an American accent.

They watch our movies. Read our books. Follow our music. And they hate the men who rule them for stealing that world. They know that Iran must be rich, open and powerful, as it has been for long periods of history.

Instead, it is being plundered to finance medieval terrorist groups from Gaza to Yemen, its wealth burned by ideology, its future mortgaged to elderly clerics and teenage gunmen. If this regime falls, it will not be a regional footnote. It will be a global shock.

If the person replacing the mullahs is half sane, then a huge change will come, this is all good. Energy markets will open. Proxy wars will become stronger. Terrorist networks will collapse. Nuclear calculations will change overnight.

Donald Trump has warned that the White House is ready to take action if the regime begins mass murdering protesters.

Believe it or not, words matter. They draw a line. And the lines only apply if the world is watching.

Silence is Tehran’s greatest ally. Darkness is his shield. Every video ignored, every voice silenced gives the regime more room to kill unseen.

Britain still has a voice, although it has been diminished by years of decisions by our leaders that have diminished our global standing. We should be using this. Loud. Without apology. Without delay.

What is happening in Iran is very important. It may yet be historic. But history does not announce itself in advance. It depends on who is talking and who is looking away.

The BBC may have turned a blind eye. Keir Starmer can linger and squirm. We shouldn’t.

Because if the Iranians are brave enough to face batons and bullets with bare hands, we can at least look at their efforts with open eyes.

They risk their lives to confront one of the world’s greatest evils: Islamist oppression. And therefore they deserve our solidarity, not our silence.