She says that empires repeatedly assume domination will enforce compliance, but instead provoke defiance rooted in wounded dignity. She says this dynamic is visible in modern Iran, where foreign interference and imposed control triggered collective responses shaped by both national and religious identity.
Ghannoushi points to key historical moments, including the 1892 tobacco protest, the 1906 Constitutional Revolution, and the 1953 coup against Mohammad Mossadegh, to show how resistance evolved from social refusal into organised political movements. She writes that the 1979 Islamic Revolution was not sudden, but the result of accumulated grievances and repeated external intervention.
She adds that similar patterns have appeared across the region, where religious and social movements transformed into anti-colonial resistance in countries such as Algeria, Libya, Sudan and Morocco. In her view, pressure and violence tend to unify societies rather than weaken them.
Ghannoushi concludes that current Western approaches, including those associated with Donald Trump, fail to account for this history. She says that force and intimidation do not produce surrender in the region, but instead reinforce a deeply rooted refusal to accept domination.
