The Islamic Republic is transforming in the post-Ali Khamenei era. One sign is an apparent willingness to allow some opposition members to return to Iran, as long as they have been opponents of the Pahlavis and against the U.S.-Israel war with Iran. The two most prominent cases are singer Mohsen Namjoo and former BBC Persian editor-in-chief Masoud Behnoud.
On an Instagram post no longer available online, Namjoo announced that he was on his way back to Iran after nearly 19 years. He said the trip had been arranged so abruptly that the Instagram story was his way of telling his wife about it; he did not identify who arranged the trip.
The two most prominent cases are singer Mohsen Namjoo and former BBC Persian editor-in-chief Masoud Behnoud.
Namjoo had been a critic of the regime and became a target of regime media. But over the past years, he also became a critic of the faction of the opposition, led by former Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, that sought to partner with the U.S. and Israeli governments, even recording a song attacking Reza Shah, calling him a bully. He attacked Iranians who supported the war and received praise from regime-affiliated media for it.
Behnoud, a reformist journalist who left Iran after imprisonment and became an opposition journalist, also followed a similar trajectory. After the joint strikes that killed Khamenei, Behnoud condemned the attack, falsely calling Khamenei “the chosen leader of the Iranian people,” which received wide coverage in the Telegram channels related to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. On September 17, 2026, he announced that he would return to Iran after resolving some medical issues.
Iranian singer-songwriter Mohsen Namjoo.
Photo: Jazz Nights of Tehran JAZZNOT, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
On August 5, 2026, Culture and Islamic Guidance Minister Abbas Salehi said that the regime had compiled a list of more than 100 diaspora members who would be allowed to return to Iran. Among them are religious intellectual Abdolkarim Soroush and Duke University professor Mohsen Kadivar. Mentioning that he disagrees with many of them on a variety of issues, Salehi then praised them for their courage in standing up for the regime against the opposition during the war.
More minor figures such as pop singer Qeysar and influencer Mina Namdari have also returned to Iran. Namdari, who had received the regime’s ire for her revealing clothing on social media, said after her return that she had previously feared that she would be executed upon her return.
Namdari was right to have such a fear, but the war has changed the regime’s assessment. The war was a result of a lack of a popular base. Since the ceasefire, the Islamic Republic wishes to rebuild that base by loosening its grip on social life. After being appointed to be the secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, Mohsen Rezaei called national unity “a strategic imperative.”
This position will incentivize some diaspora figures to become apologists for the regime. Those who miss the homeland and wish to go back now have a reason to defend the Islamic Republic and pay their dues by first influencing public opinion and discrediting the opposition abroad.
It is an open question who oversees the current iteration of the regime, especially with Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei’s condition unknown.
After the death of Ruhollah Khomeini, the regime transformed from being primarily a theocracy to becoming primarily a military dictatorship under Khamenei’s stewardship. Yet, it maintained its social conservatism to the extent possible. It is an open question who oversees the current iteration of the regime, especially with Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei’s condition unknown—allowing his father’s old enemies and critics to suggest that Mojtaba Khamenei is not the one making the calls. The current leadership is more militarist and less Islamist than Khamenei. It is reasonable to expect an even more aggressive foreign policy to compensate for its increasing secularism.
This maneuver might succeed, but its failure will be catastrophic. This idea relies on the assumption that enough Iranians are willing to forgive the regime to make up for its ultra-extremist core that might abandon a largely secular Islamic Republic. That is the best-case scenario for the regime. But it is also possible that the crimes of the regime are just too much for the Iranian people to forgive, and that this move will only cost the new leadership support.
