US President Donald Trump said in launching the war with Israel on February 28 that it would pave the way for Iranians to rise up, having pledged support to anti-government protests that peaked in January and were the most serious challenge to the Islamic republic in years.The fractured opposition movements outside Iran clambered to position themselves as successors to the ruling system when the war began with the killing of the supreme leader in US-Israeli strikes.But the Islamic republic exited the war intact, with opposition groups outside the country more divided than ever and dissidents in Iran facing a new wave of repression, experts and rights groups say.Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of the last shah, failed to emerge as a unifying figure, while prominent dissidents inside Iran, including Nobel laureate Narges Mohammadi, are still under pressure from the authorities."There could have been an extra motivation for the various factions in opposition to really try to seize the moment... but that has simply not been the result," said University of Ottawa professor Thomas Juneau."If anything, infighting among the opposition in exile has intensified," he added, while domestic opposition "has been severely weakened" after decades of repression.Some inside Iran voiced hope in foreign intervention after the nationwide protests that were spurred by severe economic pains and ended in a violent crackdown that rights groups said killed thousands of people.But hope dimmed as the Islamic republic not only endured, but imposed fresh security crackdowns and an internet blackout that along with the war's death and destruction only deepened economic suffering.'Peace with my executioner'"This war was never about the human rights of the Iranian people," said Mahmood Amiry Moghaddam, director of Norway-based NGO Iran Human Rights, as authorities instead "used the war as a pretext to intensify domestic repression"."Democratic change must come through the Iranian people, not through foreign military intervention," he said.US Vice President JD Vance this week insisted the war was about ending Iran's nuclear programme and that Trump's stance had always been that if the "Iranian people want to rise up, great. That's their business".