Navigating political fault lines amidst an unfolding and dynamic health crisis like the COVID-19 pandemic is a challenge for all governments. Pandemics, after all, are not simply events of biological contagion, but have political effects that require governments to address public discontent and economic crises without jeopardizing those ideological positions that legitimize their claim to power. The Islamic Republic of Iran is no exception. From the outset of the pandemic, the Iranian government has attempted to mitigate and manage the public health crisis without appearing to sacrifice its core ideological prerogatives. Since the founding of the Islamic Republic in 1979, the regime has cultivated notions of self-reliance, resistance to “the West” and solidarity as key elements of the state’s ideology. Successive governments have used these principles to frame their responses to some of the country’s most critical crises, from the Iran-Iraq War (1980–1988) to the imposition of international sanctions over the development of a domestic nuclear program.