Iran’s Green Revolution was nothing if not a visually powerful demonstration of hope. Faces radiating from behind green scarves, victory signs wrapped in green ribbons and green posters with slogans calling forth a better Iran dominated – for a short period – even all channels of the international media circuitry, let alone the Persian-language and Iranian-related virtual space. Against this avalanche of political and social hopes and aspirations projected by protestors, the government launched a strategy of doubt. In response to the post-revolutionary Iranian state’s promotion of the social embodiment of piety and ideological fervor in the sanctioned public sphere, the protestors countered green, the color of Islam, and slogans reminiscent of 1979. They did not do so in order to call back the revolution, but in order to counter power with the language of power – Islam and revolution. By mobilizing hope as the main affect in their networks and demonstrations, the protestors mounted a counterpublic that ‘transformed the space of public life itself’ (Michael Warner, 2005). Based on years of online and some ethnographic research, my paper will examine the strategies that the government employed – both online and offline, discursively and symbolically – to plant doubt among the general public about the very existence of these actors as well as their true motives. It will examine its campaign of shadow sites and hacktivism to discredit and demotivate the leaders and supporters of the Green Revolution, and the large counterpublic that the movement had mobilized. It will highlight the ways in which the government targeted the bodies of activists as sites of delegitimization, mainly through tactics of humiliation. Its successful attempts led to an atmosphere of pervasive depression that found reflection in works of cultural production circulated online and offline. It will conclude with reflections about the last-minute re-mobilization of hope among this counterpublic leading up to the election of current President Hassan Rouhani.