Call to iedit-mode different when evaluated vs. in function

[joshcho]

I am trying to debug an issue in another package (lispy) that uses iedit. abo-abo/lispy#576

The function in question lispy-unbind-variable works fine if the function is evaluated line by line, M-: style. But when iedit-mode is called from within the function (i.e. defun then call the function), then the behavior looks different. There are nuances about the result of iedit-mode, even though the only change is that I am manually evaluating it. Any ideas on why?