Fear and hope for Iranians trapped between bombs and defiant rulers
The state of uncertainty has left Iranians helpless and confused.
Written by Erika Solomon, Kiana Hayeri and Farnaz Fassihi
When Israel and the United States first dropped bombs on Tehran, his native city, Aryan was elated. He was convinced he was witnessing the end of nearly five decades of brutal theocracy.
A week into the onslaught, he watched the midnight sky light up under ferocious bombardment and saw dawn darken as toxic black smoke choked the Iranian capital and burned his skin.
The shock of those scenes left him wondering if his hopes for the US-Israeli campaign were “just my own illusion.”
“They’ve hit everywhere. The night turned into morning, and morning into night,” said Aryan, 33, who like all those interviewed by The New York Times, asked not to be identified by his full name, fearing retaliation. “People are becoming more discouraged, like I am.”
Across Iran, more than 90 million people are trapped between two terrifying realities. US and Israeli leaders, whose bombs are razing ever more parts of their infrastructure, have called on Iranians to use this as an opportunity for liberation. And their rulers, determined to cling to power, have threatened more bloodshed against whoever dares answer that call.
“A society worn down by authoritarianism suddenly finds itself in the middle of a fire that has flared from outside,” Mohammad Maljoo, a well-known economist in Iran, wrote on social media, adding, “War opens neither a door to reform nor a horizon of liberation.”
For Iranians, apocalyptic scenes of bombardment — street gutters ablaze in Tehran, mothers huddling with children in shaking bathrooms and a school obliterated in the first hours of the war — are the most terrifying episodes in a string of devastations to grip their country over the last nine months.
A deepening economic crisis was already exhausting an Iranian populace still recovering from the 12-day war last June with Israel, briefly joined by US warplanes.
In January, security forces crushed a nationwide protest movement with deadly force, leaving thousands dead and an entire country polarized and traumatized by the crackdown.
When US and Israeli forces began to pummel the capital on Feb. 28, President Donald Trump called on Iranians to topple their government, vowing that “freedom is at hand.”
A week after the US-Israeli strikes that killed Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Trump expressed his desire to play a role in selecting the country’s new leader — perhaps from the very authoritarian system that he has urged Iranians to rise against. The authorities responded by appointing the dead leader’s son, Mojtaba Khamenei, a hard-line cleric, as the successor.
At the same time, Iranian security officials have taken to the airwaves to warn their opponents. On state television Thursday, one Revolutionary Guard official uttered stark language rarely used by the authorities in public, threatening that protesters would be viewed as agents of Israel.
“The shoot to kill order has been issued,” he said. “Nobody has spoken to you about this directly.”
After the war began, Asoo, a Persian-language publishing house, invited residents of Tehran to publish anonymous notes about their feelings. Often, these were a jumbled mix of persistent hopes that the chaos could still bring down the current system and despair over the destruction that was being wrought.
“We are living in a space filled with fear and hope, but my fears are greater than my hopes,” one respondent said.
For days, US and Israeli bombardments have pulverized Iranian military, intelligence and police sites across the country. And yet, there is no clear indication of a collapse in the government’s deeply entrenched and ideologically motivated security forces.
Many residents describe seeing large crowds of Basij, the plainclothes militia linked to the Revolutionary Guard, wandering the streets on motorcycles and shouting religious slogans as they pass.
Intelligence and security services still seem to be monitoring signs of dissent.
A resident of one wealthy high-rise in Tehran, Farzad, said that in the hours after the announcement that Ali Khamenei had died, his neighbors loudly celebrated on their balconies, shouting cheerfully into the streets.
Days later, he said, the building’s administration informed them that it had been warned by the security services that their apartments would be raided should any further outbursts occur.
Checkpoints have proliferated around the city, and many Iranians’ phones have been inundated with state messages urging them to join pro-government rallies and to report anyone taking photographs.
Other texts come with tacit threats of violence. “Any movement that disrupts security will be considered direct cooperation with the enemy and will be met with the firm response of your sons in the IRGC Intelligence Organization,” one text message shared with The Times said, referring to the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.
While surrounded by these dangers, most ordinary Iranians are cut off from the internet, and several residents interviewed said it was maddening to have almost no way to understand what was happening in their own country.
Amir Hossein Bagheri, an engineer in Iran, wrote on his Facebook page that he was as wary of state media as he was of foreign news outlets, saying that it rarely covered how deadly and terrifying the war has been for Iranian civilians. “None of them are trustworthy,” he wrote.
Recent attacks — and the responses US military officials have offered — appear to have only deepened the mistrust.
Over the past two days, attacks have blown up fuel storage facilities, sending oily smoke and black rain down upon Tehran. Strikes have also blown up a desalination plant as Iran grapples with a looming water crisis.
A statement from US Central Command on Sunday urged residents to stay home for their safety, even as it accused Iranian forces of using civilian areas to shield military operations and indicated that it would strike them.
The state of uncertainty has left Iranians helpless and confused.
Kazem, a merchant in Tehran’s bazaar, said he had witnessed a highway full of cars suddenly turn around and drive in the wrong direction when they noticed a traffic jam. The blockage was caused by a new checkpoint, not an attack, he said, but “people were terrified, they thought bombs were about to fall.”
Mahsa, a 39-year-old with a startup business in Tehran, said she and her friends felt so lacking in control that they did not even bother to make personal plans, let alone imagine how to try to topple their government.
“We’ve mostly accepted that we’re living in a situation where so many factors affecting our fate are beyond us,” she said.
Some Iranians still express hope that the war could eventually lead to the end of the Islamic Republic — particularly in areas like Iran’s marginalized Kurdistan region, where ethnic Kurds have long suffered heavy discrimination and where some militant groups have expressed ambitions to launch an insurgency.
Omid, 28, an artist in the Kurdish region, said he and his neighbors still were “quietly glad” when government sites were hit, as long as civilians were not hurt. “Freedom has a price,” he said, “and it’s a price that has to be paid.”
But Peyman, a digital entrepreneur in Tehran, worries that the price has grown too high.
Like many Iranians interviewed, he said he spent his days at home, unable to work, watching the destruction with increasing fear and unease.
He wondered how locals could prevent even petty crime with police stations bombed out — let alone how any government could pick up running the country after so much had been destroyed.
“We need police. We need intelligence services. We need military universities,” he said. “If we are going to live in Iran in the future, no matter what government we have, we still need institutions.”
When the war began, Peyman imagined an indirect collaboration between the US and Israeli militaries and Iranian protesters on the ground, envisioning an uneasy partnership akin to that of Moscow and Washington’s fight against Nazi Germany in World War II.
“The situation today is not like that,” he said. “The US and Israel are not actually cooperating with us.”
Instead, he said, “Iran is gradually turning into ruins.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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Written by Erika Solomon, Kiana Hayeri and Farnaz Fassihi
When Israel and the United States first dropped bombs on Tehran, his native city, Aryan was elated. He was convinced he was witnessing the end of nearly five decades of brutal theocracy.
A week into the onslaught, he watched the midnight sky light up under ferocious bombardment and saw dawn darken as toxic black smoke choked the Iranian capital and burned his skin.
The shock of those scenes left him wondering if his hopes for the US-Israeli campaign were “just my own illusion.”
“They’ve hit everywhere. The night turned into morning, and morning into night,” said Aryan, 33, who like all those interviewed by The New York Times, asked not to be identified by his full name, fearing retaliation. “People are becoming more discouraged, like I am.”
Across Iran, more than 90 million people are trapped between two terrifying realities. US and Israeli leaders, whose bombs are razing ever more parts of their infrastructure, have called on Iranians to use this as an opportunity for liberation. And their rulers, determined to cling to power, have threatened more bloodshed against whoever dares answer that call.
“A society worn down by authoritarianism suddenly finds itself in the middle of a fire that has flared from outside,” Mohammad Maljoo, a well-known economist in Iran, wrote on social media, adding, “War opens neither a door to reform nor a horizon of liberation.”
For Iranians, apocalyptic scenes of bombardment — street gutters ablaze in Tehran, mothers huddling with children in shaking bathrooms and a school obliterated in the first hours of the war — are the most terrifying episodes in a string of devastations to grip their country over the last nine months.
A deepening economic crisis was already exhausting an Iranian populace still recovering from the 12-day war last June with Israel, briefly joined by US warplanes.
In January, security forces crushed a nationwide protest movement with deadly force, leaving thousands dead and an entire country polarized and traumatized by the crackdown.
When US and Israeli forces began to pummel the capital on Feb. 28, President Donald Trump called on Iranians to topple their government, vowing that “freedom is at hand.”
A week after the US-Israeli strikes that killed Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Trump expressed his desire to play a role in selecting the country’s new leader — perhaps from the very authoritarian system that he has urged Iranians to rise against. The authorities responded by appointing the dead leader’s son, Mojtaba Khamenei, a hard-line cleric, as the successor.
At the same time, Iranian security officials have taken to the airwaves to warn their opponents. On state television Thursday, one Revolutionary Guard official uttered stark language rarely used by the authorities in public, threatening that protesters would be viewed as agents of Israel.
“The shoot to kill order has been issued,” he said. “Nobody has spoken to you about this directly.”
After the war began, Asoo, a Persian-language publishing house, invited residents of Tehran to publish anonymous notes about their feelings. Often, these were a jumbled mix of persistent hopes that the chaos could still bring down the current system and despair over the destruction that was being wrought.
“We are living in a space filled with fear and hope, but my fears are greater than my hopes,” one respondent said.
For days, US and Israeli bombardments have pulverized Iranian military, intelligence and police sites across the country. And yet, there is no clear indication of a collapse in the government’s deeply entrenched and ideologically motivated security forces.
Many residents describe seeing large crowds of Basij, the plainclothes militia linked to the Revolutionary Guard, wandering the streets on motorcycles and shouting religious slogans as they pass.
Intelligence and security services still seem to be monitoring signs of dissent.
A resident of one wealthy high-rise in Tehran, Farzad, said that in the hours after the announcement that Ali Khamenei had died, his neighbors loudly celebrated on their balconies, shouting cheerfully into the streets.
Days later, he said, the building’s administration informed them that it had been warned by the security services that their apartments would be raided should any further outbursts occur.
Checkpoints have proliferated around the city, and many Iranians’ phones have been inundated with state messages urging them to join pro-government rallies and to report anyone taking photographs.
Other texts come with tacit threats of violence. “Any movement that disrupts security will be considered direct cooperation with the enemy and will be met with the firm response of your sons in the IRGC Intelligence Organization,” one text message shared with The Times said, referring to the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.
While surrounded by these dangers, most ordinary Iranians are cut off from the internet, and several residents interviewed said it was maddening to have almost no way to understand what was happening in their own country.
Amir Hossein Bagheri, an engineer in Iran, wrote on his Facebook page that he was as wary of state media as he was of foreign news outlets, saying that it rarely covered how deadly and terrifying the war has been for Iranian civilians. “None of them are trustworthy,” he wrote.
Recent attacks — and the responses US military officials have offered — appear to have only deepened the mistrust.
Over the past two days, attacks have blown up fuel storage facilities, sending oily smoke and black rain down upon Tehran. Strikes have also blown up a desalination plant as Iran grapples with a looming water crisis.
A statement from US Central Command on Sunday urged residents to stay home for their safety, even as it accused Iranian forces of using civilian areas to shield military operations and indicated that it would strike them.
The state of uncertainty has left Iranians helpless and confused.
Kazem, a merchant in Tehran’s bazaar, said he had witnessed a highway full of cars suddenly turn around and drive in the wrong direction when they noticed a traffic jam. The blockage was caused by a new checkpoint, not an attack, he said, but “people were terrified, they thought bombs were about to fall.”
Mahsa, a 39-year-old with a startup business in Tehran, said she and her friends felt so lacking in control that they did not even bother to make personal plans, let alone imagine how to try to topple their government.
“We’ve mostly accepted that we’re living in a situation where so many factors affecting our fate are beyond us,” she said.
Some Iranians still express hope that the war could eventually lead to the end of the Islamic Republic — particularly in areas like Iran’s marginalized Kurdistan region, where ethnic Kurds have long suffered heavy discrimination and where some militant groups have expressed ambitions to launch an insurgency.
Omid, 28, an artist in the Kurdish region, said he and his neighbors still were “quietly glad” when government sites were hit, as long as civilians were not hurt. “Freedom has a price,” he said, “and it’s a price that has to be paid.”
But Peyman, a digital entrepreneur in Tehran, worries that the price has grown too high.
Like many Iranians interviewed, he said he spent his days at home, unable to work, watching the destruction with increasing fear and unease.
He wondered how locals could prevent even petty crime with police stations bombed out — let alone how any government could pick up running the country after so much had been destroyed.
“We need police. We need intelligence services. We need military universities,” he said. “If we are going to live in Iran in the future, no matter what government we have, we still need institutions.”
When the war began, Peyman imagined an indirect collaboration between the US and Israeli militaries and Iranian protesters on the ground, envisioning an uneasy partnership akin to that of Moscow and Washington’s fight against Nazi Germany in World War II.
“The situation today is not like that,” he said. “The US and Israel are not actually cooperating with us.”
Instead, he said, “Iran is gradually turning into ruins.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
