I don’t know where we were when it happened, but we all felt the same thing: shock. It wasn’t unexpected, when a government loses all legitimacy among its people and picks fights with half the world, it becomes dangerously fragile. Still, when Israel struck Tehran, the collective gasp across Iran was real.
On the first day, several high-ranking IRGC commanders were assassinated, along with limited civilian casualty. While the civilian casualties were heartbreaking, even the most reserved, politically correct citizen couldn’t suppress a faint, conflicted smile at the death of those directly involved in the brutal suppression of Iranian protests or those who had, quite literally, shut down commercial airplanes from sky. How could one mourn someone who had overseen the killing of their own people? Of course, no one! And this gave people hope that there might be some good in this war after all.
But the smile faded quickly. Iran retaliated, albeit in a far less effective manner, and civilian deaths began to mount on both sides. The situation started to escalate quickly. Fear replaced vindication. The sense of insecurity, the unpredictability of attacks, and the vulnerability of Iranian cities stirred panic. The surprise failure of Iran’s defensive systems only deepened public anxiety. Suddenly, Iranians were caught in a moral and emotional dilemma: what are we really supposed to feel about this war?
One coping strategy has been to reduce the war to a fight between good and evil. For some, Israel is seen as a liberating force, a flawed one perhaps, but intent on toppling a regime of domestic tyranny and regional terrorism; Islamic Republic of Iran. According to this view, the Islamic Republic has held Iranians hostage for decades, and war is the cost of breaking free. Others, even while critical of Iran’s leadership, frame the conflict as one of sovereignty; a corrupt, oppressive regime, yes, but one still defending its soil from a foreign aggressor with a long history of military intervention in the region, alleged genocides and human rights violation. Propaganda loves simplicity, and people form alliances around whichever narrative feels most digestible. But the truth is not that simple.
The Islamic Republic has suffered significant damage, militarily and symbolically. Losing top commanders on day one, watching its national broadcast center attacked in the middle of a show, and seeing the Supreme Leader vanish from public view have deeply wounded its image. And yet, the Iranian people have not emerged untouched. In fact, they may be among the greatest casualties.
The fear of continued attacks has caused many to flee Tehran, casting a long shadow over daily life. But missiles aren’t the only threat. The government has intensified its crackdown; arrests, executions, internet blackouts, all under the fog of war. Civil society, already battered, has been further cornered. The infrastructure of resistance, strikes, protests, collective organizing, has damaged. Many labour associations such as Tehran’s bus drivers, university students, and teachers are neutralized by evacuations and school closures. The streets are quiet, but not for lack of anger, for lack of possibility.
Freud once wrote that growing up requires recognizing that the “good mother” and the “bad mother” are the same person. This psychological maturity, accepting contradiction, seems painfully absent from much of Iranian political culture. We still crave immaculate heroes to vanquish absolute evil. Our kings are either saints or monsters. Our revolutions either betray us or redeem us entirely. We swing between love and hate with little space for nuance.
But perhaps this war, for all its horrors, can teach us something. If we are to grow, as individuals and as a society, we must begin to hold multiple truths at once: that both sides bring devastation, that both sides reflect aspects of our reality, and that no outcome will ever be wholly redemptive or wholly damning.
Yes, our civil society has been wounded. Yes, we are more divided than ever. This is what war does to a society and this is why it is also our war until Islamic Republic is ruling over Iran. But are there possibilities embedded in this crisis? Perhaps. Only time will tell. One thing, however, is certain: the old Islamic Republic is burning fast. What comes next is unwritten. And it is on us through memory, through resistance, through maturity, not to let a new one rise from its ashes wearing a different suit.
