I truly am stunned the BBC would publish a story like this. It appears to show that Iranians are mostly hopeful, and happy to see the regime being destroyed.
I'm very surprised that they would ever admit there's a positive side to this war, since it's the U.S. and Israel conducting it. There's not even a comparison to Hitler, nor a reference to fascism. WTF is going on?!
Key takeaways
I'm very surprised that they would ever admit there's a positive side to this war, since it's the U.S. and Israel conducting it. There's not even a comparison to Hitler, nor a reference to fascism. WTF is going on?!
Key takeaways
- Public Reactions: Some Iranians, like Hamid, celebrate airstrikes on regime targets, seeing them as a chance for freedom from the Ayatollahs, while others feel fear and uncertainty about the war's motives and consequences.
- Civilian Impact: The conflict has caused over 1,000 civilian deaths, including nearly 200 children, with widespread trauma and destruction across cities like Tehran and Isfahan.
- Conflicted Sentiments: Many Iranians experience a mix of hope, stress, and moral conflict, torn between the desire for regime change and the horrors of war, reflecting deep societal divisions.
When Hamid heard news of the death of Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei a week ago today, he felt a wave of euphoria and took his wife and daughter into the street outside his home in Tehran to celebrate.
For the next few days, as US and Israeli bombs slammed into buildings across the capital, the family went onto the roof of the house to watch the airstrikes coming in, cheering every time a regime target was hit.
"Try to find anywhere else on this earth where the population would be happy with an external attack on their country," he told me, via a cousin in the UK.
"But we now have hope that the regime will soon be gone. We are happy."
Hamid - not his real name - is not alone.