The Iranian Voices Missing From the “Regime Change” Debate

Mohammadi, who lives in Tehran but fled the city after Trump’s warning, acknowledged she could be arrested again for speaking out.

“I know that war won’t bring democracy,” labor journalist and activist Sepideh Qolian, who spent two years in Iran’s notorious Evin Prison, told The Atlantic. “The life that we wanted is the mirror opposite of the terrible events that are now happening.” Another anonymous activist put it more simply: “I can’t think about activism under the sound of drones and missiles, can I?”

It is not hard to imagine the myriad of ways that this war can go wrong. In fact, it already has. The Washington-based group Human Rights Activists News Agency, which tracks human rights violations in Iran, estimates that Israel’s strikes on Iran have killed at least 639 people and injured another 1,329, the overwhelming majority of them civilians. Even if the U.S. maintains its current position providing tactical assistance to the Israeli military without sending American bombers, fighter jets, or even soldiers into the country, that number will continue to increase. Should the U.S. become more involved, it will increase substantially—while inviting a military response from Iran, endangering American soldiers and perhaps even civilians.

Despite media descriptions of the strikes as targeting nuclear and military sites, the attacks have hit critical infrastructure like water pipelines, gas fields, and oil refineries, a hospital, an airport, and even many residential buildings. In one video, a woman screams because a corpse from next door flew straight into her apartment after a bombing. Doctors say they are at their limit with the “bloodbath” they are currently facing, working back-to-back shifts as hospitals are completely overwhelmed with the number of injured as airstrikes continue. In Tehran, thousands fled after evacuation warnings from the United States and Iran. At first the concern was for the millions who couldn’t flee and would remain in Tehran, but even those lucky enough to escape to the north are already being bombed.

The Iranian people are trapped, between the bombs that could kill them at any moment and a regime that never cared much for their lives to begin with. As of this writing, the Islamic Republic has shut off virtually the entire internet for more than 48 hours, cutting Iranians off from much-needed news about what is happening in their country as war escalates. And yet, even if those bombs somehow eliminate the regime, it’s clear that the Beltway elite has no idea what the human toll will be—or what comes next.