Category: Uncategorized

TIME – When it comes to geopolitical tensions spilling into the world of sports, the Iran war—now in its seventh day—has no historical precedent.

According to Pacific University professor Jules Boykoff, an expert on international sports politics, a World Cup host country has never attacked one of the tournament’s participants some three months before the beginning of the most-watched sporting event on the planet. “Soccer-wise,” says Boykoff, “it moves us into uncharted territory.”

The military action against Iran initiated by President Donald Trump—winner of FIFA’s inaugural Peace Prize in December—in concert with Israel certainly cast a pall over the 100-day countdown, marked on March 3, to a World Cup that FIFA president, and Trump ally, Gianni Infantino has promised to be “simply the greatest event that humanity, that mankind, has ever seen and will ever see.”

Will Iran be able to, or want to, participate in the World Cup after the U.S.-Israel bombings killed Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, other Iranian political and military leaders, and according to the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency, more than 1,000 civilians, including 181 children, in the first five days of the war? The country’s games in Los Angeles against New Zealand on June 15, Belgium on June 21, and against Egypt in Seattle on June 26 hang in the balance.

On Monday, Iranian soccer federation president Mehdi Taj was quoted as telling state television: “What is certain is that after this attack, we cannot be expected to look forward to the World Cup with hope.”

Iranian soccer officials did not respond to a TIME interview request.

“Of course, we will monitor the developments around all issues around the world,” FIFA secretary general Mattias Grafström said on Feb. 28. “We had the final draw in Washington, where all teams participated and, of course, our focus is to have a safe World Cup with everybody participating.”

(A FIFA spokesperson declined to comment further: Grafström did not return an email requesting comment. If Iran were to boycott, either Iraq—who faces either Suriname or Bolivia in a playoff on March 31 for one of the final World Cup positions—or the United Arab Emirates, who lost to Iraq in a World Cup qualifier in November, could take its place.)

Andrew Giuliani, executive director of the White House Task Force for the FIFA World Cup 2026, said on Feb. 28: “The largest state sponsor of terrorism in my lifetime is dead. Today’s action by the 45th and 47th President of the United States will make the world a safer place and start a chain reaction of peace. My heart is with the thousands of American service members’ families who were victims of the Ayatollah’s ‘Death to America’ mission. The head of the snake spreading that vile message has now been cut off, and I pray the Iranian people will seize their liberty. We’ll deal with soccer games tomorrow—tonight, we celebrate their opportunity for freedom.”

Giuliani did not respond to a message seeking an interview; a task force spokesperson declined to comment further.

In 2025, Trump suspended the entry of Iranian nationals into the United States. An exemption, however, was carved out for “any athlete or member of an athletic team, including the coaches, persons performing a necessary support role, and immediate relatives, traveling for the World Cup, Olympics, or other major sporting event as determined by the Secretary of State.” So while Iranian players and coaches would be able to travel for the World Cup, soccer fans from Iran would be restricted from coming to the United States. Members of the country’s global diaspora would be counted on to support the team, which in the past has been at the center of political battles.

At the 2022 Qatar World Cup, for example, before a game against Wales, fans supporting the Iranian government clashed with those protesting against the regime. The Iranian women’s team, competing in the Asian Cup in Australia, on Monday declined to sing the national anthem before its match against South Korea, a move that was interpreted by many as an act of resistance against the current regime. On Thursday, however, the team saluted and sang the anthem in the midst of the ongoing conflict in the Middle East.

Given the Iranian regime’s crackdowns on protests that preceded the war—according to the Human Rights Activist News Agency, that violence resulted in more than 6,000 deaths—some Iranian-Americans don’t think a team that represents a brutal government should appear on the World Cup stage.

“Two years ago, I know Iranian fans would be heartbroken if the team wasn’t sent,” says Abbas Milani, director of Iranian studies at Stanford University. “Today, I think they will be angry at the athletes who would want to represent Iran in such a moment of calamity.”

Others want Iran to play, and are especially eager to support the soccer players in this charged atmosphere. They don’t equate the team with the regime.

“There’s tons of people in the U.S. right now that hate Trump with a passion, but nobody is saying this is Trump’s team that’s playing in the World Cup,” says an Iranian-American soccer fan, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of backlash within the diaspora. “These are young kids that are in their 20s, that have dedicated their life to the sport. I feel nothing but proud when they do well.”

Iran’s participation in the World Cup probably has no real downside, for any parties in the conflict.

“In a perfect world, the team comes here and plays because being connected to other people, and being connected not as the subjects of governments who have issues, but just as members of the human family, is important,” says Jamal Abdi, president of the National Iranian American Council. “That’s important politically, too. Because when you know who you’re bombing, you’re less inclined to bomb them.”

The post Iran’s Involvement in World Cup Appears Uncertain Amid Widening War appeared first on Human Right Activists In Iran.

Radio Free Europe – The United States and Israel vowed no letup in their military campaign against Iran, with Tel Aviv launching a fresh “broad wave of strikes” while US President Donald Trump said Tehran “is going to be in for a lot of hurt” in the coming days.

“The big-scale hitting goes now,” Trump said on March 3 at the White House during a meeting with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz.

“They no longer have air protections, they no longer have any detection systems left at all, so they’re going to be in for a lot of hurt,” he warned.

Trump also reiterated that, along with Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, much of the Iranian leadership had been killed in the US-Israeli attacks, leaving the regime in uncertain hands.

“Most of the people we had in mind are dead. Now we have another group. They may be dead also, based on reports,” he said.

‘Shock And Awe’

After Trump spoke, the chief of the US military’s Central Command, Admiral Brad Cooper, said Operation Epic Fury represents the largest US buildup in the Middle East in a generation.

More than 50,000 US troops, over 200 fighter aircraft, two aircraft carrier strike groups, and long-range bombers are participating in the operation, Cooper said. He described the opening phase as nearly double the scale of the 2003 “shock and awe” campaign in Iraq.

“Today, there is not a single Iranian ship under way in the Arabian Gulf, Strait of Hormuz, or Gulf of Oman,” Cooper said, describing what he called an unprecedented effort to eliminate Iran’s ability to threaten US forces.

“We’ve just begun,” he said. “But I have the utmost confidence that we, alongside our partners, will absolutely achieve our military objectives.”

He said the US military has destroyed 17 Iranian naval vessels — including a submarine — and struck nearly 2,000 targets across Iran in less than four days, according to the commander of US Central Command.

New Israeli Strikes

Separately, Israel said early on March 4 that it had launched a “broad wave of strikes,” saying its latest targets on the fifth day of the joint US-Israeli attack included Iranian “launch sites, air defense systems, and additional infrastructure.”

In Tehran, a city of some 10 million people, the streets appeared mostly deserted, with many fleeing the capital and others hunkering down at home.

“There are so few people that you’d think no one ever lived here,” Samireh, a 33-year-old nurse, told AFP.

Authorities have urged people to leave the capital. Police, armed security forces, and armored vehicles have been stationed at main junctions, carrying out random checks on vehicles, AFP added.

Reports from inside Iran are difficult to verify. The US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) said that nearly 1,100 civilians, including 181 children, have been killed in the air strikes.

Sirens Blare In Israel

In Israel, meanwhile, air raid sirens blared overnight as the Israeli military worked to intercept successive waves of incoming Iranian fire.

Police in Tel Aviv said shrapnel fell in the area, slightly injuring one woman. There were no other immediate reports of Israeli casualties.

Israel also pressed its renewed drive against Iran-allied Hezbollah elements in Beirut after the group’s military wing fired missiles into northern Israel.

Loud explosions were in the Lebanese capital Beirut shortly after midnight on March 4, as Israel and Hezbollah exchanged strikes and rocket fire, reportedly killing dozens of people. The UN said more than 30,000 people have been displaced in Lebanon.

Iranian Retaliation

There appeared to also be no letup in Iran’s retaliatory missile and drone firings, although results were not as dramatic as the US-Israeli strikes.

US diplomatic outposts — embassies and consulates — in the Middle East reported drone attacks, some causing minor damage but no casualties.

Iran has fired hundreds of missiles and drones targeting US military bases as well as key energy and commercial sites in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Qatar — all American allies — since February 28.

Officials in Qatar said an Iranian ballistic missile hit the US military base at Al-Udeid on March 3 without causing casualties.

The US Embassy in Riyadh was struck by two drones, causing a “limited fire” and “minor material damage,” Saudi Arabia’s Defense Ministry said, as tensions escalate across the Middle East.

Cooperation With Kurds?

Elsewhere, the leading Kurdish party in Iraq said its leaders had spoken to Trump about the next steps in the war against neighboring Iran.

The White House did not confirm the report, but said, ““President Trump has spoken with many regional partners.”

The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) said Trump contacted party head Bafel Talabani to discuss US actions in neighboring Iran. US media reported that Trump also spoke with Iraqi Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani a day after the start of the US-Israeli attacks in Iran.

The report of the calls comes as The Wall Street Journal reported that Trump is considering supporting Iraqi Kurdish factions in a fight against the Iranian leadership.

The Iraqi Kurds have a large force at the border with Iran and also have links to the Kurdish minority in Iran. Ethnic Kurds have for decades been seeking an independent state and have long accused Tehran of oppressing its Kurdish minority.

The post US, Israel Vow No Letup And ‘A Lot Of Hurt’ As Campaign Against Iran Intensifies appeared first on Human Right Activists In Iran.

ABC News – The Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), a U.S.-based group that relies on a network of activists in Iran for its reporting, said in a statement Tuesday night that it has so far documented the deaths of 912 civilians and the injuries of 211 civilians in Iran, as a result of the ongoing U.S.-Israeli military operation.

Among those killed are at least 181 children under the age of 10, according to HRANA.

HRANA said it is reviewing 880 reports of other deaths.

“These figures reflect a devastating and escalating human toll and represent absolute minimums,” the group said in the statement. “The protection of civilians is not optional. It is a binding legal obligation.”

HRANA said it has also “verified credible reports of attacks on at least seven medical centers and emergency health facilities” in Iran.

ABC News cannot independently verify these numbers or information, but HRANA has been accurate in its reporting during previous periods of unrest and conflict in Iran.

The post Iranian civilian death toll rises to 912, human rights group says appeared first on Human Right Activists In Iran.

Mezha – In the last 24 hours, there have been at least 104 strikes against Iran across 19 provinces, resulting in 31 people killed or injured, according to data from the human rights organization HRANA, released on March 3.

According to rights groups, during the latest reporting period 15 civilians and 12 military personnel were killed; other casualties are being clarified. Since the start of the conflict on February 28, HRANA has documented 1,097 deaths among civilians and 5,402 injuries, including among children. The group also reported strikes that damaged military bases, medical facilities, and residential areas across the country.

HRANA, the information agency of the US-based human rights organization “Human Rights Activists in Iran,” tracks human rights abuses and the consequences of the conflict through a network of local sources and open-source verification.

Safety of journalists and detainees

Meanwhile, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has voiced serious concerns about the safety of media workers detained in Iran amid rising regional tensions, and urged the country’s authorities to release them immediately. CPJ reports that at least 15 journalists remain behind bars, including American and Iranian citizens, former Iran Desk journalist for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Reza Valizadeh, Japanese journalist Shinnosuke Kawasami, and Mohammad Zare-Fumani, who are held in Tehran’s Evin Prison.

The report also notes that the prison is located in a district whose residents were evacuated following an order by the Israeli military, raising concerns about the detainees’ safety. CPJ also warned of an almost complete Internet shutdown and serious disruptions in communications that cut detainees off from families and the outside world.

Human rights groups and relatives have reported deteriorating conditions in Evin, including food shortages and the withdrawal of the prison administration, which heightens concerns about the detainees’ condition.

Geopolitical consequences and regional dynamics

Since February 28, the United States and Israel have been striking Iran’s military and nuclear infrastructure, as well as government buildings. U.S. President Donald Trump stated that the operation’s aim is to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. Iran maintains that its nuclear program is peaceful and not aimed at weapon development.

The joint operation by the United States and Israel led to the death of Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and a significant number of other senior regime officials. In response, Iranian forces attacked with missiles and drones not only Israel and U.S. military targets in the region, but also many of its regional neighbors whom Tehran regards as US allies.

As a result of Iranian strikes, six U.S. service members were killed, and casualties among the region’s civilian population were recorded.

In light of these events, human rights groups emphasize the need to maintain humanitarian support for civilians and to uphold basic human rights. Such events underscore the importance of international response and accountability for the use of force in accordance with international law.

The post HRANA Documents 104 Strikes Across Iran, Casualties Rise appeared first on Human Right Activists In Iran.

CNA – The US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) has reported that 1,097 people have been reported killed in Iran since February 28.

Of these, 181 were children under the age of 10, the agency said. The number of civilians injured has reached 5,402, including 100 children, HRANA added.

According to HRANA, there have been at least 104 attacks in the last 24 hours alone. They have hit military bases, medical centers and residential areas.

The post Fifth day of war/ Over 1,000 people killed in Iran appeared first on Human Right Activists In Iran.

BBC – Iranians living and working in Oxford say they are “worried sick” about their friends and family members amid the ongoing conflict in the Middle East.

The post UK Iranians ‘worried sick’ amid ‘heartbreaking’ war appeared first on Human Right Activists In Iran.

NewsOnAir – Conflict in West Asia has intensified as Israel carried out a series of strikes on the Basij and internal security command centres in Tehran belonging to the Iranian regime. The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said in a social media post that the targeted command centres were used by the Iranian regime to maintain control throughout Iran. The IDF also struck the regime’s missile launchers and other systems. The Israeli Air Force also said that Iranian soldiers who operated air defence systems against Air Force aircraft have been neutralised. Meanwhile, Iranian state television reported today that a mourning ceremony for Khamenei had been postponed and would be held later.

The post Conflict in West Asia intensifies as Israel attack security command centers in Tehran; over 1000 civilains reported to have been killed in Iran appeared first on Human Right Activists In Iran.

Balkan Web – More than 700 people have been killed in Iran since the war began on Saturday, according to the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA).

There were also reports of damage to religious buildings and homes in the past 24 hours. Among them were a mosque in Karaj, a city near Tehran, several residential buildings, a governor’s office south of the capital, and the Shahid Bahonar Mole in Bandar Abbas on the Strait of Hormuz, according to the group. Iran also claimed damage to hospitals in Tehran.

HRANA says their analysis is preliminary and may change.

The post More than 700 civilians killed in Iran since the start of the war appeared first on Human Right Activists In Iran.

Counter Punch – When I was small my mother warned me never to approach a sick animal. The dying ones, she said, are the deadliest of all.

That hasn’t been my experience; most of the dying creatures I’ve encountered just want a quiet place to pass their final hours. The source of my mother’s anxiety was closer to home than she had yet to recognize, but her fear was palpable. She was haunted by the vision of her curly-haired child falling prey to some sickly, snarling, yellow-eyed feral creature with nothing left to lose. That’s a mother’s worst nightmare.

Flash forward to February 28, 2026. Dozens of schoolchildren were reported dead in “one of two strikes that appear to have hit schools since U.S. and Israeli warplanes launched their attack on Iran around 10 a.m. local time.” It was a mother’s worst fear come true, many times over.[1]

Why would Israel and the United States kill children? The genocide in Gaza has made it clear that neither country is shy about the systematic extermination of the very young when it serves their strategic interests. These deaths, however, seem to be the products of tactical indifference rather than intentional annihilation. The girls’ school was near an Iranian naval base, and the high school was in the neighborhood where former Iranian president Ahmadinejad lived and was targeted by bombers.[2]

This is how dying animals behave in a mother’s nightmare. They’re not looking for human children to kill—not the way an airborne raptor or an IDF soldier would. They simply lash out blindly in a desperate fight against the inevitable. Sometimes children get in the way.

Yes, Ayatollah Khamenei is dead. Big deal. Others like him were already prepared to step in.

Our political culture is naive, almost childlike, in its attachment to the “great man” theory of history, with the “evil man” as its shadow side. Powerful figures do sometimes alter history, but only within those time-worn channels Tennyson called the “ringing grooves of change.” Khamenei’s power began with the US overthrow of the Iranian government in 1953, which set the stage for Iran’s current theocracy. The brutality of the Shah only hardened the steely resolve of Khamenei’s predecessor, who cast aside pro-democracy Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri to put Khamenei in power. If it hadn’t been him, it would been found someone equally hard-lined.

Trump and Netanyahu are merely the latest leaders to be vomited up from a groove whose name is “colonialism.” Its source is not the culture or beliefs of ancient Jewish tribes. This groove traces back to the chieftains and pagan shamans of pre-Christian Europe. It rings with the sound of cauldrons and cannons and the church bells of the inquisitor. If some of its own children must be sacrificed, too, so be it.

Once again, pro-democracy protesters have been betrayed by US-made bombs. Attacks by foreign countries almost always strengthen their current leadership and weaken protest movements. There’s no reason to think this time will be any different. Khamenei is almost certainly more powerful in martyrdom than he was in the last months of his life. The protesters must now wait for the inevitable betrayal. May they find solidarity in just people around the world.

As-yet-unconfirmed reports suggest that the bombers have targeted some of the leaders who are best positioned to form an independent government. That wouldn’t be surprising. The US and Israel don’t want an independent Iran. They want a vassal.

But wait, you say. Israel and the United States aren’t dying animals. They’re very much alive and will be for the foreseeable future. Don’t be so sure. Netanyahu has been clinging to power for years to avoid prosecution for a litany of corruption charges. Trump was also threatened by multiple prosecutions before winning re-election. Both men, having feasted lavishly on ill-gotten gains, were desperate to avoid the consequences of their own actions.

For Netanyahu, Israel’s future looks grim. Much of the world has turned against it. Public opinion is evolving from revulsion over its actions to doubts about its very legitimacy as a theocratic ethno-state. Public support for Israel, once considered immutable, has plummeted in the US and Western Europe, especially among younger people who are more likely to consider it an “apartheid state.”

Israel, dependent on Western largesse, is likely to face a critical decision when these generations assume power: become a truly democratic state that ends radicalized privilege or remain an unsustainable international pariah. Either way, the clock is almost certainly ticking on the era of Eretz Israel envisioned by Zionism’s founders. It may take decades, with great bloodshed along the way, but this change seems increasingly likely.

This is not an outré idea. Israel’s military and political leaders see this future almost as clearly as independent observers do. No wonder they’ve become increasingly open in their violence. It’s a sign of desperation as well as hate.

The United States may not disappear as a nation in the foreseeable future. But its global dominance and that of its elites will end, and probably soon. That prospect fills its current leaders with existential dread. Billionaires build airstrips in the Hamptons and rehearse the apocalypse in mountaintop retreats. Politicians try to seize control of oil-rich nations through brute force and feed the fantasy that exorbitant military spending can crush the spirit of independent peoples.

As the philosopher Antonio Gramsci wrote, “the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this twilight, a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.”

Richard Nixon said this when he tried selling an equally delusional war to the American people: “If, when the chips are down, the world’s most powerful nation, the United States of America, acts like a pitiful, helpless giant, the forces of totalitarianism and anarchy will threaten free nations and free institutions throughout the world.”

The “forces of totalitarianism and anarchy” are us. Every war the US has fought in the intervening half-century has been a strategic and military failure. The United States has become a pitiful, violent giant—lethal and proud, but pitiful just the same. It spends itself into social oblivion for military machinery. It turns the technology of human suppression against its own population with increasing ferocity. As inequality surpasses that of the Gilded Age, software surveils our every move as drones and helicopters hover in the sky.

Every empire in history has eventually turned against its own people, and always at the same historical moment: right before it dies.

Trump and Netanyahu may parade before the cameras like winners, but they carry the stink of losers—moral, spiritual, and tactical losers. They’re pitiful because they’re desperate, and they’re desperate because their realms are dying. The grief of mothers and fathers mean nothing to creatures such as these.

Here’s a silent whisper for the wounded and discouraged, the grim-faced and the grieving, the unseen victims in Palestine and Yemen and Iran and around the globe: may they see with their hearts that time is running out for the Trumps and Netanyahus of their hearts. May they take comfort in the inevitability of their fall.

Yes, they’re still deadly. Of course they are. They’re killers. But so was John Wayne Gacy, and he was a clown.

Notes.

[1]The New York Times report continues: “Saturday is the start of the workweek in the country, and many Iranians had already dropped off their children and headed into their offices as explosions began to shake the capital and many cities across Iran.”

The Norwegian group Hengaw reported that 170 children were in class when the bombs fell on Shajarah Tayyebeh girls’ school. The Iranian Red Crescent said there were 60 fatalities, a figure that has since been revised upward. Other students were reportedly killed when bombs fell on Hedayat High School in Teheran.

If you’re planning to reply by saying there’s still no independent confirmation of these reports, don’t bother. They’ve been supported by two human rights organizations, Hengaw and the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency, both of which have reported extensively on the Iranian government’s lethal and indefensible violence against protesters. (The US military’s CENTCOM has not denied these reports, saying only that it is “looking into them.”)

[2] Both killings may have been the result of AI “hallucinations”; this war appears to be the largest full-scale trial of AI to date. Coincidentally (or not), military AI was the subject of a piece that was pre-empted here by the attack on Iran. In any case, the moral responsibility doesn’t change whenever new technology is introduced.

The post How Deadly is a Dying Animal? Carnage in Iran Can’t Stop the Inevitable appeared first on Human Right Activists In Iran.

Chicago Tribune – In Skokie, an Iranian-American can’t get through to communicate with his father in Iran after a bomb fell in the father’s neighborhood, injuring him.

In Evanston, a Northwestern University professor speculates that time could be on Iran’s side.

And just south of Evanston, a professor says he can’t imagine his mother, family and friends in Iran being killed, and stresses that the Iranian people yearn for democracy and have been striving for it for a century.

When the United States and Israel launched a coordinated military attack against Iran early Saturday morning, subsequently killing Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and other senior officials to ignite a regional war, the repercussions reverberated from the Middle East to the north suburbs of Chicago and elsewhere around the world.

Here, Iranian-American residents with ties to the region described a mix of emotions: fear, anger, relief, but above all, uncertainty over the future.

While some rallied against the United States’ involvement, arguing the attack could deepen regional instability and drag the country into further chaos, others reflected on the humanitarian impact and loss of life.

Mehrdad, a Skokie resident who would give only his first name for fear of retaliation against his family in Iran, said he hasn’t been in contact with anyone back home since learning an explosion in his father’s neighborhood over the weekend shattered the windows of his family’s home and injured him.

Most communication lines have been cut, and Mehrdad said he’s been unable to receive further updates regarding his father’s health.

“I just fear that a bunch of innocent people are gonna be killed,” he said. “I don’t know if we’ll get any freedom from the war.”

Mehrdad said he isn’t worried about the United States or Israel trying to control Iran’s leadership, but rather the loss of human life that will result from the conflict. “The people, they’re innocent people over there,” he said.

In January, Iranian-Americans staged a series of protests in Chicago in solidarity with the nearly 4,000 Iranian people who were killed during anti-government protests that erupted in December 2025 and triggered a communications blackout from inside the country, according to reports from the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency.

An additional rally broke out in downtown Chicago over the weekend after many Iranian-Americans learned of the death of Khamenei. While some residents celebrated in the streets for what they viewed as the end of an authoritarian dictatorship, others criticized what they believed was a misuse of power by President Trump.

“I think the American assessment was wrong, the assessment that if they decapitate the regime, everything would stop or change, or people could uphold the regime,” said Ali Tarokh, who lives in the far-North-side Chicago neighborhood of Rogers Park, near Evanston.

“They are very savvy, the Iranian regime.”

Tarokh said it’s been difficult to contact his family members and friends in Iran since the start of the attacks over the weekend.

He was able to reach his mother by phone shortly following the death of Khamenei on Saturday to confirm the reports she was hearing were true, but he hasn’t since been able to reach her or anyone else back home.

“I cannot even imagine my friends, my family getting killed by this war,” said Tarokh, who currently works as an adjunct professor of social welfare policy at Loyola University of Chicago.

“The entire country… is under attack now and nobody is safe.”

Tarokh immigrated to the United States over 13 years ago and became a naturalized citizen in 2018. He said the Iranian people have learned to navigate sustained conflict and diaspora for decades, living under an “absolute dictatorship” that arose following the 1979 Iranian Revolution.

But the people of Iran have, for more than 100 years, he said, continued to work towards a democracy, often at the expense of civilian lives.

“So many generations, so many people have worked so hard to build a democracy in our country…there are so many challenges, difficulties, and many people pay with their lives for that transition,” Tarokh said. “The question is for President Trump — Iran’s regime didn’t really (pose) a direct threat to the United States. [This] is a war of choice.”

“Regardless of if you are a Republican or a Democrat, nobody wants this war,” Tarokh added, “even his supporters, right? They voted for him because they didn’t want to go through another forever war.”

William Reno, professor and chair of the political science department at Northwestern University in Evanston, said dragging out the conflict into a long-term war may be advantageous for Iran.

“If you’re weaker, then the only way you can beat the strong is, you have to figure out what you have that they don’t have, one of which, in Iran’s case, is time,” Reno said.

“If Iran can survive the current regime, it wins by surviving. Whereas the United States, because it’s a foreign war… it becomes more and more of a political liability.”

Reno said the country’s frame of thinking is likely that if the United States is still engaged in a military conflict two or three months down the road, when the American electoral calendar is approaching, then it starts “looking really bad domestically.” But Reno said it’s still early in the process to make predictions.

“Maybe it turns out to be like Venezuela…get rid of the leader, somebody else pops up that [says] we’ll do what you want in international politics, and leave us alone for our domestic. We could, but we’re not seeing it yet.”

A spokesperson for the Chicago Persian School, a non-profit educational center offering language classes to students in the area wanting to learn Farsi, the Persian language, said the community was facing “intense and uncertain times” marked by emotions that range from “high hopes to anxiety and concern for loved ones.”

Because the institution self-identifies as a “non-political, non-religious non-profit,” Chicago Persian School declined to comment on the war itself or its impact on Iranian-Americans, who sometimes refer to themselves as Persian-Americans.

“At this time, our focus remains on supporting our students and their families by providing stability, cultural connection and a welcoming educational environment,” the spokesperson said.

While the Trump administration has consistently sought to pressure countries aligned with U.S. rivals to reorient themselves towards Washington, the end result has often led to greater instability, and in some cases, more lives lost.

“All conflicts are different” Reno said, “We’ll see how [this] works out.”

The post In the north suburbs, US attacks in Iran provoke fear: ‘Innocent people are gonna be killed’ appeared first on Human Right Activists In Iran.