The two-week uneasy ceasefire between the United States, Israel and Iran was set to end Tuesday April 21, and holds tenuously as of publication. In the media reports of talks about talks and of concessions float, while Iranians inside and outside the country are taking it day by day. A video blogger from Tehran posts images of the city, saying “We breathe and gulp down the air, like a drowning man who surfaces briefly, knowing he will be subsumed again soon…We live the lives we never lived, knowing we may never live them.”
As the uneasy truce continues, commentators and analysts the world over focus on ‘who won’? As if the month of missiles and bombs barreling into homes and hospitals was a high-stakes football match, destined to have a winner and loser.
Wars are never so simple. They are fought on many fronts: the operational and strategic, the narrative and societal. On most levels, this war has surprised the world.
Operationally, the Trump administration expected its shock and awe assassinations of key Iranian figures on the first day of the war to wrap things up quickly. Instead, the killing of the 100 children in the schoolyard in Minab grabbed the headlines. Within days, the Iranian forces managed to extract a toll against US military and naval assets accumulated in the Persian Gulf. Reports of the US aircraft carrier the Gerald Ford limping to port with sewage problems and a purported fire in the laundry room spread widely, while commentators claimed that Iranian drones damaged the behemoth. Iranian media claimed that missile attacks forced the retreat of the USS Abraham Lincoln from a position 350 km off the coast of Iran to a 1100 km position. Tactically the Iranians deployed a decentralized security system yielding better resilience, despite the 30,000 missiles and bombs that the US and Israel dropped on the country in the first 25 days. The Iranian regime also revealed a sophisticated array of missiles with accurate targeting capacity. It is textbook asymmetrical warfare. Iran, by far the weaker military power, ‘wins’ with every punch and bruise landed while every hit or retreat the US and Israel take is a loss.
Strategically, the Iranian regime gained the upper hand at least for now. Knowing it could not dominate the nuclear-armed US and Israel militarily, Iran opted to target the US’s weakest spot – the global economy – and trust in the status quo of a world dominated by the US. By controlling the Straits of Hormuz, Iran pinched the world, and the world cried out in economic pain.
Meanwhile the US has shot many an own goal geostrategically. Its European allies, already offended by Trump’s derision regarding their contributions to NATO, his grasp at Greenland, and his tariffs, were wary of being dragged into another deadly and endless war in the Middle East. The Nordics spoke out first, followed by Spain, France, Italy and Austria. Even the British Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, overly amenable to appeasing the US, found himself struggling to avoid speaking against Trump, while still trying to protect his ‘special relationship’. Russia has benefitted, now no longer the only one of the UN Security Council Permanent Five members waging an illegal aggressive war on another UN member state – a clear breach of the UN Charter. China has quietly ascended, diplomatically rising above the fray and benefitting economically. Its ships have clear passage through the Straits of Hormuz, with the Yuen as a currency of choice for those seeking to get ships through the Iranian-controlled waters.
As for the narrative of war, Iran has shocked the world with its sophistication and humor. The West, wrapped up in its own perception of the Iranian leadership as the Mad Mullahs and Ayatollah Khamenei as the be all and end all, was ill-prepared for the reality. In any other dictatorship – or even democracy, the assassination of the long-standing leader and other senior political and military figures would topple the government. In Iran though Khamenei’s death was a moment in time. The system had anticipated it, absorbed it and carried on. The ‘crazy ayatollahs’, it turns out, are not crazy. But they played into the image as it disarmed their adversaries.
As the war and peace negotiations unfold, the Iranian state has been represented by experienced diplomatic and military strategists who know that as the weaker military entity, they need to understand their more powerful adversaries in depth. The late Ali Larijani, the senior figure directing policy, had a PhD in Western Philosophy. He, like others, knew he was on the assassination list, and yet did not go underground. Foreign minister Abbas Araqchi and Speaker Mohammad Baquer Qalibaf may be loathed and revered in equal measure domestically, but on the world stage they have demonstrated resolve– especially in comparison to their European and American counterparts. Even the robotic sounding spokesman for the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) built a following with his ability to communicate in Farsi, Arabic, English and Hebrew. Iranian President Pezeshkian, a surgeon by profession, has been performing surgery. He sent a four-page letter directly to the American people referencing the French philosopher, Alexis de Tocqueville, of whom he wrote “I am sure most Americans have read”.
Meanwhile the American President’s message was: “Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell”. As adversaries go, and given his rantings against the Iranian civilization, and the Pope, Donald Trump has proven to be the best enemy any country could wish for.
On social media too, Iranians set new standards for propaganda, fact and narratives. The Legomen videos, produced at a fast clip with over 2 billion views, are a source of entertainment and information for many. The Iranian embassies’ humorous trolling of the US has changed many observers’ perceptions of the Iranian state. According to the New York Times, they have invented ‘slopaganda’ – a new form of state messaging, blending propaganda with trolling to appeal to GenZ audiences globally.
If we are treating war as a horrific game, in these realms the score is 3-Nil to Iran.
It is in the domain of real life that such scorekeeping becomes untenable. Hidden from view is the societal dimensions and impact on the people and nation. If Americans experienced the war at all in the past month, at most, it was as a price increase at the gas pump, or as videos showing fighting across the globe.. The college students went on their annual Spring Break pilgrimage to Florida. Neither Harvard nor MIT, the Statue of Liberty nor the Golden Gate bridge, Dulles Airport nor Reagan National were affected. No iconic national stadium was hit, no schools were destroyed, no hospitals bombed. The National Health Institute, the country’s premier center for medical research, was unscathed. In towns and cities where steel mills still work, petro chemical plants operate or nuclear power plants hum day and night, there was no fear of chemicals or radiation spewing in the air and water, no distribution of iodine tablets in case of radiation leaks, no children evacuated from hospitals in anticipation of strikes against the electricity and water grids.
Day labourers and salaried people continued their lives, never worrying about their day’s pay suffering from the conflict. As usual in America, many gambled on the war, making money, losing money with every day that passed. The Pentagon’s always opaque and never audited accounting system obscures the monetary cost of war, but the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a Washington based think tank, estimated $11.6 billion for the first 6 days of the war. Others have tallied the month-long cost at $25-35 billion dollars. The administration’s demand for $200 billion from Congress however, indicates serious longer term and hidden costs. Yet, America the nation, Americans as people, have barely noticed. The war is another foreign policy folly, a ‘bad idea’ as J.D Vance said, but nothing seen or felt at home. In the nation’s capital, the Cherry Blossom Season brought in the crowds. As Tehran was being carpet bombed, restaurants in Georgetown were packed with locals and out of towners.
In Iran a different story unfolded. Behind the bravado of the embassy tweets and LEGOmen videos, the harsh reality of war “in real life” is unmissable. The bombed-out rubble of apartment buildings, the carcasses of national institutions like the Pasteur Institute for Health – Iran’s NIH, Sharif University – the MIT of Iran – heritage sites like the Chehel Sotoon Palace in Esfahan, and Tehran’s Rafia-Nia synagogue and the mangled ruins of steel, gas, and petrochemical plants reveal the true burden of the war.
Tehran’s army of street sweepers are out every day in their signature orange jumpsuits, wielding their brooms of twig and twain, clearing dust and rubble. Alongside them the volunteers of the Red Crescent society, Iran’s branch of the international federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent (IFRC), continue to assist civilians. The state, as reported by the Wall Street Journal, is providing reparations where it can, to those who lost their homes. But it is a drop in the bucket.
Ordinary Iranians, men and women, the elderly and the children – born and unborn- carry the true effects of this war on their bodies and in their damaged lungs and traumatized souls. Over 3000 lost their lives, tens of thousands were injured. Families are traumatized. Parents of the children of the Minab Elementary school that the US targeted with tomahawk missiles reportedly sleep in the graveyards alongside their dead children, unable to leave them alone in the dark. Estimates of the unemployed range between 100,000 to 300,000, all in an economy already impoverished by the toxic mix of international sanctions and domestic corruption and mismanagement.
As a civilization, we lost iconic national sites that held so many memories of our lives long gone.
The bombs destroyed 30 hospitals and 600 schools. Industrial facilities, the engine of the nation, are gone, no longer providing jobs and insurance for thousands of workers. The soil, air and water near the bombed-out oil depots and petro-chemical plants will likely be polluted for decades to come. On Gheshm Island, where water desalination plants were hit, the fragile UNESCO biodiversity site is likely damaged forever too.
In January, Israel and Reza Pahlavi, the deposed Shah’s son, weaponized Iranians’ aspirations for freedom and dignity as a justification for war, even though most Iranians never had a say in the matter. But Iranians and Iran the nation are the wars’ greatest losers.
Politically too, the fall out is detrimental for Iranians. The regime that is so reviled has revitalized its public image and its hold on power. Thanks to the US-Israel assassinations, Khamenei-the-father has ascended to martyrdom and Khamenei-the-son has risen to leadership – a position he craved but would never have attained without this war.
Despite the war, the Iranian state pursued its domestic political opponents. Women’s Rights activist Nasrin Sotoudeh was re-arrested. Calls for the release of political prisoners go unheeded. The judiciary, led by Mohsen Ejai, feared and loathed in equal measure, continues to invoke the death penalty.
When the dust settles, Iranians will face two grim outcomes. If the regime does not survive, the Iranian state will be decimated, and the country’s territorial integrity will be lost. A nation of 93 million torn apart will have implications for the region and the world. Even a small fraction of the population flowing out as refugees to Turkey and across the Mediterranean will cause an already overburdened humanitarian crisis to break.
If the regime does survive, it will be bloodied, bruised and still paranoid, about foreign infiltration. It will be an ugly reckoning as the state will likely exact a heavy price from dissident and oppositional voices, accusing them of being agents of the US or Israel. Already there is talk of expropriating the Iranian homes of diaspora who advocated for war.
This is not the end of the Iranian story, though.
The regime will also be left to face the people. This public is a formidable force, whose struggle for change and liberation dates back over a century and will continue. Iranians are aspirational by DNA. They want a better life and work hard to achieve it. They look outwards to the West for liberties and the East for economic opportunities. Though they face a state that has wielded its monopoly on violence both physically and structurally, they do not bow. As a civilization the Iranian identity is also rooted in pluralism and independence. Iranians are intolerant of bullies — be they external or internal. In the face of overpowering physical might and violence, their greatest talent is in changing the language and rules of the game.
The public demonstrated this on April 9th. When the US threatened to bomb away the “Iranian civilization”, the Tar musician, Ali Ghamsari, sat alone on the hillside in front of Tehran’s electricity plant, playing music to ward away the spirits of violence. In Dezful women and children stood along a bridge dating back to 255 AD, holding hands to protect it. Around the country, Iranians converged around power plants and bridges. Threaten us and we will stand, was their response to the might of the US military.
It is the same spirit that fueled the Women, Life, Freedom movement in 2022. Then the brute force was the regime itself, and the nonviolent spirit of the protesters – mothers and daughters, with their brothers and fathers standing alongside them – eroded its power. Like water on rock.
The women’s victory against the mandatory hijab was not simply a social issue. It was a blow to the ideological identity of the state, because the hijab was the most visible and physical symbol and tool of its repression and attempted control of women.
The WLF movement is not yet completed, with the other two demands of that powerful trifecta – Life and Freedom – still in motion.
The demand for ‘Life’ is foundational. It is the ability to live with dignity, to work and have a livelihood, to afford a family and a life. The sanctions regime combined with the corruption it exacerbated and the mismanagement that is inherent in this system of governance, has mired people in an economic bog of inflation and joblessness. The war and the damage have caused significant regression. But the silver lining – if this ceasefire evolves into a peace deal – could be the revocation of sanctions, breathing new life into the economy.
As for freedom, the war paused this too. But just as women’s rights have been won culturally in every home, the legal changes needed to give Iranians greater social and political freedoms will come. In other countries the laws exist providing rights and protections that are often unacceptable to wide swathes of society and culture. In Iran, the reverse is true. The sheer force of social change has overridden the anachronistic theocratic laws that govern people’s lives. The age of marriage may be 13 by Sharia law, but the civic code requires national identity cards for marriage – that are issued at 15 years of age, while the average age of marriage among Iranian women is 25. In typical practical asymmetrical Iranian fashion, the strategy for change has not been to confront – it has been to override, undermine and erode the obstacles.
For decades, proponents of regime change in Iran pursued a narrative akin to a Hollywood political action thriller with caricature heroes and villains, espionage and warfare. But the story of Iran is a slow paced, nuanced human drama where right and wrong, good and evil coexist, merging and changing, challenging our perception with every turn. The enduring character is the Iranian soul, rooted in this ancient land, whose drive is to evolve and survive to absorb the good and the bad but never give up its inner essence. Centuries ago the Arabs brought Islam but Iran emerged with Shi’ism. The Moguls came as barbarians but transformed into lovers of Persian architecture and poetry. The Islamic Republic came but it too is being challenged-slowly and inside out. But if we follow the people’s lead, the change will come. Then, Iran, the nation and the civilization can claim victory.
For now, that dream is caught in the lungs of those who hold their breath from this day to the next, in equal measures of hope and dread.
Below are three recommendations to policy makers:
Peace: Militarized regime change is a failed policy. The ceasefire needs to be sustained and expanded to a comprehensive agreement including the removal of sanctions to enable ordinary Iranians to secure their livelihoods. Spoilers on both sides will try to scuttle – with arguments of “let’s finish the job”, but this is a recipe for endless war and devastation regionally and globally. The US and the wider international community has a once in a generation opportunity for a grand bargain to bring peace and security for Iran, Israel, Palestine, and Lebanon. It is a matter of political will, vision and courage.
Life: Given the depth of mistrust, there needs to be a recalibration of relations with the Iranian state to build confidence: politically security-wise and economically. There should be a coalition-based approach to engage Iran to reintegrate into world AND address domestic human rights issues such as: freeing political prisoners, suspending death penalty, stopping the seizure of assets and businesses and supporting recovery and restoration – especially for the unemployed, health and education institutions,, heritage sites, civilian manufacturing, housing and heritage sites which have been destroyed.
Freedom: Iran needs a national dialogue, truth and reconciliation process for a transformed future. Countless Iranians of every generation, across social strata are traumatized and fearful. This causes and enables societal polarization that the extremists will exploit. But if this trend is reversed, the space for transformation opens to envision an Iran for all Iranians. The depth of state violence needs to be addressed to enable accountability, reparations, memorialization and transformation of laws to guarantee equality and freedom. An inclusive process – comprising differing political forces, regional, ethnic, generational and equal representation from men and women is needed to collectively envision the future. It must be homegrown but Iranians could benefit from the experience of others, notably South Africa, Colombia, Yemen and elsewhere.
Sanam Naraghi Anderlini, MBE, is the British-Iranian Founder and CEO of the International Civil Society Action Network (ICAN). She has 30 years of global experience as peace strategist, is an architect of UN SR Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security and was the first Gender and Inclusion Expert on the UN’s Standby Team of Senior Mediation Advisors.