How Iranians See the War

What It Covers

NYT reporter Clare Toeniskoetter contacts nearly 100 Iranians during a 99% internet blackout following the US-Israel joint military operation against Iran. Through two contrasting voices — a regime opponent who fled to Europe and a feminist translator in Tehran — the episode maps how decades of protest, repression, and survival shape Iranian perspectives on war and change.

Key Questions Answered

• •Communication blackout as a control mechanism: The Iranian government cut off approximately 99% of internet access within days of the war starting, effectively isolating the country from the outside world. Reaching Iranians required finding the remaining 1% using VPNs or satellite tools like Starlink. Journalists and families alike went days without contact, demonstrating how information blackouts function as a primary regime defense tool.
• •Protest exhaustion after mass casualties: Iranians who opposed the regime largely did not heed Trump's call to take to the streets, not from indifference but from documented trauma. A January crackdown on nationwide protests resulted in an estimated 7,000 deaths according to one human rights organization, with security forces firing on crowds from rooftops. This history of lethal suppression makes street protest a calculated risk most survivors refuse to repeat.
• •Incremental civilian resistance as a long-term change strategy: Translator and musician Af pursued reform through small, deliberate acts — altering her marriage contract to include divorce rights, gradually abandoning the hijab, and staging a private solo concert for 80 attendees despite laws banning women from solo public performance. Her framework: shift cultural norms person by person rather than confront the regime directly, measuring progress in inches of clothing and changed attitudes among taxi drivers.
• •War's civilian cost undermines its stated liberation goals: By the ceasefire, the US-Israel bombardment had destroyed factories, schools, hospitals, and homes across Iran, leaving over one million people unemployed and killing more than 1,700 civilians. For Iranians like C's wife, this toll directly contradicted the liberation narrative, creating household-level conflict between those who viewed war as necessary and those who blamed protest culture for provoking the violence.
• •Divided Iranian diaspora reflects irreconcilable strategies: C, stranded in Europe while his family remained in Tehran, represents Iranians who view external military intervention as the only remaining path after protests failed. Af, who returned to Tehran from Turkey before the ceasefire, represents those who believe foreign intervention destroys the internal cultural progress that makes lasting reform possible. Both positions stem from the same lived experience of regime brutality but reach opposite strategic conclusions.