{"id":475007,"date":"2026-03-14T09:55:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-14T09:55:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/475007\/"},"modified":"2026-03-14T09:55:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-14T09:55:08","slug":"you-are-all-worse-than-each-other-anti-regime-iranians-turn-on-trump-us-israel-war-on-iran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/475007\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018You are all worse than each other\u2019: anti-regime Iranians turn on Trump | US-Israel war on Iran"},"content":{"rendered":"

After years of arrests, disappearances and mass killings of protesters, the hatred in Iran<\/a> from some quarters for the hardline, oppressive governing regime had boiled into such a desperate rage that many believed Donald Trump\u2019s promise that the US would \u201ccome to their rescue\u201d.<\/p>\n

Now, after a fortnight of war, with US and Israeli airstrikes killing hundreds as they hit residential blocks, shops, fuel depots and even a school, the mood is changing.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are also lying! Like the regime has been lying to us,\u201d said Amir*, a student at the University of Tehran. \u201cYou are all worse than each other.\u201d<\/p>\n

The anti-regime protester has let himself hope for more from the US and Israel, which on the first day of the war had swiftly killed<\/a> Iran\u2019s most feared and powerful man, the supreme leader.<\/p>\n

Yet the regime lives on, with Ayatollah Ali Khamenei\u2019s son quickly appointed to replace him, while Israel has widened and intensified its attacks on the country of more than 90 million people.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re tense. We are really tense,\u201d said Amir. \u201cI feel worse when I am alone. Khamenei\u2019s death has left us with this weird sense of emptiness. Like I am now forced to think about the future, which seems so chaotic right now. We never got to look at him in the eye. He died just like that? Without facing justice for what he did to us?\u201d<\/p>\n

The US-Israeli destruction of Shahran oil depot resulted in toxic rain falling on people in Tehran. Photograph: Anadolu\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

The turning point for Amir was the Israeli strikes on fuel depots in Tehran<\/a> last week, with one attack on the Shahran oil depot overshadowing the capital with black smoke. A rain shower later covered trees, homes and cars with layers of toxic oil.<\/p>\n

\u201cI genuinely believe now they [the US and Israel] didn\u2019t have a plan. I was still hoping I was wrong, but the Shahran attack changed the way I look at this war right now,\u201d he said. \u201cIf the regime is what you want to hit, even if you think these depots were used by the regime, where do you draw the line? What about us, the ordinary Iranians? We rely on this civil infrastructure. Why take away our ability to govern in the future? Who can rebuild utter ruins?\u201d<\/p>\n

Amir said he now had constant anxiety about Iran \u201cturning into another Iraq\u201d, a country the US invaded in 2003, promising freedom but delivering a civil war. Israeli leaders have also previously called on Palestinians in Gaza and the Lebanese people to rise up against oppression, only to later kill them in large numbers.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy heart is so heavy,\u201d said Amir. \u201cI don\u2019t even have tears left. Only anger and more anger. At this regime, and them,\u201d he added, referring to the US and Israel.<\/p>\n

Others who spoke to the Guardian this week also had a shift in their attitudes towards the war, especially after the attack on oil depots, but also after seeing images of the country\u2019s heritage sites damaged.<\/p>\n

Among those that took the worst hits were<\/a> Tehran\u2019s Golestan Palace, dating to the 14th century, and the 17th-century Chehel Sotoon Palace in Isfahan.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow will they rebuild \u2026 a priceless part of history?\u201d asked a Tehran-based student. \u201cAnd how will we bring back people who are dying? Is that it? Is the message from abroad that just because the regime doesn\u2019t care, the world shouldn\u2019t? Is the goal to erase our culture and history?\u201d<\/p>\n

The ornate Golestan Palace is among Iranian cultural sites that have been damaged by US-Israeli airstrikes. Photograph: Anadolu\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Another student, based in Karaj, a city about 30 miles west of the capital which has been under heavy bombardment this week, said: \u201cI want this regime gone. I asked for help from Trump.\u201d But the student said he thought the strikes would target the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and its volunteer militia, the Basij. \u201cWhen did this plan change and why are they hitting our infrastructure?\u201d<\/p>\n

Most Iranians have lived their whole lives under the Iranian regime, which took power in a 1979 revolution that toppled the monarchy, only to replace it with autocratic clerics.<\/p>\n

It is hard to assess support for the government in a country with such a heavily restricted media climate, and where open dissent can mean jail and death.<\/p>\n

Yet, for almost two decades, protest movements have managed to thrive, often sparked by political unrest, a sudden rise in fuel prices, economic turmoil or the repression of women\u2019s rights. In 2009, in what was known as the Green movement, hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets over disputed presidential elections. The protests were met with a bloody state crackdown.<\/p>\n

The Woman, Life, Freedom protest movement was triggered by the death in custody of Mahsa Amini. Photograph: Anonymous\/Middle East Images\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

In 2022, one of most powerful uprisings, the Woman, Life, Freedom movement<\/a>, was sparked by the death in custody of Mahsa Amini over her alleged improper wearing of the hijab. The most recent wave of protests began in late December. They began as small-scale strikes in Tehran\u2019s bazaar over plunging currency. As they spread into countrywide rallies of mass upset, security forces launched one of their deadliest crackdowns, killing thousands.<\/p>\n

An Iranian doctor who treated protesters in January for gunshot wounds said he still had some hope the war would \u201cat least result in real change\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we fear most is the war stopping now in its current stage,\u201d he said. \u201cThen we\u2019ll be left with the same people who massacred us last month \u2026 only stronger.\u201d<\/p>\n

But many others in the anti-regime movement are hearing reports of newborn babies being killed by the US and Israeli strikes, and conclude simply that now three governments, rather than one, are killing Iranians.<\/p>\n

A protester in Tehran said: \u201cA significant portion of the people I\u2019ve been speaking to, after witnessing the killing of civilians, have altered their perception of military intervention.\u201d<\/p>\n

Earlier this week, they said that for the first time in Tehran, they had experienced \u201csomething resembling the idea of carpet bombing. Several neighbourhoods in the city centre were attacked in a sequential, wave-like manner.\u201d<\/p>\n

Iranians, they said, had been \u201cwell and truly abandoned\u201d.<\/p>\n

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