5 hours ago
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On the morning after the 12th day of Israel’s war on Iran, those of us who had managed to get some sleep after Monday night’s heavy strikes in the heart of the city woke to text messages saying there was a ceasefire.
It turned out this was a three-way win, with all the parties congratulating themselves as the victors. Donald Trump managed to fly his B-2s all the way from Missouri without any help. No doubt it was a beautiful bombing. It hit the last target – the behemoth Fordow, deep in the mountains.
Benjamin Netanyahu is congratulating himself too, for finally scratching his three-decade itch by striking Iran’s nuclear programme, and assassinating top Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps commanders. Most of all, Netanyahu managed to draw Trump, who had promised no more wars, into the fray. The hardline followers of the Islamic republic are also congratulating themselves on their successful strikes against Israel.
The strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities brought fear of contamination throughout the week. Our social media were filled with an updated Iranian version of the duck-and-cover campaign from cold war America. In case of exposure to radiation, get inside, we were told, change your clothes, take a shower and tape the windows. Not a single siren has sounded: apparently, we don’t have them any more. Those who remember the Iraq-Iran war say there used to be sirens. Nor do we have shelters like Israelis do. Considering we have been at loggerheads with Israel for decades now, why haven’t they built some?
For the past 12 days we have had a crash course in the sounds of war. The boom of a rocket hitting its target, the sharp ratatat of the ground-to-air defence. You don’t see the missiles that blow up, but you see the red dots of the defences when they start at night.
The first days were a blur. The big emotional freeze. The frenzy to gather documents and essentials for a speedy departure. The calculus of doom: how much water do I need? How many T-shirts should I pack? When should I leave? How far should I go? What is their scenario for us – Iraq or Afghanistan? Someone said Libya.
When my VPN manages to connect me to X, the algorithm suggests a post by a man saying in Hebrew that there is no country called Iran. What?! He has coloured the map of Iran into segments. This is Turkmenistan, this is Balochistan, this is Azerbaijan, here in the south are the Arabs and in the middle are some Persians. How dare he? We are one of the oldest nations in the world. We didn’t invade this land – we are not recent immigrants. We are actually from here. We have survived Alexander of Macedonia’s pyromania, we have survived Genghis Khan’s bloodbath and a brutal Arab invasion, and we are still here. We are the inheritors of the great poets Ferdowsi, Rumi and Hafez, who give us our shared identity even though we speak many languages. I am sure I was not the only Iranian finding solace in Hafez this past week.
Now that we have had a moment to breathe, the interminable question of these past few days, “what will happen now?”, is about the long term.
Over the past 46 years Iranians have eroded the strict ideology that was imposed on them in order to live a modern life. We have been hoping since 2015 and the signing of the joint comprehensive plan of action for the lifting of sanctions so we could reconnect to the world and fix our corrupted economy. Trump F-worded that chance. Our young people have stood up to the repressive rules that governed their personal lives; some died for it. Now, thanks to Israel and its benevolent bombs, the extreme sections of society, the ideologues who were marginalised, will be newly invigorated by conflict.
We are a country at war now. The streets are full of checkpoints. I passed several driving in Tehran the other night. They are courteous now, but we recognise them from the days of protest. Will the Islamic republic forget these past 12 days? Can Netanyahu be contained by Trump? Will Israel and Iran become friends now?
We are preparing for a wake in my family. We buried my stepmother in the cemetery south of Tehran three days ago. The road to the cemetery, usually packed with traffic, was almost empty. Tehran empty of its unbearable traffic and noise is suddenly so beautiful. I have never loved this city as much as I do now. The road to the cemetery will now be the route so many families will take to bury their dead. Along the way, I wonder how many Palestinians were killed while the eyes of the world were on us.
We have had an exceptionally long and sublime spring in Tehran this year. The geraniums on my porch are still in bloom. It looks like the persimmon tree will have more fruit than any other year. If the relief holds, the questions that kept popping up during the attacks and were waved aside as pointless in an existential crisis will loom large. And the main one will be: what did this madness achieve for the people of Iran, Israel or the US? I mean the people, not the victors.
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Haleh Anvari is a writer and artist in Tehran
