The Iran-Israel War: A Perspective from Iran

Interview

As a companion to my previous interview with an analyst based in Israel regarding the recent U.S. and Israeli war against Iran and the subsequent ‘memorandum of understanding’ (MoU) between the U.S. and Iran, I present this interview with a contact who resides in the Iranian city of Qom (known as a centre of religious learning). He has resided in Iran since 2012, having originally come there from Syria, and I have known him for many years.

Of course, I cannot claim to know what exact proportion of Iranians are represented by the perspectives given here, but it is clear to me that there is, at minimum, a substantial minority of Iranians who remain committed to the Islamic Republic as an ideological project, and if anything they feel emboldened by what they see as the Islamic Republic’s success in holding out against the U.S. and Israel.

Q: You used to be critical of the Iranian government’s policies before the war. But in this war, you stood with the government. How did you view what Israel and America were doing? Did you think they would bring about regime change?