In the days leading up to April 7, Donald Trump issued a series of profanity-laced threats to bomb Iran back to the Stone Age, saying he would order the U.S. military to destroy every bridge and power plant if the Islamic Republic didn’t reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Both Democrats and many Trump allies responded by condemning the threat and declaring that deliberate destruction of civilian infrastructure is a war crime.
The U.S. president, who called Iran’s leaders “animals,” warned on the morning of his self-declared April 7 8 p.m. deadline that if Iran didn’t make a deal, “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.” But just hours before the deadline arrived, Trump agreed to a two-week ceasefire on condition that Iran reopens the critical Strait of Hormuz.
As the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran entered a sixth week, human rights groups report that more than 3,500 Iranians have been killed since the conflict began on Feb. 28. Between The Lines’ Scott Harris spoke with Naghmeh Sohrabi, Charles (Corky) Goodman professor of Middle East History and director for research at the Crown Center for Middle East Studies at Brandeis University. Here, she talks about how the war has shattered the lives of average Iranians, citing the stories she publishes on her “‘These Are the True Things” blog that amplifies voices from Iran, rarely heard in U.S. corporate media.
NAGHMEH SOHRABI: I think it’s really important for us to know that civilian infrastructures have already been attacked. There’s a threat as if attacks on civilian infrastructure is looming. It is not looming. It has happened.
And I can give you a series of examples. Shadif University was bombed. Shadif University is often considered to be akin to MIT, which is my alma mater also. It is an engineering and technical university. The best students often in Iran go to Shadif University. They’re very proud of themselves for doing that. It’s hard to get into. It’s not the only university that has been bombed.
And it’s really important to remember that these are civilian infrastructures in that it’s a university, so it’s a big part of society. It’s a big part of the future of any society. But also importantly, if we care about a democratic future for Iran, if we care about Iran opening up and not being under a repressive regime, so many of the protests that listeners have heard of, for example, in the Women Life Freedom Movement, actually was happening within the grounds of this university, these universities, including Shadif University.
So that’s one example. Another example, infrastructure. When we talk about infrastructure, we think of electrical grids. We talk about water desalination and these are crucial, crucial infrastructures. But for example, last week they bombed the Mobarakeh steel factory complex, and this complex is within … It’s a built city around it. And not just the Mobarakeh, but other ones that they’ve already bombed. For example, Mobarakeh is connected to 20,000 households who are being employed, whose livelihood comes out of this complex that was bombed.
Now, when we say, “Well, it’s only military and not civilian,” we forget that any country’s infrastructure is civilian and might have military uses, but they’re all complicated and connected to each other. So already that has happened. There is a huge fear since Sunday when President Trump put out his Truth Social in Iran that what is coming though is going to be basically bombing the electrical grids, electrical power plants and water supplies that then moves this war a devastating war that has affected thousands and thousands and thousands, millions of people.
Let’s not forget that Iran is a country of over 91 million people. This war is affecting every single one of them. But something like that would actually be a turning point, even though civilian infrastructure has been bombed, that would basically be about starving a population and driving them into the ground. So Stone Age gives a sense to people that there’s nobody there when we think of a Stone Age. We think about an empty landscape, but Iran is a very densely populated country. And so bombing it into the Stone Age basically would mean that we would not just kill—we keep talking about killing people—but this is not about people who are dead, which is horrible. But it’s about how the people who are left behind are going to be able to live.
SCOTT HARRIS: Thank you for that, Naghmeh. I wanted to ask you to share some of the stories that you’ve received from people inside Iran during this war and how they’ve been personally affected, they and their families on the death and destruction that’s been wrought on the country since the start of this war, Feb. 28th.
NAGHMEH SOHRABI: So I platform a wide variety of people, journalists and intellectuals and artists and writers. And I do that in addition to ordinary everyday people whose job might not be to write. I do that because Iran is a country, it’s a highly educated country and this group of people are really at the forefront of forging a new path despite both the war and the repression. And I platform them because one of the common ideas that comes out of what they’re writing and posting on their Instagram or on Telegram channels, it’s a very common idea amongst that segment of the population that it is possible to be anti-war and anti-Islamic government. A false choice has been presented to multiple publics, including our publics here—that if you are against the Islamic Republic of Iran, that you should be for this kind of foreign intervention. Or, if you are against this foreign intervention, that means that you support the Islamic Republic.
But these people under this severe bombardment and this uncertainty for the future are capable of articulating a path forward that says we neither agree with this foreign aggression. We do not agree with the actions of Israel and the United States, not just towards us, but towards the region. Let’s not forget that there’s over one million displaced people in Lebanon in a war that was started on March 6th. It is connected, but it is happening through its own logic. So there is a lot of grief happening in the region, and of course, all the countries in the region that Iran in response to this aggression has been bombing, but these people are able to articulate such a nuanced and such a powerful and in some ways hopeful position despite this lack of hope.
And I platform it because it needs to be heard, but also because one of the questions I keep thinking to myself is: Why do we not have an anti-war movement in America?
Listen to Scott Harris’ in-depth interview with Naghmeh Sohrabi(27:21) and see more articles and opinion pieces in the related links section of this page. For periodic updates on the Trump authoritarian playbook, subscribe here to our Between The Lines Radio Newsmagazine Substack newsletter. Subscribe to our Weekly Summary
