I am writing this just after the American military has dropped a series of bombs on Iranian nuclear targets. I don’t yet know the full outcome of the attack, or what the response will be.
My friends in the Iranian diaspora, like many ordinary Iranians, have mixed feelings. On the one hand, they are worried about what might happen to family and friends inside the country. On the other hand, “people hold the regime responsible for the attack,” one wrote to me. She told me that the slogan ‘This is not our war’ was trending on Iranian social media. Persuasion has published an article by an anonymous Iranian that I thought perfectly captured this ambivalence. The writer quotes her aunt:
