The New York Times reports that a growing number of Iranians are expressing anxiety about a potential war with Israel, even as its government officials indicate a determination not to back down.
The Times interviews more than a dozen Iranians in different cities and across the political spectrum who assert that they’re opposed to a war with Israel or the US, fearing it would further harm their already struggling economy.
“Nobody I know has prepared for a possible war,” Mahdieh, 41, an engineer in Tehran, tells NYT. “We are jarred. Let us have our normal life. We are not willing or want to enter a war era.”
The phrase, “NO WAR” has widely been shared on Iranian social media along with, “Which bunkers will you use to shield the people? How will you repair damaged infrastructure? There is no good in war, do not lay ruin to Iran.”
“We had to slap it [Israel] in the face, otherwise it would keep moving forward,” Hamidreza Jalaeipour, a prominent sociologist close to the reformist faction, says in a discussion on the application Clubhouse. But “if there is a war, it will be imposed on us.”
Jalaeipour still predicts that Iranians would rally around the flag if a war does end up breaking out.
“Most of us are not happy about the interference of the Islamic Republic in the region and its so-called proxies. People do not want their national resources to be spent abroad,” says Mahan, a 50-year-old doctor in the northern city of Rasht to the Times. “The most pressing feeling these days, both for myself and the majority of friends and people I know, is the fear and worry of war.”
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