Like the regime has been lying to us,” said Amir*, a student at the University of Tehran. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty ImagesThe turning point for Amir was the Israeli strikes on fuel depots in Tehran last week, with one attack on the Shahran oil depot overshadowing the capital with black smoke. I asked for help from Trump.” But the student said he thought the strikes would target the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and its volunteer militia, the Basij. “When did this plan change and why are they hitting our infrastructure?”Most Iranians have lived their whole lives under the Iranian regime, which took power in a 1979 revolution that toppled the monarchy, only to replace it with autocratic clerics. Several neighbourhoods in the city centre were attacked in a sequential, wave-like manner.”Iranians, they said, had been “well and truly abandoned”.

Source: The Guardian March 14, 2026 23:02 UTC