Everyday Iranians are awaiting planned negotiations between Washington and Tehran with a mixture of skepticism and outright fear, caught between a government they say does not understand peace and an American president who has threatened to destroy a “whole civilization.”
Talks between the US and Iran and hosted by Pakistan were hanging in the balance on Friday, but if they go ahead they could transform a temporary ceasefire in the US-Israeli campaign against the Iranian republic into a lasting peace.
Residents of Tehran contacted by AFP from Paris – who withheld their surnames out of concern for their safety – have mixed views on that prospect and are far from optimistic, with feelings ranging from anger, to anxiety, to deep disillusionment.
Amir, a 40-year-old artist, said he did not “think this temporary agreement and negotiation will last even a week.”
Iran’s repressive apparatus is seen as having been strengthened by the war that broke out on Feb 28, making a deal all the more unlikely, according to Amir.
“The propaganda machine has delivered them such lies that they really believe they have won the war,” he said. “They cannot last in peace because they don’t understand peace.”
For Sheida, 38, the uncertainty around the talks has generated a sense of anxiety.
“We’ve got so much hardship dumped on us that we don’t even know what to worry about first,” she said. “Now that the ceasefire has started, everyone’s scrambling to settle debts and sort out financial stuff.”
A choice between the return of terrifying US-Israeli airstrikes and the preservation of the Iranian republic’s long-standing system is no choice at all, according to Sheida.
“I am scared of the war starting again, and at the same time I’m scared of the regime staying,” she said, adding that “the people in power have become even more aggressive.”
Amir said if the talks do result in an agreement, he continued, it would likely do little to serve the Iranian people.
He pointed to anti-government protests just before the war that were met with a deadly crackdown, saying he and other like-minded Iranians would keep up their opposition, adding: “We will not forgive our murderers.”
Trump’s Shifting Goals
Tehran resident Amin, 30, said it was difficult to determine what US President Donald Trump hoped to accomplish in the talks.
“I guess you shouldn’t take Trump so serious,” Amin said. “He wants to erase a civilization and he makes a ceasefire built on nothing 12 hours later.”
“Most of what he says is just pure noise,” he continued.
Sheida, meanwhile, questioned Trump’s sense of strategy, saying he must be “either crazy or inexperienced.”
“Did the US president really not realize they could get stuck if the Strait of Hormuz was closed?” she said.
Homemaker Shahrzad, 39, said she had been both terrified and disillusioned by Trump’s threat – issued before the ceasefire – that “a whole civilization will die” if Iran did not reopen the strategic Strait of Hormuz.
“I had hoped for the fall of the Islamic regime and accepted the hardships of war, but now I realize this man is playing the whole world and has no sense of humanity.”
Sara, a 44-year-old graphic designer, said Iran’s “government is an ideological one, and it’s not going to collapse easily”.
“Its mindset exists all the way down to the lowest levels, so it’s really not simple to change,” she added.
Amir said he believed the country’s surviving leaders would continue fighting. “They are prepared to destroy everything just to prevail,” he added.
